But George himself had little sympathy to spare, and felt no immoderate grief for the death of either son or son-in-law. On the 6th of November 1751, within a month of the prince’s death, and not very many after that of his son and heir to the throne, George was at Drury Lane Theatre. The entertainment, played for his especial pleasure, consisted of Farquhar’s ‘Beaux Stratagem’ and Fielding’s ‘Intriguing Chambermaid.’ In the former, the King was exceedingly fond of the ‘Foigard’ of Yates and the ‘Cherry’ of Miss Minors. In the latter piece, Mrs. Clive played her original part of ‘Lettice,’ a part in which she had then delighted the town--a town which could be delighted with such parts--for now seventeen years. Walpole thus relates an incident of the night. He is writing to Sir Horace Mann, from Arlington Street, under the date of the 22nd of November 1751: ‘A certain King, that, whatever airs you may give yourself, you are not at all like, was last week at the play. The intriguing chambermaid in the farce says to the old gentleman, ‘You are villainously old; you are sixty-six; you can’t have the impudence to think of living above two years.’ The old gentleman in the stage-box turned about in a passion, and said, “This is d--d stuff!”’ George was right in his criticism, but rather coarse than king-like in expressing it. Walpole too, it may be noticed, misquotes what his friend Mrs. Clive said in her character of Lettice, and he misquotes evidently for the purpose of making the story more pointed against the King, who was as sensitive upon the point of age as Louis XIV. himself. Lettice does not say to Oldcastle ‘you are villainously old.’ She merely states the three obstacles to Oldcastle marrying her young mistress. ‘In the first place your great age; you are at least some sixty-six. Then there is, in the second place, your terrible ungenteel air; and thirdly, that horrible face of yours, which it is impossible for any one to see without being frightened.’ She does, however, add a phrase which must have sounded harshly on the ear of a sensitive and sexagenarian King; though not more so than on that of any other auditor of the same age. ‘I think you could not have the conscience to live above a year or a year and a half at most.’ The royal criticism, then, was correct, however roughly expressed.