Making a butt of a dependent seems no princely pastime; but this lady has worse to tell us of the “First Gentleman in Europe’s” amusements at the age of sixteen. “Much do I lament to add that some of those about the young princes swerved from principle, and introduced improper company when their Majesties supposed them to be at rest, and after the divines had closed their day with prayer.” The first open scandal about the Prince was his intrigue with the unfortunate “Perdita” Robinson, who turned many a head beside his by her acting in _The Winter’s Tale_. We know very little about that episode except what the lady thinks fit to tell us in her Memoirs. The boy lover, not yet eighteen, was so closely kept at Kew that for some time he had to content himself with ardent letters. At length an interview was arranged under circumstances which suggest that the tutorial turnkeys must have been in the way of nodding over their port. Lord Malden, who played Leporello in this amour, brought Perdita to an inn on the island between Kew and Brentford, to await the signal that should invite them to cross. The handkerchief was waved on the opposite shore; but the signal was, by the dusk of the evening, rendered almost imperceptible. Lord Malden took my hand, I stepped into the boat, and in a few minutes we landed before the iron gates of old Kew Palace. The interview was but of a moment. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York (then Bishop of Osnaburg) were walking down the avenue. A few words, and those scarcely articulate, were uttered by the Prince, when a noise of people approaching from the palace startled us. The moon was now rising; and the idea of being overheard, or of his Royal Highness being seen out at so unusual an hour, terrified the whole group. After a few more words of a most affectionate nature uttered by the Prince, we parted, and Lord Malden and myself returned to the island. The Prince never quitted the avenue, nor the presence of the Duke of York, during the whole of this short meeting. Alas! my friend, if my mind was before influenced by esteem, it was now awakened to the most enthusiastic admiration. The rank of the Prince no longer chilled into awe that being who now considered him as the lover and the friend. The graces of his person, the irresistible sweetness of his smile, the tenderness of his melodious yet manly voice, will be remembered by me till every vision of this changing scene shall be forgotten. [Illustration: LOOKING UP THE THAMES]