The King’s letters to her are said to have extended to sixty, and never to less than forty, pages. They were filled, says Lord Hervey, ‘with an hourly account of everything he saw, heard, thought, or did, and crammed with minute trifling circumstances, not only unworthy of a man to write, but even of a woman to read; most of which I saw, and almost all of them I heard reported by Sir Robert Walpole, to whose perusal few were not committed, and many passages were transmitted to him by the King’s own order; who used to tag several paragraphs with “_Montrez ceci et consultez ladessus le gros homme_.” Among many extraordinary things and expressions these letters contained was one in which he desired the Queen to contrive, if she could, that the Prince of Modena, who was to come at the latter end of the year to England, might bring his wife with him.’ She was the younger daughter of the Regent Duke of Orleans. The reason which the King gave to his wife for the request which he had made with respect to this lady was, that he had understood the latter was by no means particular as to what quarter or person she received homage from, and he had the greatest inclination imaginable to pay his addresses to a daughter of the late Regent of France. ‘Un plaisir,’ he said--for this German husband wrote even to his German wife in French--‘que je suis sûr, ma chère Caroline, vous serez bien aise de me procurer, quand je vous dis combien je le souhaite!’ If Wycherley had placed such an incident as this in a comedy, he would have been censured as offending equally against modesty and probability. In the summer of this year, Lord Hervey was absent for a while from attendance on his royal mistress; but we may perhaps learn from one of his letters, addressed to her while he was resting in the country from his light labours, the nature of his office and the way in which Caroline was served. The narrative is given by the writer as part of an imaginary post-obit diary, in which he describes himself as having died on the day he left her, and as having been repeatedly buried in the various dull country houses by whose proprietors he was hospitably received. He thus proceeds:-- ‘But whilst my body, madam, was thus disposed of, my spirit (as when alive) was still hovering, though invisible, round your Majesty, anxious for your welfare, and watching to do you any little service that lay within my power. ‘On Monday, whilst you walked, my _shade_ still turned on the side of the sun to guard you from its beams. ‘On Tuesday morning, at breakfast, I brushed away a fly that had escaped Teed’s observation’ (Teed was one of the Queen’s attendants) ‘and was just going to be the taster of your chocolate.