But we must not fancy that we were much less savage in idea or action at home. There was one John Waller, in 1732, who stood in the pillory in Seven Dials, for falsely swearing against persons whom he accused as highway robbers. The culprit was dreadfully pelted during the hour he stood exposed; but at the end of that time the mob tore him down and trampled him to death. Whether this, too, was considered a laughable matter at court is not so certain. Even if so, the courtiers were soon made serious by the universal sickness which prevailed in London in the beginning of the year 1732. Headache and fever were the common symptoms; very few escaped, and a vast number died. In the last week of January, not less than fifteen hundred perished of the epidemic within the bills of mortality. There had not been so severe a visitation since the period of the plague. But our wonder may cease that headache and fever prevailed, when we recollect that gin was being sold, contrary to law, in not less than eight thousand different places in the metropolis, and that drunkenness was not the vice of the lower orders only. It has been truly said of Queen Caroline that, with all her opportunities, she never abused the power which she held over the King’s mind, by employing it for the promotion of her own friends and favourites. This, however, is but negative, or questionable praise. There is, too, an anecdote extant, the tendency of which is to show that she was somewhat given to the enjoyment of uncontrolledly exercising the power she had attained for her personal purposes. She had prepared plans for enclosing St. James’s Park, shutting out the public, and keeping it for the exclusive pleasure of herself and the royal family. It was by mere chance, when she had matured her plans, that she asked a nobleman connected with the Board which then attended to what our Board of Woods and Forests neglects, what the carrying out of such a plan might cost. ‘Madam,’ said the witty and right-seeing functionary, ‘such a plan _might_ cost three crowns.’ Caroline was as ready of wit as he, and not only understood the hint, but showed she could apply it, by abandoning her intention. And yet, she doubtless did so with regret, for gardens and their arrangement were her especial delight; and she _did_ succeed in taking a portion of Hyde Park from the public, and throwing the same into Kensington Gardens. The Queen thought she compensated for depriving the public of land by giving them more water. There was a rivulet which ran through the park; and this she converted, by help from Hampstead streams and land drainage near at hand, into what is so magniloquently styled the Serpentine river. It is not a river, nor is it serpentine, except by a slight twist of the imagination.