The Queen’s morning toilet was generally made by her the occasion of an informal levée, and to it she would command all those whom she wished to see on any subject. While her head was being tired a group would be standing around her, and in the ante-chamber divines rubbed shoulders with poets, and learned men with politicians and court ladies. On the Queen’s toilet table would be found not only the requisites for dressing but a heap of other things--a sermon, a new book, a poem in her praise, a report as to her gardens and building plans, a pile of letters on every conceivable subject, and the memorandum of a minister. All these she would deal with quickly and characteristically. She would also on these occasions have retailed to her the latest news, or engage a philosopher and a divine in a dispute upon some abstract question, and would put in a word in the interval of having her head tired and washing her hands. Prayers would be read to her in an adjoining room while she was dressing, in order to save time. The door was left a little ajar so that the chaplain’s voice might be heard. The bedchamber-woman was one day commanded to bid the chaplain, Dr. Maddox, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, to begin his prayers, but seeing a picture of a naked Venus over the fald-stool, the divine made bold to remark: “And a very proper altar piece is here, madam!” On another occasion the Queen ordered the door to be closed for a minute, and then, not hearing the chaplain’s voice, she sent to know why he was not going on with his prayers. The indignant clergyman replied that he refused to whistle the word of God through the keyhole. This latter anecdote is sometimes told of Queen Anne, though, as she was always very devout in her religious observances, it is far more likely to be true of Queen Caroline. It is borne out by the following passage, which occurs in “a dramatic trifle” which Lord Hervey wrote to amuse the Queen, entitled _The Death of Lord Hervey or a Morning at Court_. The scene is laid in the Queen’s dressing-room. “The Queen is discovered at her toilet cleaning her teeth, with Mrs. Purcell dressing her Majesty’s head, and the princesses, and ladies and women of the bedchamber standing around her. The Litany is being said in the next room”:-- _First Parson_ (_behind the scenes_): “From pride, vain glory and hypocrisy, from envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness”. _Second Parson_: “Good Lord deliver us!” _Queen_: “I pray, my good Lady Sundon, shut a little that door; those creatures pray so loud, one cannot hear oneself speak.” [_Lady Sundon goes to shut the door._] “So, so, not quite so much; leave it enough open for those parsons to think we may hear, and enough shut that we may not hear quite so much.”