For those who were, the next day, ill or indolent, there were the ponderous state coaches to carry them whithersoever they would go. The most gorgeous of the fêtes given on this occasion was on the evening of the day on which the Act was solemnly presented to the Electress-dowager. Hanover, famous as it was for its balls, had never seen so glorious a Terpsichorean festival as marked this particular night. At the balls in the old Elector’s time Sophia Dorothea used to shine, first in beauty and in grace; but now her place was ill supplied by the not fair and quite graceless Mademoiselle von der Schulenburg. The supper which followed was Olympian in its profusion, wit, and magnificence. This was at a time when to be sober was to be respectable, but when to be drunk was not to be ungentlemanly. Consequently we find Toland, who wrote an account of the achievements of the day, congratulating himself and readers by stating that, although it was to be expected that in so large and so jovial a party some would be found even more ecstatic than the occasion and the company warranted, yet that, in truth, the number of those who were guilty of excess was but small. Even Lord Mohun kept himself sober, and to the end was able to converse as clearly and intelligibly as Lord Saye and Sele, and his friend ‘my Lord Tunbridge.’ This day of presentation of the Act, and of the festival in honour of it, was one of the greatest days which Hanover had ever seen. Speaking of the mother-in-law of Sophia Dorothea, Toland says:--‘The Electress is three-and-seventy years old, which she bears so wonderfully well, that, had I not many vouchers, I should scarce dare venture to relate it. She has ever enjoyed extraordinary health, which keeps her still very vigorous, of a cheerful countenance, and a merry disposition. She steps as firm and erect as any young lady, has not one wrinkle in her face, which is still very agreeable, nor one tooth out of her head, and reads without spectacles, as I have often seen her do, letters of a small character, in the dusk of the evening. She is as great a writer as our late queen (Mary), and you cannot turn yourself in the palace without meeting some monument of her industry, all the chairs of the presence-chamber being wrought with her own hands. The ornaments of the altar in the electoral chapel are all of her work. She bestowed the same favour on the Protestant abbey, or college, of Lockurn, with a thousand other instances, fitter for your lady to know than for yourself. She is the most constant and greatest walker I ever knew, never missing a day, if it proves fair, for one or two hours, and often more, in the fine garden at Herrnhausen. She perfectly tires all those of her court who attend her in that exercise but such as have the honour to be entertained by her in discourse. She has been long admired by all the learned world as a woman of incomparable knowledge in divinity, philosophy, history, and the subjects of all sorts of