The _levée_--The King goes to parliament--The first night of the opera--Garrick grievously offended--The King and Queen present on the Lord Mayor’s Day--Entertained by Robert Barclay, the Quaker--Banquet at Guildhall to the King and Queen--Popular enthusiasm for Mr. Pitt-- Buckingham House purchased by the King for Queen Charlotte-- Defoe’s account of it--The Duke of Buckingham’s description of it--West and his pictures--The house demolished by George IV.--First illness of the King--Domestic life of the King and Queen--Royal carriage--Selwyn’s joke on the royal frugality--Prince Charles of Strelitz--Costume-- Graceful action of the Queen--Birth of Prince George 462 CHAPTER III. ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS. Scenes, and personal sketches of Queen Charlotte--Her fondness for diamonds--Visit to Mrs. Garrick--Orphan establishment at Bedford founded by the Queen--Her benevolence on the breaking of the Windsor bank--Marriage of Princess Caroline Matilda--Unfounded rumours about the Queen--Hannah Lightfoot--The King’s illness--A Regency recommended by the King--Discussions relative to it-- Birth of Prince Frederick--Failing Health of the Duke of Cumberland 479 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. _SOPHIA DOROTHEA, OF ZELL_, WIFE OF GEORGE I. Das Glänzende ist nicht immer das Bessere. KOTZEBUE, _Bruder Moritz_. CHAPTER I. GEORGE OF BRUNSWICK-ZELL AND ELEANORE D’OLBREUSE. Woden, the father of the line of Brunswick--The seven brothers at dice, for a wife--D’Esmiers d’Olbreuse and his daughter Eleonora--Love-passages, and a marriage--A Bishop of Osnaburgh--Birth of Sophia Dorothea. When George I. ascended the throne of England, the heralds provided him with an ancestry. They pretended that his Majesty, who had few god-like virtues of his own, was descended from that deified hero Woden, whose virtues, according to the bards, were all of a god-like quality. The two had little in common, save lack of true-heartedness toward their wives. The more modest builders of ancestral pride, who ventured to water genealogical trees for all the branches of Brunswick to bud upon, did not dig deeper for a root, or go farther for a fountain head, than into the Italian soil of the year 1028. Even then, they found nothing more or less noble than a certain Azon d’Este, Marquis of Tuscany, who having little of sovereign about him, except his will, joined the banner of the Emperor Conrad, and hoped to make a fortune in Germany, either by cutting throats, or by subduing hearts whose owners were heiresses of unencumbered lands.