The King, as before mentioned, led his bride into the palace, where she dined with him, his mother the princess-dowager, and that Princess Augusta who was to give a future queen to England, in the person of Caroline of Brunswick. After dinner, when the bride’s-maids and the court were introduced to her, she said, ‘Mon Dieu, il y en a tant, il y en a tant!’ She kissed the princesses with manifest pleasure, but was so prettily reluctant to offer her own hand to _be_ kissed, that the Princess Augusta, for once doing a graceful thing gracefully, was forced to take her hand and give it to those who were to kiss it, which was prettily humble and good. This act set the Queen talking and laughing, at which some severe critics declared that the illustrious lady’s face seemed all mouth. Northcote subsequently declared that Queen Charlotte’s plainness was not a vulgar, but an elegant, plainness. The artist saw another grace in her. As he looked at Reynolds’s portrait of her, fan in hand, Northcote, remembering the sitting, exclaimed, ‘Lord, how she held that fan!’ It is singular that although the question touching precedency, in the proper position of Irish peers on English state occasions, had been settled in the reign of George II., it was renewed on the occasion of the marriage of Queen Charlotte with increased vigour. The question, indeed, now rather regarded the peeresses than the peers. The Irish ladies of that rank claimed a right to walk in the marriage procession immediately after English peeresses of their own degree. The impudent wits of the day declared that the Irish ladies would be out of their vocation at weddings, and that their proper place was at funerals, where they might professionally _howl_. The rude taunt was made in mere thoughtlessness, but it stirred the high-spirited Hibernian ladies to action. They deputed Lord Charlemont to proceed to the court of St. James’s, and not only prefer but establish their claim. The gallant champion of dames fulfilled his office with alacrity, and crowned it with success. The royal bride herself was written to, but she, of course, could only express her willingness to see as many fair and friendly faces about her as possible; and she referred the applicants to custom and the lord-chamberlain. The reference was not favourable to the claimants, and Lord Charlemont boldly went to the King himself. The good-natured young monarch was as warm in praise of Irish beauty as if he was about to marry one, but he protested that he had no authority, and that Lord Charlemont must address his claim to the privy council. When that august body received the ladies’ advocate, they required of him to set down his specific claim in writing, so that the heralds, those learned and useful gentlemen, might comprehend what was asked, and do solemn justice to rank and precedency on this exceedingly solemn occasion. Lord Charlemont knew nothing of the heralds’ shibboleth, but he found a friend who could and did help him