Not quite, unless You put your satire to the press. For sure a satire in this mode Is equal to a birthday ode. No doubt of it! and much better written and applied than any of the birthday odes of the period. The fact was, that if there were strong prejudices, there were also simple virtues at court. The King would have no ode sung to him, as his predecessors had, on New Year’s day; and the Queen would not allow Twelfth Night to be celebrated by the usually ruinous play at ‘hazard.’ No wonder the poets praised her. The King loved Kew, and hated Hampton Court because George II. had once struck him there. Of the royal domestic life at the former place a contemporary observer has given a sketch, when the royal parents were still young and their offspring still children:-- ‘Their Majesties rise at 6 o’clock in the morning, and enjoy the two succeeding hours in a manner which they call their own. At 8 o’clock the Prince of Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburg, the Princess Royal, and the Princes William and Edward are brought from their respective apartments to breakfast with their illustrious parents. At 9 o’clock the younger children attend to lisp or smile their good-morrows; and while the five eldest are closely applying to their tasks, the little ones and their nurses pass the whole morning in Richmond Gardens. The King and Queen frequently amuse themselves with sitting in the room while the children dine, and once a week, attended by the whole offspring in pairs, make the little delightful tour of Richmond Gardens. In the afternoon, while the Queen works, the King reads to her. In the evening all the children again pay their duty at Kew House before they retire to bed, and the same order is observed through each returning day. Exercise, air, and light diet are the grand fundamentals in the King’s idea of health. His Majesty feeds chiefly on vegetables, and drinks but little wine. The Queen is what many private gentlewomen would call whimsically abstemious; for, at a table covered with dishes, she prefers the plainest and simplest dish, and seldom eats of more than two things at a meal. Her wardrobe is changed every three months; and while the nobility are eager to supply themselves with foreign trifles, her care is that nothing but what is English shall be provided for her wear.’ CHAPTER V. PERILS, PROGRESS, AND PASTIMES.