ural aversion to the queen, an aversion which he
evinced early in life. There was a beautiful, giddy maid of honour, who
attracted not only the attention of Frederick, but the rival attentions
of other suitors, and among them, the most favoured was said to be Lord
Hervey, notwithstanding that he had then been for some years the husband
of one of the loveliest ornaments of the court, the sensible and
virtuous Mary Lepel. Miss Vane became eventually the avowed favourite of
the prince, and after giving birth to a son, who was christened
Fitz-Frederick Vane, and who died in 1736, his unhappy mother died a few
months afterwards. It is melancholy to read a letter from Lady Hervey to
Mrs. Howard, portraying the frolic and levity of this once joyous
creature, among the other maids of honour; and her strictures show at
once the unrefined nature of the pranks in which they indulged, and her
once sobriety of demeanour.

She speaks, on one occasion, in which, however, Miss Vane did not share
the nocturnal diversion, of some of the maids of honour being out in the
winter all night in the gardens at Kensington--opening and rattling the
windows, and trying to frighten people out of their wits; and she gives
Mrs. Howard a hint that the queen ought to be informed of the way in
which her young attendants amused themselves. After levities such as
these, it is not surprising to find poor Miss Vane writing to Mrs.
Howard, with complaints that she was unjustly aspersed, and referring to
her relatives, Lady Betty Nightingale and Lady Hewet, in testimony of
the falsehood of reports which, unhappily, the event verified.

The prince, however, never forgave Lord Hervey for being his rival with
Miss Vane, nor his mother for her favours to Lord Hervey. In vain did
the queen endeavour to reconcile Fritz, as she called him, to his
father;--nothing could be done in a case where the one was all dogged
selfishness; and where the other, the idol of the opposition party, as
the prince had ever been, so _legere de tete_ as to swallow all the
adulation offered to him, and to believe himself a demigod. 'The queen's
dread of a rival,' Horace Walpole remarks, 'was a feminine weakness: the
behaviour of her eldest son was a real thorn.' Some time before his
marriage to a princess who was supposed to augment his hatred of his
mother, Frederick of Wales had contemplated an act of disobedience. Soon
after his arrival in England, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, heari