Lord Chesterfield says of Caroline, in his lively way, that ‘she was a woman of lively, pretty parts.’ She merits, however, a better epitaph and a more sagacious chronicler. ‘Her death,’ adds the noble _roué_, ‘was regretted by none but the King. She died meditating projects which must have ended either in her own ruin or that of the country.’ Dismissing, for the present, the last part of this paragraph, we will say that Caroline was mourned by more than by the King; but by none so deeply, so deservedly, so naturally as by him. He had not, out of affection for her, been less selfish or less vicious than his inclinations induced him to be. He was faithless to her, but he never ceased to respect her; and in those days a husband of whom nothing worse could be said was rather exemplary of conduct than otherwise. It was a sort of decorum by no means common. One could have almost thought him uxorious; for he not only allowed himself to be directed in all important matters requiring judgment and discretion by the guidance of her more enlightened mind, but he never drew a picture of beauty and propriety in woman but all the hearers felt that the original of the picture was the Queen herself. It is strange, setting aside more grave considerations for the rule of conduct, that, with such a wife, he should have hampered himself with ‘favourites.’ These he neither loved nor respected. A transitory liking and the evil fashion of the day had something to do with it; and besides, he had a certain feeling of attachment for women who were obsequious and serviceable. These he could rule, but his wife ruled _him_. Nor could the women be compared. Sir Robert Walpole, an unexceptionable witness in this case, asserts that the King loved his wife’s little finger better than he did Lady Suffolk’s whole body. For that reason it was that Walpole himself so respectfully kissed the small, plump, and graceful hand of the Queen rather than propitiate the good-will of the favourite.