found out many ways of amusing his leisure. He was a tolerable actor in
private theatricals, and was particularly successful in the part of
Lothario. A handsome leg, to which both painters and satirists took care
to give prominence, was among his chief qualifications for the stage. He
devised quaint dresses for masquerades. He dabbled in geometry,
mechanics, and botany. He paid some attention to antiquities and works
of art, and was considered in his own circle as a judge of painting,
architecture, and poetry. It is said that his spelling was incorrect.
But though, in our time, incorrect spelling is justly considered as a
proof of sordid ignorance, it would be unjust to apply the same rule to
people who lived a century ago. The novel of Sir Charles Grandison was
published about the time at which Lord Bute made his appearance at
Leicester House. Our readers may perhaps remember the account which
Charlotte Grandison gives of her two lovers. One of them, a fashionable
baronet who talks French and Italian fluently, cannot write a line in
his own language without some sin against orthography; the other, who is
represented as a most respectable specimen of the young aristocracy, and
something of a virtuoso, is described as spelling pretty well for a
lord. On the whole, the Earl of Bute might fairly be called a man of
cultivated mind. He was also a man of undoubted honor. But his
understanding was narrow, and his manners cold and haughty. His
qualifications for the part of a statesman were best described by
Frederic, who often indulged in the unprincely luxury of sneering at his
dependents. "Bute," said his Royal Highness, "you are the very man to be
envoy at some small proud German court where there is nothing to do."

Scandal represented the Groom of the Stole as the favored lover of the
Princess Dowager. He was undoubtedly her confidential friend. The
influence which the two united exercised over the mind of the King was
for a time unbounded. The Princess, a woman and a foreigner, was not
likely to be a judicious adviser about affairs of state. The Earl could
scarcely be said to have served even a novitiate in politics. His
notions of government had been acquired in the society which had been in
the habit of assembling round Frederic at Kew and Leicester House. That
society consisted principally of Tories, who had been reconciled to the
House of Hanover by the civility with which the Prince had treated them,
and by the hope