usen was not yet known to Queen Sophie, to her
Father George, or to any external creature: but that open flinching, and
gradual withdrawal, from the Treaty of Hanover was too well known; and
boded no good to her pet project. Female sighs, male obduracies, and
other domestic phenomena, are to be imagined in consequence. "A grand
Britannic Majesty indeed; very lofty Father to us, Madam, ever since he
came to be King of England: Stalking along there, with his nose in the
air; not deigning the least notice of us, except as of a thing that
may be got to fight for him! And he does not sign the Double-Marriage
Treaty, Madam; only talks of signing it,--as if we were a starved
coach-horse, to be quickened along by a wisp of hay put upon the
coach-pole close ahead of us always!"--"JARNI-BLEU!" snuffles Seckendorf
with a virtuous zeal, or looks it; and things are not pleasant at the
royal dinner-table.

Excellenz Seckendorf, we find at this time, "often has his Majesty
to dinner:" and such dinners; fitting one's tastes in all points,--no
expense regarded (which indeed is the Kaiser's, if we knew it)! And in
return, Excellenz is frequently at dinner with his Majesty; where the
conversation; if it turn on England, which often happens, is more
and more an offence to Queen Sophie. Seckendorf studies to be polite,
reserved before the Queen's Majesty at her own table; yet sometimes he
lisps out, in his vile snuffling tone, half-insinuations, remarks on our
Royal Kindred, which are irritating in the extreme. Queen Sophie, the
politest of women, did once, says Pollnitz, on some excessive pressure
of that lisping snuffling unendurability, lose her royal patience
and flame out. With human frankness, and uncommonly kindled eyes,
she signified to Seckendorf, That none who was not himself a kind of
scoundrel could entertain such thoughts of Kings and gentlemen! Which
hard saying kindled the stiff-backed rheumatic soul of Seckendorf
(Excellenz had withal a temper in him, far down in the deeps); who
answered: "Your Majesty, that is what no one else thinks of me. That
is a name I have never permitted any one to give me with impunity." And
verily, he kept his threat in that latter point, says Pollnitz. [ii.
244.]

At this stage, it is becoming, in the nature of things, unlikely that
the projected Double-Marriage, or any union with England, can ever
realize itself for Queen Sophie and her House. The Kaiser has decreed
that it never shall. Here is