THE PRINCE ASSERTS HIMSELF. The Court life of the reign of George the Second was far from being gay; it was very different from what his life had been during the reign of his father when he was Prince of Wales. About the time of the Vane scandal Lord Hervey writes to his friend Mrs. Clayton and complains of the dulness of the routine. “I will not trouble you,” he says, “with any account of our occupations at Hampton Court. No mill horse ever went in a more constant track, or a more unchanging circle, so that by the assistance of an almanac for the day of the week, and a watch for the hour of the day, you may inform yourself fully, without any other intelligence but your memory, of every transaction within the verge of the Court. Walking, chaises, levees, and audiences fill the morning; at night the King plays commerce and backgammon, and the Queen at quadrille, where poor Lady Charlotte (de Roussie) runs her usual nightly gauntlet--the Queen pulling her hood, Mr. Schütz sputtering in her face, and the Princess Royal rapping her knuckles, all at a time. It was in vain she fled from persecution for her religion; she suffers for her pride what she escaped for her faith, undergoes in a drawing-room what she dreaded from the Inquisition, and will die a martyr to a Court though not to a Church. The Duke of Grafton takes his nightly opiate of lottery and sleeps, as usual, between the Princesses Amelia and Caroline; Lord Grantham strolls from one room to another (as Dryden says) _like some discontented ghost that oft appears, and is forbid to speak_, and stirs himself about, as people stir a fire, not with any design, but in hopes to make it burn brisker, which his lordship constantly does to no purpose, and yet tries as constantly as if he had ever once succeeded. “At last the King comes up, the pool finishes, and everybody has their dismission; their Majesties retire to Lady Charlotte and my Lord Lifford; the Princesses to Bilderbec and Lorry; my Lord Grantham to Lady Francis and Mr. Clark; some to supper, and some to bed, and thus (to speak in the Scripture phrase) the evening and the morning make the day.” Things had been very different in the former days referred to. Mrs. Howard, the King’s mistress, to whom reference has been made, was a shining light at that time. She had been complacently made Woman of the Bedchamber by Queen Caroline, with a view apparently to please the King, and keep her about the palace; but she must have been a woman of great tact as she seems to have got on very well with the Queen, except that at one time there was some little difficulty about getting her to kneel down and hold the Queen’s basin while she washed her hands, which under the circumstances is not to be wondered at.