his high-spirited wife; that by his insulting indifference, he had himself almost invited her to err; that he had incited his worthless concubines to become the spies over her actions; and in a word, that while daring to accuse and punish his victim for infidelity, he was himself the most notorious adulterer, and the most unscrupulous libertine in his dominions.

It was the misfortune of Sophia, that she died before her son, George the Second, ascended the throne of Great Britain. Had she survived the death of her husband only seven months, she would probably have seen her rights asserted and her character cleared. Her death took place on the 13th of November, 1726, in the sixty-first year of her age. In the London Gazette, which announces the event, she is simply styled the Duchess-dowager of Hanover.

We must now turn from the almost romantic history of a persecuted woman, to the far less interesting character of her phlegmatic husband. The circumstances which elevated George the First to the throne of England have been noticed elsewhere. It is sufficient to say that he was indebted for his aggrandizement merely to the accidental circumstance of his having been educated in the Protestant faith, there being, at the period of his accession, as many as fifty-seven individuals of the blood-royal who possessed superior hereditary claims.

Queen Anne expired on the 1st of August, 1714, and immediately afterwards King George

was proclaimed with the usual ceremonies in the cities of London and Westminster, without a show of that opposition which had been anticipated from the adherents of the Stuarts. Craggs, the well-known secretary of state, had previously been despatched by the Tories to Hanover, with the tidings that the Queen was in an almost hopeless state. He presented himself at the Electoral palace of Herenhausen, on the 27th of August; but the same night there arrived two other expresses from England, one for the King, and the other for the English Envoy-extraordinary, the Earl of Clarendon, -announcing the actual demise of the Queen. Two hours after midnight Lord Clarendon, a staunch Tory, was admitted to the King's apartment, and formally congratulated him on his accession to the throne of England. His reception of the English minister is said to have been cold and mortifying in the extreme; thus affording the earliest intimation of his preference for the Whigs—a preference which he had hitherto prudently concealed in his own breast.

It has been affirmed, that if any popular demonstration had taken place in England in favour of the exiled Stuarts, George the First would have contented himself with retaining the sovereignty of his beloved Electorate, and would, not unwillingly, have relinquished his claims to the throne of Great Britain. That this was the prevalent opinion among the best-informed circles of the period is undoubted; indeed Baron Pol

nitz, who was in Hanover at the time, affirms, notwithstanding all was peaceable in England, and that the Elector had no more reason to expect opposition than if his claims to the throne had been strictly hereditary, still that the love of Hanover, and of social ease, very nearly outweighed the temptation of becoming the possessor of a splendid crown. The circumstance

which seems to have chiefly induced him to accept the proffered honour, was the satisfaction that he felt at having the Whigs on his side.

When one of his friends, alluding to the death of Charles the First on the scaffold, remarked that the anti-monarchical party in England was not yet extinct, "I have nothing to fear," he said, "for the king-killers are all my friends." About the same period, after fairly admitting that he knew little of the constitution and customs of England,—“ I intend,” he said "to put myself entirely in the hands of my ministers, for they will be completely answerable for everything I do."

King George quitted the palace of Herenhausen on the 31st of August, 1714. He embarked at the Hague on the 16th of September, and arrived, two days afterwards, at Greenwich, where he was received, on his landing, by a large concourse of influential persons. During his progress from that town to London, he mentioned a rather curious anecdote to Lord Dorset, who was in the same coach with him. Thirty-three years before, he said, he had arrived in England

as a suitor for the hand of Queen Anne, whom he now succeeded. On his return, he added, he was riding a common post-horse from London to Gravesend, from which latter place he intended to take shipping for Holland, when, the roads and the horse being equally indifferent, he met with a severe fall, and arrived at Gravesend covered with mud. While relating this circumstance, the King suddenly recognized the spot where the accident happened, and pointed it out to Lord Dorset. George the First made his public entry into the metropolis on the 20th of the month, and on the 20th of October was crowned at Westminster with the usual solemnities.

It must have required all the adventitious aid of sovereign dignity, and all the importance which is commonly attached to the name and office of a King, to have prevented the German Elector, not only from becoming extremely unpopular with his new subjects, but from figuring in a very ridiculous light in their estimation. A foreigner, as he was, in all his tastes and habits; ignorant, debauched, and illiterate; inelegant in his person, and ungraceful in his manners; he had never condescended to acquaint himself with the laws or customs of the English, and was, indeed, utterly unacquainted with their language. In addition to these drawbacks, though he was now in his fifty-fifth year, he had the folly and wickedness to encumber himself with a seraglio of hideous German prostitutes, who rendered him

equally ludicrous by their absurdities, and unpopular by their rapacity.

6

Horace Walpole, after drawing a ridiculous picture of the King's German mistresses, observes," No wonder that the mob of London were highly diverted at the importation of so uncommon a seraglio. They were food for all the venom of the Jacobites; and, indeed, nothing could be grosser than the ribaldry that was vomited out in lampoons, libels, and every channel of abuse, against the sovereign and the new court. One of the German ladies being abused by the mob, was said to have put her head out of the coach, and cried in bad English, Good people, why you abuse us?—we come for all your goods.' -Yes, damn ye,' answered a fellow in the crowd, 'and for all our chattels too."" The two principal ladies of this repulsive seraglio, the Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of Darlington, are said to have been usually designated, in reference to a marked contrast in their personal appearance, as the " Maypole," and the "Elephant and Castle." In a letter in Mist's Journal, May 27, 1721, an anonymous writer observes,-" We are ruined by trulls; nay, what is more vexatious, by old ugly trulls, such as could not find entertainment in the most hospitable hundreds of Old Drury." It is remarkable that this passage was made the subject of Parliamentary debate. The House of Commons were very properly offended at the liberty taken with the sovereign, and the debate terminated by Mist, the printer