call her "a very
fine girl," while those who were not inclined to flatter said her face
was all mouth, and declared, probably untruly, that the young King was
at first obviously repelled by the plainness of his wife's appearance.
If she was plain, her plainness, as Northcote, the painter, said, was
an elegant, not a vulgar plainness, and the grace of her carriage much
impressed him. Walpole found her sensible, cheerful, and remarkably
genteel, a not inconsiderable eulogy from him. She was fairly
educated, as the education of princesses went in those days. She knew
French and Italian, knew even a little English. She had various
elegant accomplishments--could draw, and dance, and play, had acquired
a certain measure of scientific knowledge, and she had what was better
than all these attainments, a good, kindly, sensible nature. The
marriage could hardly be called a popular marriage at first. Statesmen
and politicians thought that the King of England ought to have found
some more illustrious consort than the daughter of a poor and petty
German House. The people at large, we are told from a private letter
of the time, were "quite exasperated at her not being handsome," beauty
in a sovereign being a great attraction to the mass of subjects. The
courtiers in general were amused by, and secretly laughed at, her
simple ways and old-fashioned--or at least un-English--manners.

[Sidenote--1761--The Coronation of George the Third]

After the wedding came the coronation, a very resplendent ceremony,
which was not free from certain somewhat ludicrous features, and was
not denied a certain tragic dignity. It was enormously expensive.
Horace Walpole called it a puppet-show that cost a million. Loyal
London turned out in its thousands. Surprisingly large sums of money
were paid for rooms and scaffolds from which the outdoor sight could be
seen, and much larger were paid {13} for places inside the Abbey. It
was very gorgeous, very long, and very fatiguing. The spectator
carried away, with aching senses, a confused memory of many soldiers,
of great peers ill at ease in unbecoming habits, of beautiful women
beautifully attired, of a blaze of jewels that recalled the story of
Aladdin's mine, and of the wonderful effect by which the darkness of
Westminster Hall was suddenly illuminated by an ingenious arrangement
of sconces that caught fire and carried on the message of light with
great rapidity. The heralds in whose hands t