f tenure of St. James's and
Hampton Court; plundering, it is true, somewhat, and dividing amongst his
German followers; but what could be expected of a sovereign who at home
could sell his subjects at so many ducats per head, and made no scruple in
so disposing of them? I fancy a considerable shrewdness, prudence, and
even moderation in his ways. The German Protestant was a cheaper, and
better, and kinder king than the Catholic Stuart in whose chair he sat,
and so far loyal to England, that he let England govern herself.

Having these lectures in view I made it my business to visit that ugly
cradle in which our Georges were nursed. The old town of Hanover must look
still pretty much as in the time when George Louis left it. The gardens
and pavilions of Herrenhausen are scarce changed since the day when the
stout old Electress Sophia fell down in her last walk there, preceding but
by a few weeks to the tomb James II's daughter, whose death made way for
the Brunswick Stuarts in England.

The two first royal Georges, and their father, Ernest Augustus, had quite
royal notions regarding marriage; and Louis XIV and Charles II scarce
distinguished themselves more at Versailles or St. James's, than these
German sultans in their little city on the banks of the Leine. You may see
at Herrenhausen the very rustic theatre in which the Platens danced and
performed masques, and sang before the Elector and his sons. There are the
very fauns and dryads of stone still glimmering through the branches,
still grinning and piping their ditties of no tone, as in the days when
painted nymphs hung garlands round them; appeared under their leafy
arcades with gilt crooks, guiding rams with gilt horns; descended from
"machines" in the guise of Diana or Minerva; and delivered immense
allegorical compliments to the princes returned home from the campaign.

That was a curious state of morals and politics in Europe; a queer
consequence of the triumph of the monarchical principle. Feudalism was
beaten down. The nobility, in its quarrels with the crown, had pretty well
succumbed, and the monarch was all in all. He became almost divine: the
proudest and most ancient gentry of the land did menial service for him.
Who should carry Louis XIV's candle when he went to bed? What prince of
the blood should hold the king's shirt when his Most Christian Majesty
changed that garment?--the French memoirs of the seventeenth century are
full of such details and squa