instilled into his nephew. [73] De Saintfoix: _Essais Histor. sur Paris_. [74] Doran: _History of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover_. [75] _Memoirs of George III_. CHAPTER III THE PRINCE COMES OF AGE "The boy is good for nothing but to read the Bible to his mother," George II said one day of his grandson; and he sought for measures that should emancipate the young man and tend to enlarge his knowledge of the world. His first attempt in this direction, made in 1755 when he was in Hanover, fluttered the dovecots of Leicester House, for the rumour flew that the King was about to propose a marriage between the Prince of Wales and a princess of the House of Brunswick. "Surely the King would not marry my son without acquainting me with it, so much as by letter," said the Princess Dowager. "If the King should settle the match without acquainting me, I should let him know how ill I take it, and I shall not fail to tell him fairly and plainly it is full early." The report proved to be not unfounded. At a German watering-place, George II had met the Duchess of Brunswick with her two daughters, and had been so charmed with the elder, Sophia,[76] that he declared if he had been twenty years younger he would have married her himself. [76] Princess Sophia Caroline Maria, elder daughter of the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who married the Margrave of Bayreuth in 1759. [Illustration: _From a portrait by T. Frye_ GEORGE III] When the King's wish became known to the Princess Dowager, she determined by every means in her power to thwart it, and as a first step told her son that his grandfather's only motive in proposing the marriage was to advance the interest of Hanover. "The suddenness of the measure, and the little time left for preventing it, at once unhinged all the circumspection and prudence of the Princess. From the death of the Prince, her object had been the government of her son; and her attention had answered. She had taught him great devotion, and she had taken care he should be taught nothing else. There was no reason to apprehend from his own genius that he would escape her, but bigoted, and young, and chaste, what empire might not a youthful bride (and the Princess of Brunswick was reckoned artful) assume over him? The Princess thought that prudence now would be most imprudent. She immediately instilled into her son the greatest aversion to the match: he protested against it."[77] Every artifice was employed by the Princess Dowager and Bute to prejudice the Prince of Wales against Princess Sophia, her personal attractions were depreciated, and she was represented as the last person in the world likely to render the married state acceptable, while on the other hand, "the charms, the mental qualifications, the superior endowments, and the fascinating manners of a princess of a house of Saxe-Gotha were the constant theme of panegyric, the diamond