The Press. — London, England, 1855-07-07 00:00:00

644 Isittratart. Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover. By Dr Doran. Two Vols. London : Bentley. THESE volumes contain the lives of the four consorts of the four Georges. The monarchs all married young, and were married but once ; and it is somewhat singular that the queens of the first George and of the last were never permitted to share the coronation or state of their husbands. There was some resemblance, indeed, between the fate of the ill starred Sophia Dorothea and of the yet more ill-starred Caroline of Brunswick. The former was not seventeen at her marriage, the latter scarcely eighteen ; they had each to complain of the indifference and infidelity of their lords as soon as the nuptial knot had been tied ; each was at an early period of her married life charged with crimes fur which there was no better foundation than some youthful indiscretions resulting almost natu rally from the sense of desertion; and each was destined to pass through a long state of weary widowhood before the body succumbed to the spirits' mortification and the springs of life stood still. Sophia died at fifty eight, Caroline at fifty-three. The end of the former was, as her life had been, more quiet and resigned than that of the latter. Sophia died in perfect seclusion in the Castle of Ahlden, which had been her refuge or her prison for thirty years previous, while Caroline died in turbulent Brandenburgh, and had her funeral signalised by the greatest triumph the mere mob ever achieved in England. But their deaths were in other respects treated with about the same contemptuous neglect. The only notice taken by George I. of the death of his consort was a notification in the Gazette that the Duchess of Ahlden had died at her residence in April, 1724, and " his ire," Dr. Doran relates, " burst " forth in an explosion of rage when he heard " that his daughter, the Queen of Prussia, had " gone into mourning for the death of her " mother." Between these luckless women came the consorts of George 11. and George 111., whose lives, on the whole, were marked by as large a share of prosperity as crowned heads are usually permitted to enjoy. The life of Caro line is Dr. Doran's best effort. He has dili gently consulted the memoirs of the period, and has woven their details into a very ani• mated narrative, though his style is often marred by his endeavours to give point to it by the relation of stale anecdotes or bad jokes. This is a fault which we strongly recommend him to correct. To Walpole and his government must be conceded the penetration of early discovering Queen Caroline's good sense and her influence over the King. There was no Tory opposition to dread at that time; so Walpole, regardless of the public money, resolved to secure the Queen's favour by an act of reckless extrava gance. The Queen's jointure was fixed at 100,0001. a year, with Somerset-house and Rich mond-lodge—a preposterous provision at that time, and double the income which had ever been settled on any queen previously. The Court was conciliated by the bribe, his Majesty looked complacently on that "rogue and rascal" Walpole, and henceforth, as Lord Hervey says, it was understood " that Sir " Pobert was the Queen's Minister ; that " whoever he favoured she distinguished, and " whoever she distinguished the King ern ." ployed." Her behaviour justified Walpole's foresight. The following paragraph by Dr. Doran indicates that she admirably exempli fied the character of a model wife as given by " honest, honest 'ago"— Who never answers till her husband cools, And, though she rules him, never shows she rules : The tact of the Queen was so admirable, that the husband, who followed her counsel in all things, never even himself suspected but that he was leading her. This was the very triumph of the Queen's art, and the crowning proof of the simplicity and silliness of the King. It is said that he sneered at Charles I. for being governed by his wife ; at Charles 11. for being governed by his mistresses; at James led by priests; at William duped by men; at Queen Anne deceived by her favorites ; and at his father, who allowed lainaself to be ruled by any one who could approach him. And he finished his catalogue of scorn by proudly asking " Who governs now ?" The courtiers probably swileti THE PRESS. behind their jaunty hats. The wits, and some of them were courtier% too, answered the query more roughly, and they remarked, in rugged rhyme and bad grammar:— You may strut, dapper George, but 'twill all be in vain ; We know 'tis Queen Caroline, not you that reign— You govern no more than Don Philip of Spain. Then if you would have us fall down and adore you, Lock up your fat spouse, as your dad did before you. The Queen during the absence of her hus band on his lignoverian excursions was a firm administrator. On that Proteus riot, which suggested to Scott some of his very finest descriptive passages, our author writes : The indignation of the Queen Regent was almost incon trollable. She was especially indignant against General Moyle, commander of the troops, who h refused to inter fere to suppress the riot. He was tolerably well justified in his refusal ; for the magistrates of Edinburgh, ever ready to invoke assistance, were given to betray them who rendered it to the gallows, if the riot was suppressed by shedding the blood of the rioters. His conduct on this occasion was fu►ther regulated by orders from his commander-in-chief. Caroline had no regard for any of the considerations which governed the discreet general, and in the vexation of her chafed spirit she declared that Moyle deserved to be shot by order of a court-martial. It was with great difficulty that her Ministers and friends succeeded in softening the aspe rity of her temper; even Sir Robert Walpole, who joined in representing that it were better to hold Moyle harmless, maintained in private that the general was fool, knave, or coward. But the Queen appears to have been naturally humane and even gentle, and there are pas sages in her life which show that she some times put on an aspect of resolution which she did not feel, as when she braved the menaces of Mr. Howard, and persisted in keeping his wife from him—a rare instance of complaisance towards her own husband's frailty. Her fixed resentment towards her eldest son, not even to be weakened by the near approach of death, is the sternest and darkest shade in her cha racter, and was probably justified, in part at least, by some radical vice or defect in Frede rick's character : The animosity of the Queen and her daughter, the Prin cess Caroline. was almost unnaturally ferocious. The mother cursed the day on which she had borne the son who was for ever destroying her peace, and would end, she said, by destroying her life. There was no opprobrious epithet which she did not cast at him, and they who surrounded the Queen and princess had the honour of daily hearing them hope that God would strike the son and brother dead with apoplexy. Such enmity seems to us now incredible, and even in the days here treated of, it could not have been common nor agreeable to those who witnessed it. The gentle Princess Caroline's gentlest name for her brother was " that nauseous beast," and in running over the cata- logue of crimes of which she declared him capable, if not actually guilty, she did not hesitate to say that he was ca pable of murdering even those whom he caressed. The Queen was able as well as prudent, and the later years of her life showed her uncon quei able firmness under the severest pangs of physical suffering. To her alone must be ascribed the merit of preserving spiritual and intellectual life in the Church during the dreary and depressing reign— as regarded ecclesiastical affairs—of her consort. The King's emphatic commendation of a " good short sermon" is well known. When the erratic Whiston reproved Queen Caroline for talking loudly with the King in the Chapel Royal during service, she alleged in excuse that the King would talk : What Caroline said of her consort was true enough. At chapel, the King, when not sleeping, would be talking; Dr. Young thougt:t, by power of his preaching, to keep him awake, but the King on finding that the new chaplain was not giving him what he loved, " a short, good sermon," soon began to exhibit signs of somnolency. Young exerted himself in vain, and when his Majesty at length broke forth with a snore, the poet-preacher felt his vanity so wounded that he burst into tears. Where kings and queens so behaved, no wonder that young ensigns flirted openly with maids of honour, and that Lady Wortley Montague should have reason to write to the Countess of Bute :—" I confess I remember to have dressed for St. James's Chapel with the same thoughts your daughters will have at the opera." Yet learning and ability in the Church through her influence found generous patron age in those days. Bishops Butler and Berkely were highly esteemed by the Queen, and it is said that the " Analogy " was the ordinary reading of her breakfast table. Her tolerance of the King's vices, which some critics have felt inclined to condemn, was in reality a proof of her admirable prudence. She had a eery coarse kind of clay to deal with, and sh moulded it to the best shape its harsh nature would admit of. Like a skilful workman, she made the best use of the tools and materials at her command, and made the King respectable in spite of his vicious na ture and contracted understanding. He was not insensible of her merit, though he had SATURDAY, sometimes an odd way of showing it. His grief on her death proves the sincerity of his attachment to her. The following incident is touchiug : The old memory would not entirely fade, the old fire would not entirely be quenched. " I hear," said he, once to Baron Brinkman, as he lay sleepless, at early morn, on his couch, " I hear you have a portrait of my wife, which was a present from her to you, and that it is a better likeness than any I have got. Let me look at it." The portrait was brought, and so placed before the King that he could contemplate it leisurely at his ease. "It is like her," he murmured. " Place it nearer to me, and leave me till I ring." For two whole hours the baron re mained in attendance in an adjoining room, before he was again summoned to his master's presence. At the end of that time ho entered the King's bed-room on being called. George looked up at him with eyes full of tears, and mut tered, pointing to the portrait :—" Take it away ;. take it away ! I never yet saw the woman worthy to buckle her shoe." And thence he arose and went and breakfasted with Lady Yarmouth. Lady Sundon, who may be considered as the Queen's prime minister, was as prudent as her mistress. One of Horace Walpole's best stories relates to her : I was saying to Lady Pomfret, " To be sure, she is dead very rich." She replied with some warmth, " She Lever took money." When I came home I mentioned this to Sir Robert. "No," said he, " but she took jewels. Lord Pomfret's place of master of the horse to 0;3 Queen was bought of her for a pair of diamond ear-rings of fourteen hundred pounds value." One day that she wore them at a visit at old Marlbro's, as soon as she was gone, the duchess said to Lady Mary Wortley, " how can that woman have the impudence to go about in that bribe?" " Madam," said Lady Mary, " How would you have people know where wine is to be sold, unless there is a sign hung out ?" Sir Robert told me that in the enthusiasm of her vanity Lady Sundon had proposed to him to unite with her and govern the kingdom together; he bowed, begged her patronage, but he said he thought nobody fit to govern the kingdom but the King and Queen. The life of the consort of George 111. does not present many points of interest, but Dr. Doran has constructed an impartial and amus ing biography of Caroline of Brunswick. The diary of Lord Malmesbury supplies copious details on all the incidents of her passage to England and her marriage, and the " Diary Illustrative," gives the later facts of her career. Though somewhat stale, we may quote Lord Malmesbury's account of her careless toilette, and of her first interview with the Prince : The party bad been three weeks at Hanover, and, during that time, Lord Malmesbury had hell frequent discussions with the princess upon the very delicate matter of the toilette. She prided, or, to use the noble lord's own term, " she piqued herself on dressing quick." He disapproved of this; for a quick dresser is a slovenly and unclean dresser. On this point, however, she would not be con vinced; probably, she was the less inclined to be so, as the weather continued intensely cold; and the next luxury to lying in bed was, being quickly dressed when she got out of it. He could not come to details with a young bride who despised perfect ablutions ; but he found a Court lady, Madame Busche, through whom he poured the necessary amount of information that should induce the princess to be more liberal towards her skin, in the dispen sation of water. He desired Madame Busche to explain to her that the prince was very delicate, and that he ex pected a long and very careful luiklle de proprieti, of which she had no idea. "On the contrary," he says, " she neg lects it sadly, and is offensive from this neglect. Madame Busche executes her commission well, and the princess came out, the next day, well washed all over!" On due notice of the arrival being made to the royal family, the Princa of Wales went immediately to visit his cousin and bride. What occurred at the interview, of which Lord Malmesbury was the sole witness, he has the best right to tell. I, according to the established etiquette, introduced (no one else being in the room) the Princess Caroline to him. She ♦ery properly, in conse quence of my saying to her it was the right mode of pro- ceeding, attempted to kneel to him. He raised her (gracefully enough) and embraced her, said barely one word, turned round, retired to a distant part of the apart ment, and calling me to him, said : Harris, I am not well ; pray, get me a glass of brandy.' I said, Sir, bad you not better have a glass of water ?' Upon which he, much out of humour, said, with an oath, No, I will go directly to the Queen.' And away he went. The princess, left during this short moment alone, was in a state of astonishment; and on my joining her, said: ' Mon Dieu, est ce que le prince est toujours comme cola? Je le trouve trds gros et nallement aussi beau que son portrait.'" The doubtful points in the history of the unhappy Queen are fairly investigated and ex plained by the author. She committed a great mistake in leaving England, and an equal mistake, after her eccentric life on the Conti nent, in returning here, more especially as her daughter had married and had died in her • absence, and the only tie was thus severed which bound her to the country. Her restless nature, however, was gratified by the mob homage she received, and the disturbance