was not an august monarch, this
Augustus. Walpole tells how, one night at the royal card-table, the
playful princesses pulled a chair away from under Lady Deloraine, who, in
revenge, pulled the king's from under him, so that his Majesty fell on the
carpet. In whatever posture one sees this royal George, he is ludicrous
somehow; even at Dettingen, where he fought so bravely, his figure is
absurd--calling out in his broken English, and lunging with his rapier,
like a fencing-master. In contemporary caricatures, George's son, "the
Hero of Culloden," is also made an object of considerable fun, as witness
the following picture of him defeated by the French (1757) at Hastenbeck:

[Illustration]

I refrain to quote from Walpole regarding George--for those charming
volumes are in the hands of all who love the gossip of the last century.
Nothing can be more cheery than Horace's letters. Fiddles sing all through
them: wax-lights, fine dresses, fine jokes, fine plate, fine equipages,
glitter and sparkle there: never was such a brilliant, jigging, smirking
Vanity Fair as that through which he leads us. Hervey, the next great
authority, is a darker spirit. About him there is something frightful: a
few years since his heirs opened the lid of the Ickworth box; it was as if
a Pompeii was opened to us--the last century dug up, with its temples and
its games, its chariots, its public places--lupanaria. Wandering through
that city of the dead, that dreadfully selfish time, through those godless
intrigues and feasts, through those crowds, pushing, and eager, and
struggling--rouged, and lying, and fawning--I have wanted some one to be
friends with. I have said to friends conversant with that history, Show me
some good person about that Court; find me, among those selfish courtiers,
those dissolute, gay people, some one being that I can love and regard.
There is that strutting little sultan, George II; there is that
hunchbacked, beetle-browed Lord Chesterfield; there is John Hervey, with
his deadly smile, and ghastly, painted face--I hate them. There is Hoadly,
cringing from one bishopric to another: yonder comes little Mr. Pope, from
Twickenham, with his friend, the Irish dean, in his new cassock, bowing
too, but with rage flashing from under his bushy eyebrows, and scorn and
hate quivering in his smile. Can you be fond of these? Of Pope I might: at
least I might love his genius, his wit, his greatness, his
se