administration; the next was, to avoid the unpopularity of new taxes; and the third was, that military business might not throw his power into the hands of military men.

The Memoir then proceeds "to toss and gore" all the prominent public men in succession. It tells us that the Duke of Newcastle, who always talked as his master talked," echoed all the King's "big words," and expatiated for ever on regaining Italy for the Emperor, chastising Spain, and humbling the pride of France. Next comes the Duke of Grafton; of whom it is said, that loving to make his court as well as the Duke of Newcastle, he talked in the same strain, and for the same reason; but "could never make any great compliment to the King and Queen of embracing their opinions, as he never understood things enough to have one of his own." Next comes Lord Grantham. "He was a degree still lower, and had the gift of reasoning in so small a proportion, that his existence was barely distinguished from a vegetable." Then follows Lord Harrington. Of him it is said that," with all his seeming phlegm, he was as tenacious of an opinion, when his indolence suffered him to form one, as any man living. His parts were of the common run of mankind. He was well bred, a man of honour, and fortunate, loved pleasure, and was infinitely lazy.' The Queen once in speaking of him said, "There is a heavy insipid sloth about that man, that puts me out of all patience: he must have six hours to dress, six more to dine, six more for his intrigues, and six more to sleep; and there, for a minister, are the fourand-twenty admirably disposed of; and if, now and then, he borrows six of those hours, to do any thing relating to his office, it is for something that might be done in six minutes, and ought to have been done six days before."

We have then another instance of the discomforts of Royalty in those times. The day before the birthday, October 29, 1734, the court removed from Kensington to London, and the Queen, "who had long been out of order with a cough and a little lurking fever, notwithstanding she had been twice blooded, grew every hour worse and VOL. LXIV.-NO. CCCXCV.

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worse. However, the King forced her, the night she came from Kensingtonthe first of Farinelli's performancesto the Opera, and made her the next day go through all the tiresome ceremonies of drawing-rooms and balls, the fatigues of heats and crowds, and every other disagreeable appurtenance to the celebration of a birthday."

His lordship observes that "there was a strange affectation of an incapacity of being sick, that ran through the whole royal family. I have known the King to get out of his bed, choking with a sore throat, and in a high fever, only to dress and have a levee, and, in five minutes after it, undress and return to his bed, till the same ridiculous farce of health was to be presented the next day at the same hour. He used to make the Queen, in like circumstances, commit the same extravagances; but never with more danger than at this time. In the morning drawing-room, she found herself so near swooning, that she was forced to send Lord Grantham to the King, to beg he would retire, for that she was unable to stand any longer; notwithstanding which, at night, he brought her into a still greater crowd at the ball, and there kept her till eleven o'clock."

The recollections of those times constantly bring the name of Lady Suffolk before the eye. We have no wish to advert to the grossnesses connected with the name; but the waning of her power gave a singular pungency to opinion in the palace. The Princesses were peculiarly candid_upon the occasion. The Princess Emily "wished Lady Suffolk's disgrace, because she wished misfortune to most people. The Princess Caroline, because she thought it would please her mother. The Princess Royal was for having her crushed; and, when Lord Hervey made some remonstrance, she replied, that Lady Suffolk's conduct, with regard to politics, had been so impertinent, that she cannot be too ill used." It must seem strange to us that such topics should have been in the lips of any women, especially women of such rank-but they seem to have been discussed with the most perfect familiarity; and a name and conduct which ought to have been suppressed through mere delicacy, appear to have fur

nished the principal conversation of the court.

The next affair was the quarrel with the Princess of Orange, from her reluctance to return to Holland. As she was about to be confined, her husband was desirous that his child should be born in Holland. To this the Princess demurred. However, they at length contrived to send her on board, and she sailed from Harwich; but after she had been some time at sea, she either grew so ill, or pretended to be so ill, that she either was, or pretended to be, in convulsions: we give his lordship's rather ungallant surmise. On this, and the wind not being quite fair, she obliged the captain of the yacht to put back to Harwich. She then despatched a courier to London with letters, written, as it was supposed, by her own absolute command, from her physician, her accoucheur, and her nurse, to say that she was disordered with her expedition, and that she could not be stirred for ten days from her bed, nor put to sea again, without the hazard of her child's life and her own. The King and Queen declined giving any orders. The Prince of Orange was written to, and he desired that his wife might go by France to Holland. The King, hating the bustle of a new parting, directed that she should cross the country from Harwich to Dover; but his Majesty, after having been informed that the roads were impassable at this time of the year in a coach, (how strangely this sounds in our day of universal locomotion!) permitted her to come to London and go over the bridge; but it was a positive command that she should not lie in in London, nor even come to St James's. Accordingly, "after all her tricks and schemes, to avoid going to Holland, and to get back to London, she was obliged to comply with those orders; and had the mortification and disgrace to go, without seeing any of her family, over London Bridge to Dover."

A note conjectures, that the Princess Royal might have had some expectation of ascending the throne of England, neither of her brothers being then married; a circumstance, which may account for the Princess's anxiety to have her child born in this country.

The next scene is laid among the bishops. The bishopric of Winches

ter had been promised to Hoadly. Willis, the Bishop of Winchester, was seized with an apoplectic fit, and Lord Hervey instantly wrote to Hoadly, who was then Bishop of Salisbury, to come up to town and enforce his claim. The bishop wrote to the Queen and Sir Robert letters, which were to be delivered as soon as Willis was dead. The Queen, on presenting those letters, asked Lord Hervey if he did not blush for the conduct of his friend in this early and pressing application for a thing not yet vacant. While he was speaking, the King came in, and both King and Queen talked of Hoadly, in such a manner as plainly showed that they neither esteemed nor loved him. Potter, Bishop of Oxford, a great favourite of the Queen, strongly solicited Winchester, and would have obtained it, but for Walpole's suggestion, that the engagements to Hoadly could not be broken without scandal. Hoadly at last obtained Winchester; and, as the Memoir observes, one of the best preferments in the church was conferred upon a man hated by the King, disliked by the Queen, and long estranged from the friendship of Walpole. Then all followed in the way which might have been anticipated; the King not speaking a word to the new bishop, either when he kissed his hand or did homage; the Queen, when she found it could not be helped, making the most of promoting him, and Sir Robert taking the whole merit of the promotion to himself.

Another source of contention now arose. The Chancellor Talbot had recommended Rundle, a chaplain of his father, the late Bishop of Durham, for the see of Gloucester, which had been vacant a twelvemonth. Gibson, Bishop of London, objected to him, that fourteen or fifteen years before he had been heard to speak disrespectfully of some portions of Scripture, and Rundle was suspected of Arianism. This reason was certainly sufficient to justify inquiry.

Sir Robert, in his usual style, tried to mediate; begged of the Chancellor to give up his support of Rundle, offering him at the same time a deanery, or to give him the Bishopric of Derry in Ireland, then possessed by Henry Downes; of whom the Memoir speaks

Mrs Howard, had been bedchamber woman, and of course had performed this menialism! "We shall see byand-by," adds the note, "that the lady of the bedchamber, though a countess, presented the basin for the Queen's washing, on her knees."

If such things were done, we must own that it wholly exceeds our comprehension how they could be exacted on the one side, or submitted to on the other. We are sure that there is not a scullion in England who would stoop to hold a basin for her mistress's ablutions on her knees. Yet, however we may be surprised at the existence of such practices, it is impos sible to feel the slightest sympathy for the persons whom their salaries tempt to the sufferance.

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We have left ourselves but little room for the biography of Lord Hervey himself. He was born in 1696, the second son of the first Lord Bristol. He travelled; returned to solicit a commission; failed in his solicitation ; became, of course, a virtuous opponent of the court," and attached himself to the Prince and Princess, who held a sort of Opposition court at Richmond. Hervey, young, handsome, and polished, became a general favourite. He won the most accomplished woman of her time; married; and, in 1723, became Lord Hervey by the death of his elder brother, a man of ability, but of habits remarkably profligate.

On the death of George I., Hervey changed his politics; abandoned Pulteney; leveed Walpole; obtained a pension of £1000 a-year; received another gilded fetter, in the office of vicehamberlain, and became a courtier for life.

Whether to console himself for this showy slavery, or to indulge a natural taste for the sarcasm which is forbidden in the atmosphere of high life, he wrote the Memoirs, of which we have given a sketch. The prudence of his son, the third earl, kept them in secret. The marquis, nephew of that earl, probably regarding the time as past when they could provoke private resentment, has suffered them to emerge, and Mr Croker has edited them, for the benefit of the rising generation.

We say this in no favouritism for either the King or the Queen: the truth was probably told of both. Their foreign habits evidently clung to them; and the purer feelings of England, as evidently, had not the power to purify the practices of their foreign descent. But if Lord Hervey's mind was exercised in giving the secret life of courts to the world, we think that a much more contemptuous subject for the pencil might be found, in the man who, earning his daily bread by his courtiership, pretended to independence of opinion; who, listening to every expression of royalty with a bow, and receiving every command with the submission of a slave, threw off the sycophant only to assume the satirist, and revenged his sense of servitude only by privately registering the errors of those, the dust of whose shoes he licked for twelve hours in every twenty-four.

But we must hope that the Memoirs of Lord Hervey will be the last with which the national curiosity is to be stimulated. We must have no further ill-natured overflowing on the absurdities of high life. If this fashion shall invade the shelves and scrinia of noble families, there is probably not a household of the higher ranks which may not furnish its tribute. We shall be overrun with feeble gossiping and obsolete scandal. No rational purpose can be held in view by indulging the posthumous malice of a discontented slave. No manly curiosity can be gratified by breaking up the tomb, showing us only the decay so long hidden by its marbles and escutcheons from the eye.-Requiescat.

AMIDST a storm of applause the curtain fell. The applause continued, and the curtain rose once more; and the favourite actor, worn out with emotion and fatigue, reappeared to receive the homage which an enthusiastic multitude paid to his genius.

I saw a proud flush of triumph steal over his wan face, which lighted it for a moment with almost supernatural expression. As he passed behind the scenes, amidst the rustling dresses of the rouged and spangled crowd, I observed his face contracted by a pang, which struck me the more forcibly from its so quickly succeeding the look of triumph. He passed on to his room without uttering a word-there to disrobe himself of the kingly garments in which he had "strutted his brief hour on the stage ;" and in a little while again passed me (as I was hammering out compliments, in voluble but questionable German, to the pretty little ***) in his sobersuited black, and, stepping into his carriage, drove to the Behren Strasse.

I knew he was going there, as I had been earnestly pressed to meet him that very evening; so, collecting all my forces, I uttered the happiest thing my German would permit me, and accompanying it with my most killing glance, raised the tiny hand of *** to my lips and withdrew, perfectly charmed with her, and perfectly satisfied with myself.

There was a brilliant circle that night at Madame Röckel's. To use the received phrase, “all Berlin was there." I found Herr Schoenlein, the great actor, surrounded by admirers, more profuse than delicate in their adulation. He was pale; looked wearied. He seemed to heed that admiration so little—and yet, in truth, he needed it so much! Not a muscle moved-not a smile answered their compliments; he received them as if he had been a statue which a senseless crowd adored. Yet, fulsome as the compliments were, they were never too fulsome for his greed. He had the fever-thirst of praise upon him now

more than ever-now more than at any period of his long career, during which his heart had always throbbed at every sound of applause, did he crave more and more applause. That man, seemingly so indifferent, was sick at heart, and applause alone could cure him! Had he not applause enough? Did not all Germany acknowledge his greatness? Did not Berlin worship him? True; but that was not enough: he hungered for more.

I was taken up to him by Madame Röckel, and introduced as an "English admirer." Now, for the first time, he manifested some pleasure. It was not assuredly what I said-(for although, of course, I am always "mistaken for a German," so pure is my accent, so correct my diction !)—it was the fact of my being a foreigner -an Englishman-which made my praise so acceptable. I was a countryman of Shakspeare's, and, of course, a discerning critic of Shakspearian acting. We rapidly passed over the commonplace bridges of conversation, and were soon engaged in a discussion respecting the stage.

With nervous energy, and a sort of feverish irritability, he questioned me about our great actors-our Young, Kean, Kemble, and Macreadywhich gave me an opportunity for displaying that nice critical discrimination which my friends are kind enough to believe I possess-with what reason it is not for me to say.

When I told him that, on the whole, I was more gratified with the performances of Shakspeare in Germany, he turned upon me with sudden quickness and asked

"In what towns?"

"At Berlin and Dresden," I answered.

"You have seen Franz, then?"
"I have."

His lip quivered. I saw that I had made a mistake. I am not generally an ass-nay, I am believed to possess some little tact; but what demon could have possessed me to talk of an actor to an actor?