Farmer George, Volume 1

Historians have found something to praise in George I, and the bravery of George II on the field of battle has prejudiced many in favour of that monarch. George III has been extolled for his domestic virtues, and his successor held up to admiration for his courtly manners, while William IV found favour in the eyes of many for his homely air. Of all the Hanoverian princes in the direct line of succession to the English throne, alone Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, lacks a solitary admirer among modern writers.

Frederick was born at Hanover on January 6, 1707, was there educated; and there, after the accession of George II to the English throne, remained, a mere lad, away from parental control, compelled to hold a daily Drawing-room, at which he received the adulation of unscrupulous and self-seeking courtiers in a dull, vulgar, and immoral Court. George II, remembering his behaviour to his father, was in no hurry to summon his son to England; and Frederick might have remained the ornament of the Hanoverian capital until his death, but that the English thought it advisable their future king should not be allowed to grow up in ignorance of the manners and customs of the land over which in the ordinary course of nature he would reign. Neither the King nor the Queen had any affection for the young man; and they were so reluctant to bring him into prominence, or even into frequent intercourse with themselves, that they disregarded the murmur of the people, and were inclined even to ignore the advice of the Privy Council-when news from Hanover caused them hurriedly to send for him.

Queen Sophia Dorothea of Prussia had years earlier said to Princess Caroline, afterwards Queen of England, "You, Caroline, Cousin dear, have a little Prince, Fritz, or let us call him Fred, since he is to be English; little Fred, who will one day, if all go right, be King of England. He is two years older than my little Wilhelmina, why should they not wed, and the two chief Protestant Houses, and Nations, thereby be united?" There was nothing to be said against this proposal, and much in its favour. "Princess Caroline was very willing; so was Electress Sophie, the Great-Grandmother of both the parties; so were the Georges, Father and Grandfather of Fred: little Fred himself was highly charmed, when told, of it; even little Wilhelmina, with her dolls, looked pleasantly demure on the occasion. So it remained settled in fact, though not in form; and little Fred (a florid milk-faced foolish kind of Boy, I guess), made presents to his little Prussian Cousin, wrote bits of love-letters to her and all along afterwards fancied himself, and at length ardently enough became, her little lover and intended-always rather a little fellow:-to which sentiments Wilhelmina signifies that she responded with the due maidenly indifference, but not in an offensive manner."[5] Then Prussian Fritz or Fred was born, and it was further agreed that Amelia, George II's second daughter, should marry him. George I sanctioned the arrangement, but the treaty in which it was incorporated was never signed; and on his accession, George II, for many reasons, was no longer desirous to carry out the marriage. Only Queen Sophia held to her project, and Frederick, the intended husband. The latter, doubtless incited by his father's opposition to imagine himself in love with Wilhelmina, caused it to be intimated to Queen Sophia that, if she would consent, he would travel secretly to Prussia and marry his cousin. The Queen was delighted, and summoned her husband to be present at the nuptials, but, anxious to share her joy, must needs select as a confidant the English ambassador Dubourgay, who, of course, could not treat such a communication as a confidence, and, to the Queen's horror, told her he must dispatch the news to his sovereign. In vain Sophia Dorothea pleaded for silence: it would spell ruin for it to be said that the envoy had known of the secret and had not informed his master. The only chance for the successful issue of the scheme was that Frederick should arrive before his father could interfere, but this was not to be. Colonel Launay came from England charged to return with the heir-apparent; and so the marriage was, at least, postponed. Frederick arrived in England on December 4, 1728, and early in the following year Sir Charles Hotham went as minister plenipotentiary to the King of Prussia to propose the carrying out of the double-marriage project, but while the latter was willing to consent to the marriage of his daughter with the Prince, he would not accept for his son the hand of Princess Amelia, declaring that he ought to espouse the Princess Royal. Neither party would give way, and the dislike of the potentates for each other resulted in 1730 in a definite rupture of the negotiations.

Photo by Emery Walker From a painting by B. Dandridge

FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES

On his arrival in England Frederick[6] was received with acclamation by the populace, but his relations with his parents were strained from the start. The original cause of quarrel is unknown to the present generation, and even at the time few were acquainted with it, though Sir Robert Walpole knew it, and Lord Hervey,[7] who wrote it down, only for his memorandum to be destroyed by his son, the Earl of Bristol.[8] It may be assumed, however, that his father's conduct in the negotiations for the marriage with the Princess of Prussia widened the breach. The Prince of Wales was certainly not an agreeable person. In Hanover he had indulged to excess in "Wein, Weib, und Gesang," and he was the unfortunate possessor of a mean, paltry, despicable nature that revolted those with whom he was brought into contact. His mother hated him-"He is such an ass that one cannot tell what he thinks"; his sister Amelia loathed him and wished he were dead-"He is the greatest liar that ever spoke, and will put one arm round anybody's neck to kiss them, and then stab them with the other if he can"; and his father detested him. "My dear first born is the greatest ass, the greatest liar, the greatest canaille and the greatest beast in the whole world, and I heartily wish he was out of it," so said George II, and it must be conceded that in the main he was right.

Of course, the faults were not all on the side of the Prince of Wales: indeed, they were fairly evenly distributed between father and son. From the first he was publicly ignored by George II. "Whenever the Prince was in the room with the King it put one in mind of stories that one has heard of ghosts that appear to part of the company, and were invisible to the rest; and in this manner wherever the Prince stood, though the King passed him ever so often, or ever so near, it always seems as if the King thought the Prince filled a void of space."[9] The father took advantage of his position to keep the son short of money; and the son, after the manner of Hanoverian heirs-apparent, retorted by throwing himself into the arms of the Opposition. The Prince of Wales's great grievance was that he received an allowance only of ￡50,000 and that at the King's pleasure: and he contended that as George II, when Prince of Wales, had received ￡100,000 a year from George I's Civil List of ￡700,000, it was manifestly unfair that as the Civil List had been increased to ￡800,000, the Prince of Wales's income should be reduced by half and that dependent on the sovereign's humour.

Frederick, who had left Hanover in debt, had been further embarrassed in London, and, to free himself from financial trouble discussed with Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, a marriage between himself and her granddaughter, Lady Diana Spencer,[10] conditional on the dowry being ￡100,000. The ambitious old lady was favourable to the scheme-it has been said, and perhaps with truth, that it was her proposal-and arrangements were made for the ceremony to take place privately at the Lodge in Windsor Great Park; but Sir Robert Walpole heard of it-that wily statesman learnt most secrets-and told the King, who forbade the marriage.

The Prince did not at first commit any serious offence against the King, but he contrived, with or without intention, to irritate or affront him almost daily. He wrote, or inspired, the "History of Prince Titi," in which the King and Queen were caricatured; and, with the guidance of Bubb Dodington,[11] formed a Court that became a rendezvous of the Opposition and the disaffected generally. It became his object in life to outshine his father in popularity, and as George II was not a favourite, and as Frederick could be agreeable when he wanted to make a good impression, and, besides, had the invaluable asset of a reasonable grievance, he did to a large extent succeed in his quest. "The Prince's character at his first coming over, though little more respectable, seemed much more amiable than, upon his opening himself further and being better known, it turned out to be; for, though there appeared nothing in him to be admired, yet there seemed nothing in him to be hated-neither anything great nor anything vicious. His behaviour was something that gained one's good wishes while it gave one no esteem for him, for his best qualities, whilst they prepossessed one the most in his favour, always gave one a degree of contempt for him at the same time."[12]

If George II was jealous of the Prince of Wales, the latter in turn was jealous of his sister, the Princess Royal, and he regarded it as a personal affront when in 1734 she was united to the Prince of Orange; thus, in spite of his two endeavours, marrying before him, and securing a settled income. A quarrel ensued, and the rivalry between the two convulsed the operatic world into which, being in itself opera bouffe, it was suitably carried. The Princess Royal was a friend and patron of Handel at the Haymarket Theatre: and therefore must her brother and his companions support the rival Buononcini at Lincoln's Inn Fields. The King and Queen sided with their daughter, and, says Hervey, "The affair grew as serious as that of the Greens and Blues under Justinian at Constantinople; and an anti-Handelist was looked upon as an anti-courtier, and voting against the Court in Parliament was hardly a less remissible or more venial sin than speaking against Handel or going to the Lincoln's Inn Fields Opera."[13] The victory in this Tweedledum-Tweedledee controversy fell to the Prince, though the sovereigns would not for a long time admit defeat, which gave Chesterfield[14] the opening for a m?t: he told the Prince he had been that evening to the Haymarket Theatre, "but there being no one there but the King and Queen, and as I thought they might be talking business, I came away."

When the Princess Royal was married, the Prince of Wales presented himself before the King, and made three demands-permission to serve in the Rhine campaign, a settled and increased income, and a suitable marriage. George II gave an immediate and decided refusal to the first, but consented to consider the other proposals. As a result of negotiations arising from this conversation, the Prince of Wales married on April 26, 1736, Augusta, daughter of Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Gotha. There were great national rejoicings, and "I believe," said Horace Walpole, "the Princess will have more beauties bestowed on her by all the occasional poets than ever a painter would afford her. They will cook up a new Pandora, and in the bottom of the box enclose Hope that all they have said is true." Indeed, a salvo of eulogistic addresses in rhyme greeted the nuptial pair, headed by William Whitehead, the Laureate, who, on such occasions, could always be relied upon to write ridiculously fulsome lines.

"Such was the age, so calm the earth's repose,

When Maro sung, and a new Pollio rose.

Oh! from such omens may again succeed

Some glorious youth to grace the nuptial bed;

Some future Scipio, good as well as great;

Some young Marcellus with a better fate;

Some infant Frederick, or some George to grace

The rising records of the Brunswick race."

THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF WALES AND (in the background) MISS VANE AND HER SON

April 25th, 1736

The new Princess of Wales was a mere girl, straight from her mother's country house, and ignorant of courts, but not lacking self-possession nor good sense. "The Princess is neither handsome nor ugly, tall nor short, but has a lively, pretty countenance enough,"[15] and she found favour in the eyes of her husband, who, though attracted by her, was not content to be faithful. "The chief passion of the Prince was women," says Horace Walpole; "but, like the rest of his race, beauty was not a necessary ingredient." Soon after he came to England he had an intrigue with Anne Vane, the eldest daughter of Gilbert, Baron Barnard, and one of the Queen's maids of honour. "Beautiful Vanelia" was not immaculate, and she gave birth to a child in her apartments in St. James's Palace; the first Lord Hartington and Lord Hervey both believed themselves to be the father, but she, to make the most of her opportunity, wisely accredited the paternity to the Prince of Wales, who thus earned the undying hatred of Hervey.[16] The proud father then turned his attention to Lady Archibald Hamilton (wife of the Duke of Hamilton's brother), who had ten children, was neither young nor beautiful, but clever enough to let her husband believe she was faithful, although the intimacy between her and her royal lover was patent to all the world besides.

Realising the advisability to be off with the old love before he was on with the new, Frederick sent Lord Baltimore to Miss Vane, commanding her to live abroad for a period, on pain of forfeiting the allowance of ￡1,600 that he had made her since her dismissal from court-"if she would not live abroad, she might starve for him in England." Miss Vane sent for Hervey, who recommended her to refuse obedience-a step that infuriated the Prince with the adviser; but eventually she reminded her erstwhile lover of all she had sacrificed for the love she bore him, and this so tickled his vanity that not only did he permit her to retain her son and the income, and to remain in England, but gave her a house in Grosvenor Street wherein to live.

Following the example of George II, who had appointed his mistress, Mrs. Howard, to be woman of the bedchamber to his wife, Frederick made Lady Archibald Hamilton a lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Wales. Lady Archibald, however, was soon replaced in his favour by Lady Middlesex, who, although not good-looking, was the possessor of many accomplishments; but she had to be content to share his affections with Miss Granville and various opera dancers and singers.

The Prince, being unable to secure an increased income from his father, resorted to the usual princely device of borrowing money wherever he could get it. "They have found a way in the city to borrow ￡30,000 for the Prince at ten per cent. interest, to pay his crying debts to tradespeople; but I doubt that sum will not go very far," wrote the Duchess of Marlborough. "The salaries in the Prince's family are ￡25,000 a year, besides a good deal of expense at Cliefden in building and furniture; and the Prince and Princess's allowance for their clothes is ￡6,000 a year each. I am sorry there is such an increase in expense more than in former times, when there was more money a great deal: and I really think it would have been more for the Prince's interest if his counsellors had advised him to live only as a great man, and to give the reasons for it; and in doing so he would have made a better figure, and been safer, for nobody that does not get by it themselves can possibly think the contrary method a right one." The debts accumulated so rapidly, that there was really some show of reason for Lord Hervey (always on the look-out to revenge himself for the defection of his mistress) saying to the Queen that there actually "was danger of the King's days being shortened by the profligate usurers who lent the Prince of Wales money on condition of being paid at his Majesty's death, and who, he thought, would want nothing but a fair opportunity to hasten the day of payment; and the King's manner of exposing himself would make it easy for the usurers to accomplish such a design."[17]

Hitherto in his quarrels with his parents Frederick had not always been in the wrong, but in 1737 he committed an unpardonable offence in connexion with the birth of his first legitimate child, Augusta, afterwards Duchess of Brunswick, and the mother of Caroline, the unhappy consort of George IV. Though he had known for many months that the Princess of Wales was with child he did not inform his parents of the approaching event until July 5. But that was the least part of his transgression. Twice in that month he took the Princess secretly from Hampton Court to St. James's Palace, and on the second occasion, with only Lady Archibald Campbell in attendance, arrived in London but a few hours before the accouchement.

Photo by Emery Walker

From a portrait by Enoch Seaman Photo by Emery Walker

From a portrait by T. Worlidge

CAROLINE, CONSORT OF GEORGE II GEORGE II

The Queen had determined to be present at the birth.-"She [the Princess of Wales] cannot be brought to bed as quick as one can blow one's nose," she had told the King, "and I will be sure it is her child." Both were furious at being circumvented, and the King expressed his anger in no measured terms. "See now, with all your wisdom, how they have outwitted you," the King addressed his wife. "This is all your fault. There is a false child will be put upon you, and how will you answer it to all your children? This has been fine care and fine management for your son William: he is much indebted to you." The Queen drove to St. James's without delay, saw the child, and abandoned her suspicions. "God bless you, poor little creature," she said as she kissed it, "you have come into a disagreeable world." Had it been a big, healthy boy, instead of a girl, she said, she might not so readily have accepted the paternity claimed for it.

"The King has commanded me," Lord Essex[18] wrote from Hampton Court to the Prince of Wales on August 3, "to acquaint your Royal Highness that his Majesty most heartily rejoices at the safe delivery of the Princess; but that your carrying away of her Royal Highness from Hampton Court, the then residence of the King, the Queen, and the Royal Family, under the pains and certain indication of immediate labour, to the imminent danger and hazard both of the Princess and her child, and after sufficient warnings for a week before, to have made the necessary preparations for this happy event, without acquainting his Majesty, or the Queen, with the circumstances the Princess was in, or giving them the least notice of your departure, is looked upon by the King to be such a deliberate indignity offered to himself and to the Queen, that he resents it to the highest degree."[19]

A lengthy correspondence ensued, wherein, on the one hand, the Prince excused himself on the ground that the Princess was seized with the pains of labour earlier than was expected, and that at Hampton Court he was without a midwife or any assistance; and, on the other, the King declined to accept these reasons as true, refused to receive his son, and ordered him to leave St. James's as soon as possible, summing up the situation in a final letter, dated September 10.

"GEORGE R.

"The professions you have lately made in your letters, of your peculiar regards to me, are so contradictory to all your actions, that I cannot suffer myself to be imposed upon by them. You know very well you did not give the least intimation to me or to the Queen that the Princess was with child or breeding, until within less than a month of the birth of the young Princess: you removed the Princess twice in the week immediately preceding the day of her delivery from the place of my residence, in expectation, as you have voluntarily declared, of her labour; and both times upon your return, you industriously concealed from the knowledge of me and the Queen every circumstance relating to this important affair: and you, at last, without giving any notice to me, or to the Queen, precipitately hurried the Princess from Hampton Court, in a condition not to be named. After having thus, in execution of your own determined measures, exposed both the Princess and her child to the greatest perils, you now plead surprise and tenderness for the Princess, as the only motives that occasioned these repeated indignities offered to me and to the Queen your mother.

"This extravagant and undutiful behaviour in so essential a point as the birth of an heir to my crown, is such evidence to your premeditated defiance of me, and such a contempt of my authority and of the natural right belonging to your parents, as cannot be excused by the pretended innocence of your intentions, nor palliated or disguised by specious words only.

"But the whole tenour of your conduct for a considerable time has been so entirely void of all real duty to me, that I have long had reason to be highly offended with you. And until you withdraw your regard and confidence from those by whose instigation and advice you are directed and encouraged in your unwarrantable behaviour to me and your Queen, and until your return to your duty, you shall not reside in my palace: which I will not suffer to be made the resort of them who, under the appearance of an attachment to you, foment the division which you have made in my family, and thereby weaken the common interest of the whole.

"In the meantime, it is my pleasure that you leave St. James's with all your family, when it can be done without prejudice or inconvenience to the Princess. I shall for the present leave to the Princess the care of my granddaughter, until a proper time calls upon me to consider of her education.

"(signed) G. R." [20]

The Prince, through Lord Baltimore, expressed a desire to make a personal explanation to the Queen, who, through Lord Grantham, declined to receive it; and later the Princess, doubtless prompted by her husband, wrote to the King and Queen to express a desire for reconciliation, but in vain, for, in the sovereign's eyes, their son's offence was rank. Indeed, the King went so far as to print the correspondence between himself and the Prince of Wales, to which the latter made the effectual reply of publishing the not dissimilar letters of his father, when Prince of Wales, to George I. This reduced the King to impotent fury: he declared he did not believe Frederick could be his son, and insisted that he must be "what in German we call a Wechselbalch-I do not know if you have a word for it in English-it is not what you call a foundling, but a child put in a cradle instead of another."

What induced Frederick to risk the life of his wife and his unborn child, and to put to hazard the succession was a mystery at the time, and must for ever remain without satisfactory explanation. That it was done solely to annoy his parents seems insufficient reason, though it is all that offers, and Hervey suggests the hasty nocturnal removal was effected to prevent the presence of the Queen at the birth. This certainly seems insufficient to account for the unwarrantable proceeding, but no other solution offers itself.

The Prince of Wales had in 1730 taken a lease from the Capel family of Kew House (the fee of which was many years after purchased by George III from the Dowager Countess of Essex), and there he and his wife repaired for a while after being evicted from St. James's Palace; but soon they came back to London, and held their court, first at Norfolk House, St. James's Square, placed at their disposal by the Duke of Norfolk, and later at Leicester House, Leicester Square. The King expressed a wish that no one should visit his son, and actually caused it to be intimated to foreign ambassadors that to call on the Prince of Wales was objectionable to him; but this injunction was so generally disregarded that he took the extraordinary step of issuing, through his Chamberlain, a threat.

"His Majesty, having been informed that due regard has not been paid to his order of September 11, 1737, has thought fit to declare that no person whatsoever, who shall go to pay their court to their Royal Highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales, shall be admitted into his Majesty's presence, at any of his royal palaces.

"(signed) Grafton."

Even this measure failed of its effect, for while those who sought the King's favour had not been to Leicester House, the Opposition, knowing they had nothing to lose, were not affected by this command. Indeed, the Opposition, delighted to have so influential a chief, flocked around Frederick; and Bolingbroke,[21] Chesterfield, Pulteney,[22] Dodington, Carteret,[23] Wyndham,[24] Townshend[25] and Cobham,[26] were soon numbered among his regular visitors; while Huish has compiled a long list of peers[27] who frequently attended his levées.

The Prince made a very determined bid for popularity among all classes. He put himself at the head of "The Patriots," and in 1739 recorded his first vote as a peer of Parliament against the Address and in favour of the war policy; subsequently, when war was declared, taking part with the Opposition in the public celebrations. He encouraged British manufactures, and neither he nor the Princess wore, or encouraged the wearing of, foreign materials. He gave entertainments to the nobility at his seat at Cliefden in Buckinghamshire, and visiting Bath in 1738, cleared the prison of all debtors and made a present of ￡1,000 towards the general hospital. Nor did he neglect letters and art, for which he had some slight regard. He patronised Thomson and Vertue the engraver, employed Dr. Freeman to write a "History of the English Tongue" as a text-book for Prince George and the younger princes;[28] sent two of his court to Cave, the publisher, to inquire the name of the author of the first issue of "The Rambler"; and exchanged badinage with Pope, whom he visited at Twickenham. Pope received him with great courtesy and expressions of attachment. "'Tis well," said Frederick, "but how shall we reconcile your love to a prince with your professed indisposition to kings, since princes will be kings in time?" "Sir," said the poet, "I consider Royalty under that noble and authorized type of the lion: while he is young and before his nails are grown, he may be approached and caressed with safety and pleasure."[29]

Frederick became very popular. "The truth is," Mr. McCarthy has said unkindly but with undoubted truth, "that the people in general, knowing little about the Prince, and knowing a great deal about the King, naturally leaned to the side of the man who might at least turn out to be better than his father."[30]

There was a general impression that he had been ill-treated, and there was a disposition among the lower classes to make amends for such a slight as having to live as a private gentleman at Norfolk House, without even the usual appanage of a sentry.

"Some I have heard who speak this with rebuke,

Guards should attend as well the prince as duke.

Guards should protect from insult Britain's heir,

Who greatly merits all the nation's care.

Pleas'd with the honest zeal, they thus express,

I tell them what each statesman must confess;

No guard so strong, so noble, e'er can prove,

As that which Frederick has-a people's love."

"My God, popularity makes me sick; but Fritz's popularity makes me vomit," exclaimed the Queen, perhaps after hearing that when Frederick assisted to extinguish a fire, the mob cried, "Crown him! crown him!" "I hear that yesterday, on his side of the House, they talked of the King's being cast aside with the same sang froid as one would talk of a coach being overturned; and that my good son strutted about as if he had been already King. Did you mind the air with which he came into my Drawing-room in the morning, though he does not think fit to honour me with his presence or ennui me with that of his wife's of a night. I swear his behaviour shocked me so prodigiously that I could hardly bring myself to speak to him when he was with me afterwards; I felt something here in my throat that swelled and half choked me." The King was as bitter, and refused to admit Frederick to the Queen's deathbed. "His poor mother is not in a condition to see him act his false, whining, cringing tricks now," while the Queen declared that she was sure he wanted to see her only to have the delight of knowing she was dead a little sooner than if he had to await the tidings at home.

An attempt in 1742 to bring to an end the crying scandal of the open enmity between the King and the heir-apparent was made by Walpole, who thought, by detaching the Prince from the Opposition, to strengthen his steadily decreasing majority. The Bishop of Oxford[31] was sent to Norfolk House to intimate that if the Prince would make his peace with his father through the medium of a submissive letter, ministers would prevail upon the King to increase his income by ￡50,000, pay his debts to the tune of ￡200,000 and find places for his friends. The terms were tempting, but the Prince, knowing that Walpole's position was precarious, declined them, stating that he knew the offer came, not from the King, but from the minister, and that, while he would gladly be reconciled to his father, he could do so without setting a price upon it. "Walpole," he declared, "was a bar between the King and his people, between the King and foreign powers; between the King and himself." The refusal was politic, for Walpole was most unpopular. "I have added to the debt of the nation," so ran the inscription on a scroll issuing from the mouth of an effigy of Walpole, sitting between the King and the Prince; "I have subtracted from its glory; I have multiplied its embarrassments; and I have divided its Royal Family." The Prince's refusal to entertain the overture was a blow to the minister, who contended against a majority in the House of Commons, until February 2, 1742, when he declared he would regard the question of the Chippenham election as a vote of confidence, and, if defeated upon it, would never again enter that House. He was beaten by sixteen, and on the 18th inst. took his seat "in another place" as the Earl of Oxford.

Immediately after Walpole's downfall, messages were exchanged between Norfolk House and St. James's, and on February 17 father and son met and embraced at the palace. The Prince's friends came into office, and so happy was the Prince that he testified to his joy by liberating four-and-twenty prisoners from his father's Bench-the amount of their debts being added to his own. He was indeed so overcome with delight at his virtue in being reconciled to his father that he ventured upon a joke when Mr. Vane, who was notoriously in the court interest, congratulated him on his reappearance at St. James's. "A vane," quoth he to the courtier, "is a weathercock, which turns with every gust of the wind, and therefore I dislike a vane." Witty, generous Prince!

The reconciliation was shortlived, and thereafter, for the rest of his life, Frederick was again in opposition to the court; but of these later years there is little or nothing to record, save that he solicited in vain the command of the royal army in the rebellion of '45. In March, 1751, he caught cold, and on the 20th inst., while, by his bedside, Desnoyers was playing the violin to amuse him, crying, "Je sens la mort," he expired suddenly-it is said from the bursting of an abscess which had been formed by a blow from a tennis ball. The King received the news at the whist table, and, showing neither surprise nor emotion, he crossed the room to where the Countess of Yarmouth sat at another table, and, after saying simply, "Il est mort," retired to his apartments. "I lost my eldest son," he remarked subsequently, "but I am glad of it."

The writers of the day were fulsome in their praise of the deceased Prince. Robert Southy says, Frederick died "to the unspeakable affliction of his royal consort, and the unfeigned sorrow of all who knew him;" and he sums him up as "a tender and obliging husband, a fond parent, a kind master, liberal, candid and humane, a munificent patron of the arts, an unwearied friend to merit, well-disposed to assert the rights of mankind, in general, and warmly attached to the interests of Great Britain."[32] In fact, Sir Galahad and the Admirable Crichton in one! Southy was not alone in his outspoken admiration, for Mr. McCarthy reminds us of a volume issued by Oxford University, "Epicedia Oxoniensia in obitum celsissimi et desideratissimi Frederici Principis Walli?. Here all the learned languages, and not the learned languages alone, contributed the syllables of simulated despair. Many scholastic gentlemen mourned in Greek; James Stillingfleet found vent in Hebrew; Mr. Betts concealed his tears under the cloak of the Syriac speech; George Costard sorrowed in Arabic that might have amazed Abu l'Atahiyeh; Mr. Swinton's learned sock stirred him to Phoenician and Etruscan; and Mr. Evans, full of national fire and the traditions of the bards, delivered himself, and at great length, too, in Welsh."[33] Amusing, too, was a sermon preached at Mayfair Chapel, in the course of which the preacher, lamenting the demise of the royal personage, declared that his Royal Highness "had no great parts, but he had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into vices; he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people; and then his condescension was such that he kept very bad company."

Very differently spoke those who knew the Prince. "He was indeed as false as his capacity would allow him to be, and was more capable in that walk than in any other, never having the least hesitation, from principle or fear of future detection, in telling any lie that served his future purpose. He had a much weaker understanding, and, if possible, a more obstinate temper than his father; that is, more tenacious of opinions he had once formed, though less capable of ever forming right ones. Had he had one grain of merit at the bottom of his heart, one should have had compassion for him in the situation to which his miserable poor head soon reduced him, a mother that despised him, sisters that betrayed him, a brother set up against him, and a set of servants that neglected him, and were neither of use nor capable of being of use to him, or desirous of being so."[34] So said Lord Hervey, and, though his known enmity to Frederick makes one reluctant to accept his estimate, yet it must be admitted that his remarks are borne out by others well qualified to judge. "A poor, weak, irresolute, false, lying, dishonest, contemptible wretch, that nobody loves, that nobody believes, that nobody will trust, and that will trust everybody by turns, and that everybody by turns will impose upon, betray, mislead, and plunder." Thus Sir Robert Walpole, who, during the Prince's lifetime, thought that, if the King should die, the Queen and her unmarried children would be in a bad way. "I do not know any people in the world so much to be pitied," he said to Hervey, "as that gay young company with which you and I stand every day in the drawing-room at that door from which we this moment came, bred up in state, in affluence, caressed and courted, and to go at once from that into dependence upon a brother who loves them not, and whose extravagance and covetousness will make him grudge every guinea they spend, as it must come out of a purse not sufficient to defray the expenses of his own vices."

A later generation has not been more kind. "If," said Leigh Hunt, "George the First was a commonplace man of the quiet order, and George the Second of the bustling, Frederick was of an effeminate sort, pretending to taste and gallantry, and possessed of neither. He affected to patronise literature in order to court popularity, and because his father and grandfather had neglected it; but he took no real interest in the literati, and would meanly stop their pensions when he got out of humour. He passed his time in intriguing against his father, and hastening the ruin of a feeble constitution by sorry amours." "His best quality was generosity," Horace Walpole has recorded; "his worst insincerity and indifference to truth, which appeared so early that Earl Stanhope wrote to Lord Sunderland, 'He has his father's head, and his mother's heart.'"[35]

What is to be said in his favour? That through his intercession Flora Macdonald, imprisoned for harbouring the Chevalier, received her liberty: that when Richard Glover, the author of "Leonidas," fell upon evil days he sent him five hundred pounds; that he was a plausible speaker,[36] fond of music, the author of two songs, and had sufficient sense of humour to institute an occasional practical joke. On the other hand, he was a gambler and a spendthrift without a notion of common honesty; he was unstable and untruthful, a feeble enemy and a lukewarm friend; and is, indeed, best disposed of in the well-known verse:

"Here lies Fred,

Who was alive, and is dead.

Had it been his father,

I had much rather.

Had it been his brother,

Still better than another.

Had it been his sister,

No one would have missed her.

Had it been the whole generation,

Still better for the nation.

But since 'tis only Fred,

Who was alive, and is dead,

There's no more to be said."

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