properly brought
up when you are young." He insisted that no English cooks could roast, no
English coachman could drive: he actually questioned the superiority of
our nobility, our horses, and our roast beef!

Whilst he was away from his beloved Hanover, everything remained there
exactly as in the prince's presence. There were 800 horses in the stables,
there was all the apparatus of chamberlains, Court-marshals, and
equerries; and Court assemblies were held every Saturday, where all the
nobility of Hanover assembled at what I can't but think a fine and
touching ceremony. A large armchair was placed in the assembly-room, and
on it the king's portrait. The nobility advanced, and made a bow to the
armchair, and to the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and
spoke under their voices before the august picture, just as they would
have done had the King Churfuerst been present himself.

He was always going back to Hanover. In the year 1729, he went for two
whole years, during which Caroline reigned for him in England, and he was
not in the least missed by his British subjects. He went again in '35 and
'36; and between the years 1740 and 1755 was no less than eight times on
the Continent, which amusement he was obliged to give up at the outbreak
of the Seven Years' War. Here every day's amusement was the same. "Our
life is as uniform as that of a monastery," writes a courtier whom Vehse
quotes. "Every morning at eleven, and every evening at six, we drive in
the heat to Herrenhausen, through an enormous linden avenue; and twice a
day cover our coats and coaches with dust. In the king's society there
never is the least change. At table, and at cards, he sees always the same
faces, and at the end of the game retires into his chamber. Twice a week
there is a French theatre; the other days there is play in the gallery. In
this way, were the king always to stop in Hanover, one could make a ten
years' calendar of his proceedings; and settle beforehand what his time of
business, meals, and pleasure would be."

The old pagan kept his promise to his dying wife. Lady Yarmouth was now in
full favour, and treated with profound respect by the Hanover society,
though it appears rather neglected in England when she came among us. In
1740, a couple of the king's daughters went to see him at Hanover; Anna,
the Princess of Orange (about whom, and whose husband and marriage-day,
Walpole and Hervey have left us the most ludicrous des