the Fine Arts, neither was his admiration of women more limited or more refined. At the period when he ascended the throne he was in his fortyfifth year; he had never displayed any taste for magnificence; he was distinguished by no graces either of mind or person; he had usually confined his society to his mistresses, and a chosen few; and in his feelings and habits was almost as much a stranger as his father, in the country over which he was called to rule. 66 The King's peculiar characteristic was punctuality, which consequently became the order of his Court. "His servants," says Lord Waldegrave, are never disturbed with any unnecessary waiting, for he is regular in all his motions to the greatest exactness, except on particular occasions, when he out-runs his own orders, and expects those who are to attend him, before the time of his appointment. This may easily be accounted for; he has a restless mind, which requires constant exercise. His affairs are not sufficient to fill up the day; his amusements are without variety, and have lost their relish. He becomes fretful and uneasy, merely for want of employment, and presses forward to meet the succeeding hour before it arrives." * So regular were the King's habits that Lord Hervey once remarked of him, "He seems to think his having done a thing to-day an unanswerable reason for his doing it to-morrow." His dislike to the Duke of Newcastle is said * Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs, from 1754 to 1758, p. 6. to have originated in the well-known want of method which was the characteristic of that minister. He once said of the Duke, "You see I am compelled to take the Duke of Newcastle as my minister, who is not fit to be chamberlain in the smallest court of Germany." As a striking proof of the King's exactness, even in the minutest affairs of life, it may be mentioned, that, on his accession to the throne, happening to perceive a knife, fork, and spoon of gold, which he remembered to have seen in the palace of Herenhausen in former days, he ordered them to be immediately sent back to Hanover, to which country they properly belonged. He himself used to observe, as a singular fact (and the circumstance shows the niceness of his observation), that, after his accession he could call to mind no single article of any value, either in the cabinets or about the apartments of the English palaces, which he remembered to have seen there during a visit he had paid to England in the days of Queen Anne. Such had been the rapacity of his father's mistresses, that of all the valuables, once the property of that Princess, a pearl necklace alone fell to the share of the new Queen. To such an extent did George the Second carry his love of exactness, that he never allowed even his pleasures to interfere with it. For some years after he had ascended the throne, his custom was to visit his mistress, Lady Suffolk, every evening at nine o'clock. Sometimes he was dressed and in readiness before the prescribed time, and on these occasions, we are told, he used to pace his apartment for ten minutes together with his watch in his hand, waiting till the moment of departure had arrived. "After dinner," says Wraxall, "he always took off his clothes, and reposed himself for an hour in bed, of an afternoon,' In order to accommodate himself to this habit, or infirmity, Mr. Pitt, when as Secretary of State he was sometimes necessitated to transact business with the King during the time he lay down, always knelt on a cushion by the bed-side; a mark of respect which contributed to render him not a little acceptable to his Majesty. At his rising, George the Second dressed himself a second time, and commonly passed the evening at cards, with Lady Yarmouth, in a select party."† Some additional light is thrown by Horace Walpole on the King's private habits and personal peculiarities. "At nine at night," he says, "the King had cards at the apartment of his daughters, the Princess Amelia and Caroline, with Lady Yarmouth, two or three of the late Queen's ladies, and as many of the most favoured officers of his own household. Every Saturday, in summer, he carried that uniform * Wraxall seems to have been in ignorance that the Queen invariably retired to bed with her husband, on these occasions of after-dinner repose. See Walpole's Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of George II. vol. i. p. 513. + Wraxall's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 415. party, but without his daughters, to dine at Richmond. They went in coaches and six, in the middle of the day, with the heavy horseguards kicking up the dust before them; dined, walked an hour in the garden, returned in the same dusty parade, and his Majesty fancied himself the most gallant and lively prince in Europe.' When he hunted, and he was fond of the amusement, he was usually attended by the Queen, one or more of the Princesses, the maids of honour, and a number of the courtiers of both sexes. It appears, by the periodical publications of the day, that the sport was not unfrequently attended with accidents; and on one occasion the Princess Amelia had a narrow escape with her life. "We hunt," writes Mrs. Howard to Gay the poet, "with great noise and violence, and have every day a very tolerable chance to have a neck broke."* The King usually hunted in Richmond Park, where, after the fatigues of the day, Sir Robert Walpole was in the habit of entertaining him. Though George the Second had never been handsome, his appearance in middle age is described as being neither unpleasing nor altogether undignified. His face, of which the distinguishing characteristics were prominent eyes and an aquiline nose, wore a pleasing and good-humoured expression; and his figure, though so short as almost to come under the denomination * See Suffolk Correspondence, vol. i. pp. 360, 376. of diminutive, is said to have been extremely well proportioned. In reference to the smallness of his person, the "Ballad on the Seven Wise men," in introducing Richard, afterwards Lord Edgecombe,* contains the following lines: When Edgecombe spoke, the Prince in sport One shorter than himself: I'm glad, cried out the quibbling squire, George the Second, as did his father, confined his society to a chosen few, and in this particular circle was regarded as an easy master and a kind friend. One of his most favoured attendants, the amiable and high-minded Lord Waldegrave,† draws the following sketch of the King's character in social life:-"In the drawing-room he is * Richard, first Lord Edgecombe, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on the downfal of Sir Robert Walpole's administration. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, in alluding to the elevation of William Pulteney to the peerage, observes,Then say how he marked the new year, By increasing our taxes and stocks: Then say how he changed to a peer, Fit companion for Edgecombe and Fox. Lord Edgecombe died in 1758. † James, Second Earl of Waldegrave, was born 14th March, 1715. He was selected by George the Second to be his private friend, an honour that he well merited, from his prudence, his strong sense, and unimpeachable probity. In addition to his being a member of the Privy Council, George the Second appointed him a Lord of the Bed-chamber, Master of |