seems,
to speak to her of her son and of the duty of reconciliation; whether
she ever sent the prince any message or not is uncertain; Lord Hervey is
silent on that point, so that it is to be feared that Lord
Chesterfield's line--

'And, unforgiving, unforgiven, dies!'

had but too sure a foundation in fact; so that Pope's sarcastic verses--

'Hang the sad verse on Carolina's urn,
And hail her passage to the realms of rest;
All _parts performed_ and _all_ her children blest,'

may have been but too just, though cruelly bitter. The queen lingered
till the 20th of November. During that interval of agony her consort was
perpetually boasting to every one of her virtues, her sense, her
patience, her softness, her delicacy; and ending with the praise,
'_Comme elle soutenoit sa dignite avec grace, avec politesse, avec
douceur!_' Nevertheless he scarcely ever went into her room. Lord Hervey
states that he did, even in this moving situation, _snub_ her for
something or other she did or said. One morning, as she lay with her
eyes fixed on a point in the air, as people sometimes do when they want
to keep their thoughts from wandering, the king coarsely told her 'she
looked like a calf which had just had its throat cut.' He expected her
to die in state. Then, with all his bursts of tenderness he always
mingled his own praises, hinting that though she was a good wife he knew
he had deserved a good one, and remarking, when he extolled her
understanding, that he did not 'think it the worse for her having kept
him company so many years.' To all this Lord Hervey listened with,
doubtless, well-concealed disgust; for cabals were even then forming for
the future influence that might or might not be obtained.

The queen's life, meantime, was softly ebbing away in this atmosphere of
selfishness, brutality, and unbelief. One evening she asked Dr. Tessier
impatiently how long her state might continue.

'Your Majesty,' was the reply, 'will soon be released.'

'So much the better,' the queen calmly answered.

At ten o'clock that night, whilst the king lay at the foot of her bed,
on the floor, and the Princess Emily on a couch-bed in the room, the
fearful death-rattle in the throat was heard. Mrs. Purcell, her chief
and old attendant, gave the alarm: the Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey
were sent for; but the princess was too late, her mother had expired
before she arrived. All the dying queen said was, 'I have now go