_A propos_ of this visit of King George to Hanover--the first since his accession to the English throne two years before--Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu writes:-- “This town is neither large nor handsome, but the palace capable of holding a greater Court than that of St. James’s. The King has had the kindness to appoint us a lodging in one part, without which we should be very ill-accommodated, for the vast number of English crowds the town so much it is very good luck to get one sorry room in a miserable tavern.... The King’s company of French comedians play here every night; they are very well dressed, and some of them not ill actors. His Majesty dines and sups constantly in public. The Court is very numerous, and its affability and goodness make it one of the most agreeable places in the world.”[9] Lady Mary writes again to another friend: “I have now got into the region of beauty. All the women have literally rosy cheeks, snowy foreheads and bosoms; jet eyebrows and scarlet lips, to which they generally add coal black hair. These perfections never leave them until the hour of their deaths, and have a very fine effect by candlelight. But I could wish them handsome with a little more variety. They resemble one of the beauties of Mrs. Salmon’s Court of Great Britain,[10] and are in as much danger of melting away by approaching too close to the fire, which they for that reason, carefully avoid, though it is now such excessive cold weather that I believe they suffer extremely by that piece of self-denial.” This bit of satire apparently was directed at the Hanoverian ladies’ excessive fat. But Lady Mary was charmed with Herrenhausen. “I was very sorry,” she writes, “that the ill weather did not permit me to see Herrenhausen in all its beauty, but in spite of the snow I think the gardens very fine. I was particularly surprised at the vast number of orange trees, much larger than any I have ever seen in England, though this climate is certainly colder.”[11] It appears from the account in Mr. Wilkins’ “Caroline the Illustrious,” that King George enjoyed himself immensely during this 1716 visit to Hanover, and that he found much pleasure in the society of the beautiful but unscrupulous Countess Platen, from whom he had been separated for two years. Lady Mary Montagu herself, too, was not without favour in His Majesty’s eyes. The King-Elector, however, had also brought with him the remainder of the harem, viz., Schulemburg and Kielmansegge, with the two Turks presumably to look after them. Yet with all this trouble around him King George found life pleasurable. In the above account Lord Peterborough, who was in his suite, is represented as remarking of him that “he believed he had forgotten the accident which happened to him and his family on the 1st August, 1714.”