t occurred. "Some
hundreds of miners from the mountains came to serenade their king. They
are a particular race of Saxon origin, and for centuries have preserved
their customs, language, and manners. Their countenance is interesting;
I saw five or six in a room. They have a resigned silent melancholy,
arising, I believe, from being so much underground; they are very
religious. They sang with a band of music, two of the most beautiful
hymns I ever heard. These miners had walked thirty miles for the
purpose of paying their devotion to their sovereign."[74]

[74] Knighton's "Memoirs," p. 114.

A tournament was got up for his entertainment at Goettingen, which is
described as having been beautiful and magnificent. At this famous
university an address was presented by the authorities, that affected
the King to tears. He had felt warmly the loyal affection his
continental subjects had so earnestly displayed; and of the visits he
had paid to different portions of his dominions, he appears to have
enjoyed this the most thoroughly. His return journey was rendered
gratifying by the fine weather with which it was accompanied, and the
beautiful scenery through which he passed. Everything seemed to favour
him, and he reached England without being sensibly affected by the
fatigue, and with his general health very much improved.

The impression his Majesty made was not always favourable. "I cannot
help suspecting," observes an intelligent cotemporary "that his
Majesty's late journeys to see his kingdoms of Ireland and Hanover will
not on the whole redound much to his honour or advantage. His manners
no doubt are, when he pleases, very graceful and captivating. No man
knows better how to add to an obligation by the way of conferring it.
But on the whole he wants dignity, not only in the seclusion and
familiarity of his more private life, but on public occasions. The
secret of popularity in very high stations seems to consist in a
somewhat reserved and lofty, but courteous and uniform behaviour.
Drinking toasts, shaking people by the hand, and calling them Jack and
Tom, gets more applause at the moment, but fails entirely in the long
run. He seems to have behaved not like a sovereign coming in pomp and
state to visit a part of his dominions, but like a popular candidate
come down upon an electioneering trip. If the day before he left
Ireland he had stood for Dublin, he would, I dare say, have turned out
Shaw or Grattan. Henry I