imes has. She must have had awful private trials of her
own: not merely with her children, but with her husband, in those long
days about which nobody will ever know anything now; when he was not quite
insane; when his incessant tongue was babbling folly, rage, persecution;
and she had to smile and be respectful and attentive under this
intolerable ennui. The queen bore all her duties stoutly, as she expected
others to bear them. At a state christening, the lady who held the infant
was tired and looked unwell, and the Princess of Wales asked permission
for her to sit down. "Let her stand," said the queen, flicking the snuff
off her sleeve. _She_ would have stood, the resolute old woman, if she had
had to hold the child till his beard was grown. "I am seventy years of
age," the queen said, facing a mob of ruffians who stopped her sedan: "I
have been fifty years Queen of England, and I never was insulted before."
Fearless, rigid, unforgiving little queen! I don't wonder that her sons
revolted from her.

Of all the figures in that large family group which surrounds George and
his queen, the prettiest, I think, is the father's darling, the Princess
Amelia, pathetic for her beauty, her sweetness, her early death, and for
the extreme passionate tenderness with which her father loved her. This
was his favourite amongst all the children: of his sons, he loved the Duke
of York best. Burney tells a sad story of the poor old man at Weymouth,
and how eager he was to have this darling son with him. The king's house
was not big enough to hold the prince; and his father had a portable house
erected close to his own, and at huge pains, so that his dear Frederick
should be near him. He clung on his arm all the time of his visit: talked
to no one else; had talked of no one else for some time before. The
prince, so long expected, stayed but a single night. He had business in
London the next day, he said. The dullness of the old king's Court
stupefied York and the other big sons of George III. They scared equerries
and ladies, frightened the modest little circle, with their coarse spirits
and loud talk. Of little comfort, indeed, were the king's sons to the
king.

But the pretty Amelia was his darling; and the little maiden, prattling
and smiling in the fond arms of that old father, is a sweet image to look
on. There is a family picture in _Burney_, which a man must be very
hard-hearted not to like. She describes an after-dinner walk of th