The fact that such a revel as this could take place under princely patronage shows the grossness of the age in general and Hanover in particular. But a good deal of the coarseness at the Hanoverian Court was due to the fact that it was, at this time, reigned over by mistresses who had not the saving grace of refinement. The Electress Sophia was old, and her taste for court entertainments had dulled, and even if it had not, the Elector was too jealous to permit her to take the lead. His daughter, Sophie Dorothea, was too young to have any influence. The advent of the Electoral Princess supplied the elements that were lacking, beauty and grace, and a sense of personal dignity and virtue. [Illustration: GEORGE II. AND QUEEN CAROLINE AT THE TIME OF THEIR MARRIAGE.] Caroline was in every way fitted to queen it over a much larger court than Hanover. Like her adopted mother, the Queen of Prussia, Caroline’s intellect was lofty, and she scorned as “paltry” many of the things in which the princesses of her time were most interested. The minutiæ of court etiquette, scandal, dress, needlework and display did not appeal to her; some of these things were all very well as means to an end, but with Caroline emphatically they were not the end. Her natural inclination was all towards serious things; politics and the love of power were with her a passion. She had little opportunity of indulging her taste in this respect at Hanover, for the Elector gave no woman a chance of meddling in politics at his court, and her husband, the Electoral Prince, professed to be of the same mind. So Caroline had for years to conceal the qualities which later made her a stateswoman, and the consummate skill with which she did so proved her to be an actress and diplomatist of no mean order. She had more liberty to follow her literary and philosophical bent, for both the Elector and his son hated books, were indifferent to religion, and treated philosophers and their theories with open contempt; these questions were all very well for women and bookmen, but they could not be expected to occupy their lofty minds with such trifles. Caroline, therefore, and the Electress Sophia, who was even more learned than her daughter-in-law, were able to indulge their tastes in this respect with comparative freedom, and they enjoyed many hours discussing philosophy with Leibniz or arguing on religious questions with learned divines. They kept themselves well abreast of the intellectual thought of the time, and even tried in some small way to hold reunions at Herrenhausen, after the model of those at Charlottenburg, but in this Caroline had to exercise a good deal of discretion, for her husband, like the Elector, though grossly illiterate, was jealous lest his wife’s learning should seem to be superior to his own. Much of Caroline’s reading had to be done in secret, and the discussions in which she delighted were carried on in the privacy of the Electress Sophia’s apartments.