queen Anne's time there was much noise about French prophets. A female of that vocation (for we know from Scripture that the gift of prophecy is not limited to one gender) warned George the first to take care of his wife, as he would not survive her a year. That oracle was probably dictated to the French Deborah by the duke and duchess of Zell, who might be apprehensive lest the duchess of Kendal should be tempted to remove entirely the obstacle to her conscientious union with their sonin-law. Most Germans are superstitious, even such as have few other impressions of religion. George gave such credit to the denunciation, that on the eve of his last departure he took leave of his son and the princess of Wales with tears, telling them he should never see them more. It was certainly his own approaching fate that melted him, not the thought of quitting for ever two persons he hated. He did sometimes so much justice to his son as to say, "Il est fougueux, mais il a de l'honneur."— For queen Caroline, to his confidents he termed her cette diablesse madame la princesse.

I do not know whether it was about the same period, that in a tender mood he promised the duchess of Kendal, that if she survived him, and it were possible for the departed to return to this world, he would make her a visit. The duchess on his death so much expected the accomplishment of that engagement, that a large raven, or some black fowl, flying into one of the windows of her villa at Isleworth, she was persuaded it was the soul of her departed monarch so accoutred, and received and treated it with all the respect and

tenderness of duty, till the royal bird or she took their last flight.

George II., no more addicted than his father to too much religious credulity, had yet implicit faith in the German notion of vampires, and has more than once been angry with my father for speaking irreverently of those imaginary bloodsuckers.

The duchess of Kendal, of whom I have said so much, was, when mademoiselle Schulemberg, maid of honour to the electress Sophia, mother of king George I., and destined by king William and the act of settlement to succeed queen Anne. George fell in love with mademoiselle Schulemberg, though by no means an inviting object-so little, that one evening when she was in waiting behind the electress's chair at a ball, the princess Sophia, who had made herself mistress of the language of her future subjects, said in English to Mrs. Howard (afterwards countess of Suffolk), then at her court, "Look at that mawkin, and think of her being my son's passion!" Mrs. Howard, who told me the story, protested she was terrified, forgetting that mademoiselle Schulemberg did not understand English.

The younger mademoiselle Schulemberg, who came over with her and was created countess of Walsingham, passed for her niece; but was so like to the king, that it is not very credible that the duchess, who had affected to pass for cruel, had waited for the left-handed marriage.

The duchess, under whatever denomination, had attained and preserved to the last her ascendant over the king but notwithstanding that influence,

:

he was not more constant to her than he had been to his avowed wife; for another acknowledged mistress, whom he also brought over, was madam Kilmansegge, countess of Platen, who was created countess of Darlington, and by whom he was indisputably father of Charlotte, married to lord viscount Howe, and mother of the present earl. Lady Howe was never publicly acknowledged as the king's daughter; but princess Amelia treated her daughter Mrs. Howe* upon that foot, and one evening when I was present, gave her a ring with a small portrait of George I. with a crown of diamonds.

Lady Darlington, whom I saw at my mother's in my infancy, and whom I remember by being terrified at her enormous figure, was as corpulent and ample as the duchess was long and emaciated. Two fierce black eyes, large and rolling beneath two lofty arched eye-brows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of neck that overflowed and was not distinguished from the lower part of her body, and no part restrained by stays-no wonder that a child dreaded such an ogress, and that the mob of London were highly diverted at the importation of so uncommon a seraglio! They were food for all the venom of the Jacobites; and indeed nothing could be grosser than the ribaldry that was vomited out in lampoons, libels, and every channel of abuse, against the sovereign and the new court, and chanted even in their hearing about the public streets.†

• Caroline, the eldest of lady Howe's children, had married a gentleman of her own name, John Howe, esq. of Hanslop, in the county of Bucks.

One of the German ladies being abused by the mob, was said to have put her head out of the coach, and cried

On the other hand, it was not till the last year or two of his reign that their foreign sovereign paid the nation the compliment of taking openly an English mistress. That personage was Anne Brett, eldest daughter by her second husband of the repudiated wife of the earl of Macclesfield, the unna tural mother of Savage the poet. Miss Brett was very handsome, but dark enough by her eyes, complexion, and hair, for a Spanish beauty. Abishag was lodged in the palace under the eyes of Bathsheba, who seemed to maintain her power, as other favourite sultanas have done, by suffering partners in the sovereign's affections. When his majesty should return to England, a countess's coronet was to have rewarded the young lady's compliance, and marked her secondary rank. She might, however, have proved a troublesome rival, as she seemed so confident of the power of her charms, that, whatever predominant ascendant the duchess might retain, her own authority in the palace she thought was to yield to no one else. George the first, when his son the prince of Wales and the princess had quitted St. James's on their quarrel with him, had kept back their three eldest daughters, who lived with him to his death, even after there had out, wardly been a reconciliation between the king and prince. Miss Brett, when the king set out, ordered

in bad English, "Good people, why you abuse us? We come for all your goods." "Yes, damn ye," answered a fellow in the crowd, "and for all our chattels too." I mention this, because on the death of princess Amelia, the newspapers revived the story and told it of her, though I had heard it three-score years before of one of her grandfather's mistresses.

a door to be broken out of her apartment into the royal garden. Anne, the eldest of the princesses, offended at that freedom, and not choosing such a companion in her walks, ordered the door to be walled up again. Miss Brett as imperiously reversed that command. The king died suddenly, and the empire of the new mistress and her promised coronet vanished. She afterwards married sir William Leman, and was forgotten before her reign had transpired beyond the confines of Westminster!

CHAPTER III.

ONE of the most remarkable occurrences in the reign of George the first was the open quarrel between him and his son the prince of Wales. Whence the dissension originated; whether the prince's attachment to his mother embittered his mind against his father, or whether hatred of his father occasioned his devotion to her, I do not pretend to know. I do suspect from circumstances, that the hereditary enmity in the house of Brunswic between the parents and their eldest sons dated earlier than the divisions between the first two Georges. The princess Sophia was a woman of parts and great vivacity: in the earlier part of her life she had professed much zeal for the deposed house of Stuart, as appeared by a letter of her's in print, addressed, I think, to the chevalier de St. George. It is natural enough for all princes, who have no prospect of being benefited by the deposition of a crowned head, to choose to think roy.

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