When the Earl of Macclesfield was at Hanover, in the year 1700, bearing with him that Act of Succession which secured a throne for the husband and son of Sophia Dorothea, that son, George Augustus, was not yet out of his ‘teens.’ He was of that age at which a prince is considered wise enough to rule kingdoms, but is yet incapable of governing himself. At that time he was said to ‘give the greatest hopes of himself that we, or any people on earth, could desire.’ He was not of proud stature, indeed--and Alexander was not six feet high; but Toland asserts, what is very hard to believe, that George possessed a winning countenance, and a manly aspect and deportment. In later years, he was rigid of feature, and walked as a man does who is stiff in the joints. He was, in the days of his youth, a graceful and easy speaker; that is, his phrases were well constructed, and he expressed them with facility. His complexion was fair, and his hair a light brown. Like his father, he spoke Latin fluently; and English much better than his father, but with a decided foreign accent, like William of Orange. As the utmost care was taken, according to Toland, to furnish him with such other accomplishments as are fit for a gentleman and a prince, it is a pity that he made so unprofitable a use of so desirable a provision. He was tolerably well-versed in history, but history to him was not philosophy teaching by example; for though, in his earlier years, panegyrists said of him, not only that his inclinations were virtuous, but that he was ‘wholly free from all vice,’ his life, subsequently, could not be so characterised, and the later practice marred the fair precedent. But let Toland limn the object of his love.