Something more than rumour asserts that the young King was attracted by the stately grace of Elizabeth Spencer, Countess of Pembroke, who is described as a living picture of majestic modesty. In after years, the King looked on the mother of the Napiers, and on the above-named countess, with a certain loving interest. In the intervals of his attacks of insanity, it is said that he used to dwell with impassioned accents on the former beauty of the majestic countess. The King’s mother had been most averse to the Prussian connection. Mr. Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, is said to have done his best to further a union with a subject. The Princess-dowager of Wales and Lord Bute would have selected a princess of Saxe Gotha; but it was whispered that there was a constitutional infirmity in that family which rendered an alliance with it in no way desirable. Besides, George II. said he had had enough of that family already. A Colonel Græme was then despatched to Germany, and rumour invested him with the commission to visit the German courts, and if he could find among them a princess who was faultless in form, feature, and character, of sound health and highly accomplished, he was to report accordingly. Colonel Græme, love’s military messenger, happened to fall in at Pyrmont with the Princess-dowager of Strelitz and her two daughters. At the gay baths and salutary springs of Pyrmont very little etiquette was observed, even in those very ceremonious times, and great people went about less in masquerade and less strait-laced than they were wont to do at home, in the circle of their own courts. In this sort of _negligé_ there was a charm which favoured the development of character, and under its influence the scrutinising colonel soon vicariously fell in love with the young Princess Charlotte, and at once made the report which led to the royal marriage that ensued. There were persons who denied that this little romantic drama was ever played at all; but as the colonel was subsequently appointed to the mastership of St. Catherine’s Hospital, the prettiest bit of preferment possessed by a Queen-consort, other persons looked upon the appointment as the due acknowledgment of a princess grateful for favours received.