Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover, volume 1 (of 2)Doran, Dr. (John)
History
Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover, volume 1 (of 2)
Doran, Dr. (John)
Hanover, House of; Queens -- Great Britain -- Biography
And he adds, that the stage, growing refined, will draw its finished
heroines from her, who was herself known to be ‘skill’d in the labours
of the deathless muse.’ In short, Parnassus was made to echo with
eulogies of or epigrams upon this royal lady. George I., for years
together, never addressed a word to the Prince of Wales, but the
princess would compel him, as Count Broglie, the French ambassador
writes, to answer the remarks which she addressed to him when she
encountered him ‘in public.’ ‘But even then,’ says the count, ‘he only
speaks to her on these occasions for the sake of decorum.’ _She-devil_
was the appellation commonly employed by the amiable King to designate
his high-spirited daughter-in-law.
The Prince and Princess of Wales, on withdrawing from St. James’s,
established their court in ‘Leicester Fields.’ Of this court, Walpole
draws a pleasant picture. It must have been a far livelier locality
than that of the King, whose ministers were the older Whig politicians.
‘The most promising,’ says Walpole, ‘of the young lords and gentlemen
of that party, and the prettiest and liveliest of the young ladies,
formed the new court of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The
apartment of the bedchamber-women in waiting became the fashionable
evening rendezvous of the most distinguished wits and beauties: Lord
Chesterfield, Lord Stanhope, Lord Scarborough, Carr (Lord Hervey),
elder brother of the more known John Lord Hervey, and reckoned to have
superior parts; General (at that time only Colonel) Charles Churchill,
and others, not necessary to mention, were constant attendants; Miss
Lepell, afterwards Lady Hervey, my mother, Lady Walpole, Mrs. Selwyn,
mother of the famous George, and herself of much vivacity, and pretty;
Mrs. Howard, and, above all, for universal admiration, Miss Bellenden,
one of the maids of honour. Her face and person were charming; lively
she was almost to _étourderie_; and so agreeable she was, that I never
heard her mentioned afterwards by one of her contemporaries who did not
prefer her as the most perfect creature they ever knew.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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