Surely poor Caroline must have fallen far, when she adopted as her constant companion, such a man as Lord Hervey. But whatever good there was in her--and there was much--seems to have been choked and hidden by her greed for Power, which even led her to pander to her little contemptible husband’s vices. Her conduct to her eldest son was without excuse, unless her separation of fourteen years from him can be regarded in that light; but it is much more likely that the arrival of the handsome boy, Prince William, had more to do with her forgetfulness. Unhappily, there is very little doubt that she died unreconciled to Frederick, and that moreover she desired no reconciliation. Had there been any such reconciliation, it would have been made public at the time when such verses as the following were floating about. Lord Chesterfield wrote an epitaph to the Queen in these words:-- “Here lies unpitied both by Church and State, The subject of their flattery and hate; Flattered by those on whom her favours flow’d, Hated for favours impiously bestow’d; Who aimed the Church by Churchmen to betray, And hoped to share in arbitrary sway. In Tindal’s and in Hoadley’s path she trod, An hypocrite in all but disbelief in God. Promoted Luxury, encouraged vice-- Herself a sordid slave to avarice. True friendship’s love ne’er touched her heart, Falsehood appeared in vice disguised by art Fawning and haughty; when familiar, rude And never civil, seem’d but to delude. Inquisitive in trifling, mean affairs, Heedless of public good or orphan’s tears. _To her own offspring mercy she denied_, And, unforgiving, unforgiven, died.” The above bitter lines, in exceedingly bad taste, are only valuable as regards the two last, which clearly state--and Lord Chesterfield was in a position to know--that she did not forgive her son at the last. Pope, too, who seems, like the majority, to have been on the side of the Prince, concludes another poem on the subject in the following ironical words: “Hang the sad verse on Carolina’s urn, And hail her passage to the realms of rest. All parts performed _and all her children blest_.” These are sage Sarah of Marlborough’s reflexions, none too charitable, on the Queen’s death: “1737. Our Bishops are now about to employ hands to write the finest character that ever was heard of--Queen Caroline; who, as it is no treason, I freely own that I am glad she is dead. For to get money, that has proved of no manner of use to her, and to support Sir Robert in all his arbitrary injustice, she brought this nation on the very brink of ruin, and has endangered the succession of her own family, by raising so high a dissatisfaction in the whole nation, as there is to them all, and by giving so much power to France, whenever they think fit to make use of it, who will have no mercy upon England.