The health of Caroline was undoubtedly at this time much impaired, but the King allowed her scant respite from labour on that account. Thus on the 29th of this month, although the Queen was labouring under cold, cough, and symptoms of fever, in addition to having been weakened by loss of blood, a process she had recently undergone twice, the King not only brought her from Kensington to London for the birthday, but forced her to go with him to the opera to hear the inimitable Farinelli. He himself thought so little of illness, or liked so little to be thought ill, that he would rise from a sick couch to proceed to hold a _levée_, which was no sooner concluded than he would immediately betake himself to bed again. His affection for the Queen was not so great but that he compelled the same sacrifices from her; and on the occasion of this birthday, at the morning drawing-room, she found herself so near swooning, that she was obliged to send her chamberlain to the King, begging him to retire, ‘for she was unable to stand any longer.’ Notwithstanding which, we are told by Lord Hervey, that ‘at night he brought her into a still greater crowd at the ball, and there kept her till eleven o’clock.’ Sir Robert Walpole frequently, and never more urgently than at this time, impressed upon her the necessity of being careful of her own health. He addressed her as though she had been Queen Regnant of England--as she certainly was governing sovereign--and he described to her in such pathetic terms the dangers which England would, and Europe might, incur, if any fatal accident deprived her of life, and the King were to fall under the influence of any other woman, that the poor Queen, complaining and coughing, with head heavy, and aching eyes half closed with pain, cheeks flushed, pulse quick, spirits low, and breathing oppressed, burst into tears, alarmed at the picture, and with every disposition to do her utmost for the benefit of her health and the well-being of the body politic. It was the opinion of Caroline, that in case of her demise the King would undoubtedly marry again, and she had often advised him to take such a step. She affected, however, to believe that a second wife would not be able to influence him to act contrary to the system which he had adopted through the influence of herself and Walpole.