We have, however, in these pages only to deal with history in its old and, we suppose, its everlasting fashion--that of telling what happened in the way of actual fact, telling the story of the time. The English public took the death of George the First with becoming composure; the vast majority of the people never troubled their heads about it. It gave a flutter of hope to Spain; it set the councils of the Stuart party in eager commotion for a while; but it made no change in England. "George the First was always reckoned Vile; still viler George the Second." These are the lines in which Walter Savage Landor sums up the character of the first and second George before passing on to picture in little the characters of the third and fourth of the name. Landor was not wrong when he described George the Second as, on the whole, rather worse than George the First. George the Second was born at Hanover on October {274} 30, 1683, and was therefore in his forty-fourth year when he succeeded to the throne. He had still less natural capacity than his father. He was parsimonious; he was avaricious; he was easily put out of temper. His instincts, feelings, passions were all purely selfish. He had hot hatreds and but cool friendships. Personal courage was, perhaps, the only quality becoming a sovereign which George the Second possessed. He had served as a volunteer under Marlborough in 1708, and at the battle of Oudenarde he had headed a charge of his Hanoverian dragoons with a bravery worthy of a prince. He is to serve later on at Dettingen, and to be in all probability the last English sovereign who commanded in person on the battlefield. His education was not even so good as that of his father, and he had an utter contempt for literature. He had little religious feeling, but is said to have had a firm belief in the existence of vampires. He was fond of business--devoted to the small ways of routine. He took a great interest in military matters and all that concerned the arrangements and affairs of an army. Like his father he found abiding pleasure in the society of a little group of more or less attractive mistresses. [Sidenote: 1727--Incredulity of the Prince of Wales]