affairs of State; but he played the game better than he was given credit for, and on at least one occasion his intervention was quite contrary to that ascribed to him. At the same time he was lacking in charm and geniality; his manner was stiff, his conversation academic and occasionally _gauche_. His notions of sport were not those of an English sportsman, and he had a passion for devising new military uniforms. To put it bluntly, he was a foreigner, and the chief ground of the unpopularity of the Court was that it gave an unfair preference to everything foreign--language, art, music, letters--and consistently declined to encourage native talent. Satiric references to the royal patronage of foreigners begin in _Punch's_ first volume. "Ride-a-cock horse" is turned into a florid Italian _cavatina_, and the words translated into Italian--"Su Gallo-Cavallo a Banburi Croce"--for the benefit of the nurse of the Princess Royal, Mrs. Ratsey, referred to as "a lady equally anxious with ourselves to instil into the infant mind an utter contempt for anything English." This sets the keynote to a series of complaints which re-echo over many years. For the moment we may turn to _Punch's_ extraordinarily frank comments, cast in the form of a burlesque of the ultra-loyal press, on the rapid growth of the royal nursery, _à propos_ of the birth of the Prince of Wales:-- THE LORD MAYOR AND THE QUEEN By the Correspondent of the _Observer_ The interesting condition of Her Majesty is a source of the most agonizing suspense to the Lord Mayors of London and Dublin, who, if a Prince of Wales is not born before their period of office expires, will lose the chance of being created baronets.