Never was the alleged avarice of the King and Queen more bitterly satirised than during this year (1791). The King, however, was a cheerful giver, and the amount of property which the Queen left at her death proves that she was no hoarder. The caricaturists, nevertheless, smote them mercilessly. Peter Pindar assailed them in coarse and witless lines, that had in them a certain rough humour, but as ill-natured as rough. Gillray exhibited them as cheapening wares in the streets of Windsor. In another print, the King, in the commonest of garbs, was seen toasting his own muffins; and the Queen, with a hideous twist given to her now plain features, and with pockets bursting with the national money, was depicted busily engaged in frying sprats for supper. In another, the Queen is sourly commanding her highly-disgusted daughters to take their tea without sugar, as a saving to papa. There were many of a similar cast, and not a few which exposed the vices to which the Princes of the family--young men of great hopes and with much kindliness of feeling, but with little principle--had unfortunately surrendered themselves. The King himself was ever depicted as slovenly both in dress and gait--the Queen as mean in attire and sharply sour of visage. The latter always wears a far more acute, but a less inquiring, air than her husband. This was a true reflection. After Dr. Johnson had his celebrated interview with the monarch at Buckingham Palace, he is said to have declared that ‘His Majesty seems to be possessed of some good nature and much curiosity; as for his _nous_, it is not contemptible. His Majesty, indeed, was multifarious in his questions; but, thank God, he answered them all himself.’ The public discontent and the general distress increased greatly at this time, and had their effect in throwing a gloom over the court circle. The old formality and not a very diminished festivity were still, however, maintained there, and the republican fashions of France were held in abhorrence at Windsor. The sons of Queen Charlotte were not so formal in their behaviour towards her, before witnesses, as the daughters were. The Duke of York was now the most observant of ceremony, but he exhibited therewith a show, perhaps a reality, of very tender feeling. Even on common occasions the household of the Queen was encumbered by much stiffness of observance of etiquette. It was not an uncommon occurrence for the Duke of York to attend at his mother’s toilette, conversing with her during its closing progress. When this was the case, and the dresser’s task was done, that lady could not leave the room if the Duke happened to stand between her and the door; to cross the Duke would have been a terrible breach of good manners. Nor could the Queen help the dresser; all that the illustrious lady could do was to watch till the Duke changed his position, and then with a smile, and a ‘_Now_, I will let you go,’ give freedom to the dresser, longing for liberty.