A courtly chronicler and genealogist, writing at a period a little later, describes George the Second as in the height of glory, a just and merciful prince, but dryly adds, "He resembles his father in his too great attachment to the electoral dominions." So indeed he did. The whole policy of his reign was affected or controlled by his love for Hanover, or, at least, his love for his own interest in Hanover. He had no patriotic or unselfish attachment to the land of his ancestry and his birth; he was incapable of feeling any such exalted emotion. But the electoral dominions, which were his property, he clung to with ardor, and Hanover was the garden of the pleasures he enjoyed most highly. He never could understand English ways. He once scolded an English nobleman, the Duke of Grafton, for his delight in the hunting field. It was a {48} pretty occupation, the King said, for a man of the duke's years, and of his rank, to spend so much of his time in tormenting a poor fox, that was generally a much better beast than any of those that pursued him; for the fox hurts no other animal but for his subsistence, while the brutes who hurt the fox did it only for the pleasure they took in hurting. One might admire such a declaration if it could be thought to come from a too refined and sensitive humanity. An eccentric, but undoubtedly benevolent, member of the House of Commons declared, in a speech made in that House some years ago, that he only once joined in a hunt, and then it was only in the interest of the fox. George had no such feeling; he simply could not understand the tastes or the sports of English country life. [Sidenote: 1736--To Hanover at all hazards]