But when Caroline Matilda was dressed in the manner becoming her sex, _incessu patuit dea_, she was every inch a queen. She had grown much taller and stouter since her arrival in Denmark, and any one who had not seen her for the last four years would hardly have recognised her. She was always gay and tasteful in her dress, and combined a happy mean between London and Paris fashions. Her complexion was exquisitely fair, and it was a disadvantage to her beauty that the fashions of the day obliged her to hide the colour and texture of her fine silver tresses under a load of powder and pomatum. The best description of Caroline Matilda I have met with, and one which exactly corresponds with the portraits of her that I have seen, will be found in a work published in Denmark a few years ago, which, though in the form of a novel, bears evident traces of being what it represents to be--the "Recollections of an Old Chamberlain:"-- "Over a marble table hung a portrait in a broad gilt frame. It represented a lady in a dress of bluish satin, embroidered with gold and edged with lace, the sleeves and puffs over the full bosom being of brownish brocade. Round her neck was a closely-strung necklace of pearls, and similar rings were in her ears. The hair was turned up and powdered; it occupied a height and breadth which, agreeably to the fashion of the times, exceeded that of the whole face, and was decorated with a gold chain, enamels and jewels, entwined with a border of blonde, which hung down over one ear. The face was oval, the forehead high and arched, the nose delicately carved, the mouth pretty large, the lips red and swelling, the eyes large, and of a peculiar light blue, mild, and at the same time serious, deep, and confiding. I could describe the entire dress, piece by piece, and the features trait by trait; but in vain should I endeavour to convey an idea of the peculiar expression, the amiable loftiness, or lofty amiability, which beamed from that youthful face, the freshness of whose colour I have never seen surpassed. It needed not to cast your eye upon the purple mantle, bordered with ermine, which hung over her shoulder, to discover in her a queen; she could be nothing of inferior rank. This the painter, too, had felt, for the border of the mantle was so narrow as to be almost overlooked. It was as though he meant to say: 'This woman would be a queen without a throne.' But she was more," the author adds; "she was an angel, and the Danes still cling with affectionate regard to the memory of the lovely being thus portrayed."