ued more, the wealthiest subject
in Europe. She had been brought up from childhood with the Princess
Anne; and a close friendship had arisen between the girls. In character
they resembled each other very little. Anne was slow and taciturn. To
those whom she loved she was meek. The form which her anger assumed was
sullenness. She had a strong sense of religion, and was attached even
with bigotry to the rites and government of the Church of England. Sarah
was lively and voluble, domineered over those whom she regarded with
most kindness, and, when she was offended, vented her rage in tears and
tempestuous reproaches. To sanctity she made no pretence, and, indeed,
narrowly escaped the imputation of irreligion. She was not yet what
she became when one class of vices had been fully developed in her by
prosperity, and another by adversity, when her brain had been turned by
success and flattery, when her heart had been ulcerated by disasters and
mortifications. She lived to be that most odious and miserable of human
beings, an ancient crone at war with her whole kind, at war with her own
children and grandchildren, great indeed and rich, but valuing greatness
and riches chiefly because they enabled her to brave public opinion and
to indulge without restraint her hatred to the living and the dead.
In the reign of James she was regarded as nothing worse than a fine
highspirited young woman, who could now and then be cross and arbitrary,
but whose flaws of temper might well be pardoned in consideration of her
charms.

It is a common observation that differences of taste, understanding,
and disposition, are no impediments to friendship, and that the closest
intimacies often exist between minds each of which supplies what is
wanting to the other. Lady Churchill was loved and even worshipped by
Anne. The Princess could not live apart from the object of her romantic
fondness. She married, and was a faithful and even an affectionate wife.
But Prince George, a dull man whose chief pleasures were derived from
his dinner and his bottle, acquired over her no influence comparable
to that exercised by her female friend, and soon gave himself up with
stupid patience to the dominion of that vehement and commanding spirit
by which his wife was governed. Children were born to the royal pair:
and Anne was by no means without the feelings of a mother. But the
tenderness which she felt for her offspring was languid when compared
with her devotion