“As many persons as Greenwich would hold waited there for many days to see her Majesty arrive, and at last, after having been exposed to those storms, she landed in Suffolk, and, consequently, did not make her appearance on the Thames. The rooms at Greenwich let for half a guinea a day, and the poorest little casement brought in the owner a daily crown. I hope it has enriched many poor people. Of all the taxes ever levied in this kingdom, that which will be raised this year on folly will be by far the highest. I hear there is scaffolding enough erected against the coronation to hold two millions of people. Almost all the kingdom will be in London; and many, I suppose, will be reduced to scanty meals for a whole year to come, by the expenses on this occasion; and if the day should prove rainy, which the season of the year renders very probable, those who are not in Westminster Hall or the Abbey will see nothing; for there is an awning prepared, to be carried over the heads of those who walk in the procession, in case of rain. The finery of every one who intends to appear at court is beyond imagination. This kingdom, or perhaps any other, scarcely ever saw the like. “The queen’s clothes are so heavy that, by all accounts, if she be not very robust, she will not be able to move under the burden; but I hope her constitution is not very delicate, for she did not arrive in London till three o’clock; and, besides the fatigue of her journey, with the consequences of the flutter she could not avoid being in, she was to dress for her wedding, be married, have a Drawing-room, and undergo the ceremony of receiving company, after she and the king were in bed, and all the night after her journey and so long a voyage. Nothing but a German constitution could have undergone it.” ... Poor Queen Charlotte’s plainness was—as Northcote subsequently described it, in speaking of her portrait by Reynolds, namely—an elegant, and not a vulgar plainness. She had a beautifully shaped arm, and was fond of exhibiting it. “She had a fan in her hand,” said Northcote; “Lord! how she held that fan!” Of literary news this letter contains the following item: “... Doctor Young has written a poem on ‘Resignation,’ and dedicated it to Mrs. Boscawen. I have not seen it, but have heard it much praised, and am told he wrote it at the desire of my sister Montagu and Miss Carter, who requested it in a visit they made him on their road to Tunbridge, where my sister spent the summer.”