If the Queen was not always a liberal recompenser, she, at least, was a punctual payer. In this respect she excelled the King himself. On the other hand, when the latter was at issue with his brothers or children, because of objectionable marriages entered into by them, the Queen did not aggravate the quarrel, although she felt keenly on the subject. She was in many respects a ‘homely’ woman, but in matters of homeliness the King set the example. He watched incessantly over the mental and physical education of his children; ‘and the daily discipline of the nursery itself did not escape his paternal solicitudes.’ But, says the ‘Times,’ ‘that her Majesty’s voluntary tastes were not exactly those which had been inferred from the habits of her matrimonial life, may be conjectured from the revolution which they seemed to undergo soon after the period when her royal husband ceased to exercise the supreme authority in this realm. At that period a transition was observed “from grave to gay.” The sober dignity, the chastened grandeur, the national character of the English court seemed to vanish with the afflicted sovereign. A new species of grandeur now succeeded, in which there was more of the exterior of royalty and less of its becoming spirit. A long series of what was meant to be festivities--crowded balls and elaborate suppers, glittering pomp, gaudy and gorgeous, yet fluttering decoration--reckless, capricious, yet never-ending profusion--all the apparatus of commonplace magnificence were introduced with the Regency and countenanced, or apparently not discountenanced, by the Queen.’ It must be remembered, however, that in these matters she had no control over the Regent; indeed we have, in a former page, seen her called his ‘slave.’ During her life she, at all events, had influence enough to maintain a regal retinue about the person of her afflicted husband. She had no sooner expired, however, when her son dismissed immediately nearly the whole of this retinue, on the ground of its uselessness to the unconscious King, and the very great expense it was to the country. The country was not unwilling to see a few thousands a-year economised by stripping the fine old monarch of some of the superfluous grandeur by which he was surrounded. The country, nevertheless, was sorely perplexed and bitterly indignant when it saw that the thousands which had been paid to numerous officers in daily service on the King were now to be paid to the Duke of York, who, for ten thousand a-year, constrained his filial affection to the severe labour of inquiring after his sick sire once a week.