{79} In this track of happiness for many years, without one interruption to it, except now and then when the wind continued to blow due west for a week or ten days together, which detained the Flanders mail, and kept them so long in torture, but still it was the torture of the happy:--in this track, I say, did my uncle Toby and Trim move for many years, every year of which, and sometimes every month, from the invention of either the one or the other of them, adding some new conceit or quirk of improvement to their operations, which always opened fresh springs of delight in carrying them on. (_Tristram Shandy_.) HORACE WALPOLE 1717-1797 THE FUNERAL OF GEORGE II _Horace Walpole to George Montagu_ ARLINGTON STREET, _November_ 13, 1760. Even the honeymoon of a new reign don't produce events every day. There is nothing but the common saying of addresses and kissing hands. . . For the King himself, he seems all good nature, and wishing to satisfy everybody; all his speeches are obliging. I saw him again yesterday, and was surprised to find the levee-room had lost so entirely the air of the lion's den. This sovereign don't stand in one spot, with his eyes fixed royally on the ground, and dropping bits of {80} German news: he walks about, and speaks to everybody. I saw him afterwards on the throne where he is graceful and genteel, sits with dignity and reads his answers to addresses well; it was the Cambridge address, carried by the Duke of Newcastle in his doctor's gown, and looking like the _Medecin malgre lui_. He had been vehemently solicitous for attendance for fear my Lord Westmoreland, who vouchsafes himself to bring the address from Oxford, should outnumber him. Lord Litchfield and several other Jacobites have kissed hands; George Selwyn says, "They go to St James', because _now_ there are so many Stuarts there." Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the burying t'other night; I had never seen a royal funeral; nay, I walked as a rag of quality, which I found would be, and so it was, the easiest way of seeing it. It is absolutely a noble sight. The Prince's chamber, hung with purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin under a canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers of silver on high stands, had a very good effect. The ambassador from Tripoli and his son were carried to see that chamber.