She now beheld the wretched consequences of the wretched education she had given her children. The Queen of Denmark had been kept in her nursery till sent to Copenhagen; had had no company but servants, and could have seen nothing but an intimacy with Lord Bute, which all the Princess’s children spoke of with disgust; and could have heard nothing but passionate lamentations from the Princess on the impotence of power possessed by English Sovereigns,--lessons that seem to have made but too deep impression on the inexperienced young Queen of Denmark, when she came to have a lover, and be mistress of absolute power. The Duke of Gloucester, the Princess of Wales had always loved the least, though the most meritorious of her children. She thought him insuperably dull,--nor was he bright: one day in his childhood she ridiculed him before his brothers and sisters, and bade them laugh at the fool. He sat silent and thoughtful. She said, “What! now you are sullen.” He replied, “No, he was thinking.”--“Thinking!” replied his mother, with scorn; “and pray, what was you thinking of?” He answered, “I was thinking what I should feel if I had a son as unhappy as you make me!” This unfortunate mother’s fate is a speaking lesson to princes. Had the credit and happiness of her children been her object, her own life might, except in those she lost, have been prosperous and renowned. Her own ambition, and the desire of making her son more powerful than the laws allowed, led her and him into disgraces, mortifications, humiliations. Reviled, traduced, hated, she scarce dared to appear out of her palace; her Favourite she saw driven from his country, and his life frequently endangered. Her younger children disgraced her; and the eldest, as well as herself, missed the despotism she sought for both, and obtained only that triste pre-eminence of Turkish sultans, being shut up with mutes in their own seraglio. APPENDIX. I. CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF LORD BUTE. (Vol. i. p. 10.) Walpole is correct in stating that “Mr. Pitt had been for some time on the coldest terms with Lord Bute.” What was the original cause of this coldness does not appear. Among the Elliot MSS. is a long letter from Lord Bute to Sir Gilbert Elliot, dated the 30th of April, 1760, expressing deep regret at the interruption of the “fraternal union” which had previously subsisted between him and Mr. Pitt, and empowering Sir Gilbert to use the first favourable opportunity to bring about a reconciliation. Efforts were accordingly made by Sir Gilbert to satisfy Mr. Pitt, and they elicited a long statement from the latter of his grievances, which is not very intelligible, except that jealousy at the superior favour and influence attained by Lord Bute at Leicester House was his most prominent feeling. When Lord Bute and Mr. Pitt met at Kew on the King’s accession, no intercourse had taken place between them for some months; on that occasion some mutual civilities passed and nothing more.