‘These acquired parts,’ he says, ‘with a generous disposition and a virtuous inclination, will deservedly render him the darling of our people, and probably grace the English throne with a most knowing prince.’ In the popular sense of the term, the last words cannot be denied; and yet he never knew how to obtain, or cared how to merit, his people’s love. ‘He learns English with inexpressible facility, and has not only learned of his grandmother to have a real esteem for Englishmen, but he likewise entertains a high notion of the wisdom, goodness, and power of the English government, concerning which I heard him, to my great satisfaction, ask several pertinent questions, and such as betokened no mean or common observation. I was surprised to find he understood so much of our affairs already; but his great vivacity will not let him be ignorant of anything. There is nothing more to be wished,’ says Toland, ‘but that he be proof against the temptations which accompany greatness, and defended from the poisonous infection of flatterers, who are the greatest bane of society, and commonly occasion the ruin of princes, if not in their lives, yet, at least, in their fame and reputation.’ It was under the temptations alluded to that George Augustus made shipwreck of his fame. His history, however, will be traced more fully hereafter. At present we will only consider the career and character of his sister. The daughter of Sophia Dorothea, some years younger than her brother, was a promising girl when the Act of Succession opened a throne to her father, but not to her mother. She had in her youth sweetness of manners, fairness of features, and a soft and winning voice. Her fair brown hair, as in her mother’s case, heightened the grace and charms of a fair complexion; and her blue eyes were the admiration of the poets, and the inspiration even of those whom the gods had not made poetical. Her features, taken singly, were not without defect; but the expression which pervaded them was a good substitute for purely unintellectual beauty. The Electress Sophia was, if not her governess, the superintendent of her governesses; and the training, rigid and formal, failed in the development that was most to be desired. ‘In minding her discourse to others,’ says Toland, ‘and by what she was pleased to say to myself, she appears to have a more than ordinary share of good sense and wit. The whole town and court commend the easiness of her manners, and the evenness of her disposition; but, above all her other qualities, they highly extol her good humour, which is the most valuable endowment of either sex, and the foundation of most other virtues. Upon the whole, considering her personal merit and the dignity of her family, I heartily wish and hope to see her some day Queen of Sweden.’ This hearty wish was not to be realised. The younger Sophia Dorothea became the wife of a brute and the mother of a hero. The old