The days passed in a prolonged round of gaiety, which reads almost like a fairy tale, and Caroline was the centre and the soul of the festive scene. It was the finest summer England had known for years, and the Court spent much time in the open air. Often on the bright August mornings the Prince and Princess would “take the air upon the river” in barges richly carved and gilt, hung with curtains of crimson silk, and wreathed with flowers. They were rowed by watermen clad in the picturesque royal liveries, and were accompanied by young noblemen about the Court, and a bevy of ladies and maids of honour. So they drifted away the golden hours with flow of laughter, and lively talk, an epigram of Pope’s or a pun of Chesterfield’s enlivening the conversation. Or the oars would be stilled for a while, and they would float idly down the stream to the music of the Prince’s string band. Sometimes they would tarry under the trees, while the lords and ladies sang a glee, or pretty Mary Bellenden obeyed the Princess’s commands and favoured the company with a ballad, or my Lords Hervey and Bath recited some lines they had composed overnight in praise of the Princess, or her ladies. Every day the Prince and Princess dined in public, that is, in the presence of the whole Court; the royal plate was produced for the occasion, and the banquet served with a splendour which rivalled the far-famed Versailles. Dinner was prolonged well into the afternoon, for dinner was a serious matter in the eighteenth century in England, and the Hanoverian love of eating and drinking had tended to make it a heavier meal still. When dinner was over the Prince would undress and retire to bed for an hour or two, according to German custom; but the Princess, after a brief rest, arose to receive company, and to gather all the information she could from the men of all ranks whom she received. Her reception over, she would retire to write letters, for she kept up a brisk correspondence with many, and especially with that indefatigable letter-writer, Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans, “Madame,” who since the death of the Electress Sophia had bestowed many letters upon Caroline. Their correspondence extended over a number of years, until Madame’s death in 1722. Madame was fond of dwelling on the past, and in her letters to Caroline she recalls much of the gossip of the Court of Louis the Fourteenth, and dwells upon the iniquities of her enemy, Madame de Maintenon, whom she invariably designates “the old toad”. Like Caroline, she was an exile from the fatherland, and condoles with her on the loss of favourite German dishes. “Sausages and ham suit my stomach best,” she writes. And on another occasion she reminds her, “There have been few queens of England who have led happy lives, nor have the kings of that country been particularly fortunate”. [Illustration: _A perspective View of the Pavilions belonging to the Bowling Green at the End of the Terras Walk at_ Hampton Court.