The king ordered a stone lodge, designed by Henry earl of Pembroke, to be erected for himself, but merely as a banquetting-house*, with a large eating-room, kitchen, and necessary offices, where he might dine after his sport. Sir Robert began another of brick for himself and the under-ranger, which by degrees he much enlarged, usually retiring thither from business, or rather, as he said himself, to do more business than he could in town, on Saturdays and Sundays. On that edifice, on the thatched house, and other improvements, he laid out fourteen thousand pounds of his own money. In the mean time, he hired a small house for himself on the hill without the park; and in that small tenement the king did him the honour of dining with him more than once after shooting. His majesty, fond of private + joviality, was pleased with punch after dinner, and indulged in it freely. The duchess, alarmed at the advantage the minister might make of the openness of the king's heart in those convivial unguarded hours, and at a crisis when she was conscious sir Robert was apprised of her inimical machinations in favour of Bolinbroke, enjoined the few Germans who accompanied the king at those dinners, to prevent his majesty from

*It was afterwards enlarged by princess Amelia, to whom her father George II. had granted the reversion of the rangership after lord Walpole, Her royal highness sold it to George III. for a pension on Ireland of 1200l. a-year, and his majesty appointed lord Bute ranger for life.

The king hated the parade of royalty. When he went to the opera, it was in no state, nor did he sit in the stage box, nor forwards, but behind the duchess of Kendal and lady Walsingham, in the second box, now allotted to the maids of honour.

drinking too freely. Her spies obeyed too punctually, and without any address. The king was offended, and silenced the tools by the coarsest epithets in the German language. He even before his departure ordered sir Robert to have the stonelodge finished against his return-no symptom of a falling minister, as has since been supposed sir Robert then was, and that lord Bolinbroke was to have replaced him, had the king lived to come back. But my presumption to the contrary is more strongly corroborated by what had recently passed. The duchess had actually prevailed on the king to see Bolinbroke secretly in his closet. That intriguing Proteus, aware that he might not obtain an audience long enough to efface former prejudices, and make sufficient impression on the king against sir Robert, and in his own favour, went provided with a long memorial, which he left in the closet, and begged his majesty to peruse coolly at his leisure. The king kept the paper-but no longer than till he saw sir Robert, to whom he delivered the poisoned remonstrance.-If that com munication prognosticated the minister's fall, I am at a loss to know what a mark of confidence is.

Nor was that discovery the first intimation that Walpole had received of the measure of Bolinbroke's gratitude. The minister, against the earnest representations of his family and most intimate friends, had consented to the recall of that incendiary from banishment *, excepting only his

* Bolinbroke at his return could not avoid waiting on sir Robert to thank him, and was invited to dine with him at Chelsea; but whether tortured at witnessing Walpole's serene frankness and felicity, or suffocated with indignation

re-admission into the house of lords, that every field of annoyance might not be open to his mischievous turbulence. Bolinbroke, it seems, deemed au embargo laid on his tongue would warrant his hand to launch every envenomed shaft against his benefactor, who by restricting had paid him the compliment of avowing that his eloquence was not totally inoffensive. Craftsmen, pamphlets, libels, combinations, were showered on or employed for years against the prime-minister, without shaking his power or ruffling his temper: and Bolinbroke had the mortification of finding his rival had abilities to maintain his influence against the* mistresses of two kings, with whom his antagonist had plotted in vain to overturn him.

and confusion at being forced to be obliged to one whom he hated and envied, the first morsel he put into his mouth was near choking him, and he was reduced to rise from table and leave the room for some minutes. I never heard of their meeting more.

George II. parted with lady Suffolk, on princess Amelia informing queen Caroline from Bath that the mistress had interviews there with lord Bolinbroke. Lady Suffolk, above twenty years after, protested to me that she had not once seen his lordship there; and I should believe she did not, for she was a woman of truth: but her great intimacy and connexion with Pope and Swift, the intimate friends of Bolinbroke, even before the death of George I. and her being the channel through whom that faction had flattered themselves they should gain the ear of the new king, can leave no doubt of lady Suffolk's support of that party. Her dearest friend to her death was William afterwards lord Chetwynd, the known and most trusted confident of lord Bolinbroke. Of those political intrigues I shall say more in these Reminiscences.

CHAPTER II.

GEORGE the first, while electoral prince, had married his cousin the princess Dorothea*, only child of the duke of Zell; a match of convenience to reunite the dominions of the family. Though she was very handsome, the prince, who was extremely amorous, had several mistresses; which provocation, and his absence in the army of the confederates, probably disposed the princess to indulge some degree of coquetry. At that moment arrived at Hanover the famous and beautiful count Konismark+, the charms of whose person ought not to have obliterated the memory of his vile assassination of Mr. Thynne. His vanity, the beauty of the electoral princess, and the neglect under which he found her, encouraged his presumption to make his addresses to her, not covertly; and she, though believed not to have transgressed her duty, did receive them too indiscreetly. The old elector flamed at the insolence of so stigmatized a pretender, and ordered him to quit his dominions the next day. The princess, surrounded by women too closely connected with her husband, and consequently ene

* Her names were Sophia Dorothea; but I call her by the latter, to distinguish her from the princess Sophia, her mother-in-law, on whom the crown of Great Britain was settled.

Konismark behaved with great intrepidity, and was wounded at a bull-feast in Spain. of the comtesse Danois, vol. ii. beautiful comtesse de Konismark, second, king of Poland.

See Letters from Spain He was brother of the mistress of Augustus the

mies of the lady they injured, was persuaded by them to suffer the count to kiss her hand before his abrupt departure; and he was actually introduced by them into her bed-chamber the next morning before she rose. From that moment he disappeared; nor was it known what became of him, till on the death of George I., on his son the new king's first journey to Hanover, some alterations in the palace being ordered by him, the body of Konismark was discovered under the floor of the electoral princess's dressing-room-the count having probably been strangled there the instant he left her, and his body secreted. The discovery was hushed up; George II. entrusted the secret to his wife queen Caroline, who told it to my father: but the king was too tender of the honour of his mother to utter it to his mistress; nor did lady Suffolk ever hear of it, till I informed her of it several years afterwards. The disappearance of the count made his murder suspected, and various reports of the discovery of his body have of late years been spread, but not with the authentic circumstances.

The second George loved his mother as much as he hated his father, and purposed, as was said, had the former survived, to have brought her over and declared her queen-dowager*. Lady Suffolk has

Lady Suffolk thought he rather would have made her regent of Hanover; and she also told me, that George I. had offered to live again with his wife, but she refused, unless her pardon were asked publicly. She said, what most affected her was the disgrace that would be brought on her children; and if she were only pardoned, that would not remove it. Lady Suffolk thought she was then divorced, though the divorce was never published; and that the old elector consented to his son's marrying the duchess