The social happiness of Caroline began now to be affected by the conduct of her son Frederick, Prince of Wales. Since his arrival in England, in 1728, he had been but coolly entertained by his parents, who refused to pay the debts he had accumulated in Hanover previous to his leaving the Electorate. He was soon in the arms of the opposition; and the court had no more violent an enemy, political or personal, than this prince. His conduct, however--and some portion of it was far from being unprovoked--did not prevent the court from entering into some social enjoyments of a harmless and not over-amusing nature. Among these may be reckoned the ‘readings’ at Windsor Castle. These readings consisted of the poetry, or verses rather, of that Stephen Duck, the thresher, whose rhymes Swift has ridiculed in lines as weak as any which ever fell from the pen of Duck. The latter was a Wiltshire labourer, who supported, or tried to support, a family upon the modest wages of four-and-sixpence a week. In his leisure hours, whenever those could have occurred, he cultivated poetry; and two of his pieces, ‘The Shunamite’ and ‘The Thresher’s Labour,’ were publicly read in the drawing-room at Windsor Castle, in 1730, by Lord Macclesfield. Caroline procured for the poet the office of yeoman of the guard, and afterwards made him keeper of her grotto, _Merlin’s Cave_, at Richmond. This last act, and the patronage and pounds which Caroline wasted upon the wayward and worthless savage, show that Swift’s epigram upon the busts in the hermitage at Richmond was not based upon truth-- Louis, the living learned fed, And raised the scientific head. Our frugal Queen, to save her meat, Exalts the heads that cannot eat. Swift’s anger against the Queen, who once promised him some medals, but who never kept her word, and from whom he had hoped, perhaps, for a patronage which he failed to acquire, was further illustrated about this time in a fiercely satirical poem, in which he says:-- May Caroline continue long-- For ever fair and young--in song. What, though the royal carcase must, Squeez’d in a coffin, turn to dust? Those elements her name compose, Like atoms, are exempt from blows. And, in allusion to the princesses and their prospects, he adds, that Caroline ‘hath graces of her own:’-- Three Graces by Lucina brought her, Just three, and ev’ry Grace a daughter. Here many a king his heart and crown Shall at their snowy feet lay down; In royal robes they come by dozens To court their English-German cousins: Besides a pair of princely babies That, five years hence, will both be Hebes. The royal patronage of Duck ultimately raised him to the church, and made of him Vicar of Kew. But it failed to bring to the thresher substantial happiness. He had little enjoyment in the station to which he was elevated; and, weary of the restraints it imposed on him, he ultimately escaped from them by drowning himself.