In mingling and seasoning this delicate dish and serving it to her Majesty’s liking, my Lord Hervey had no peer and was valued accordingly. There was scarce any hour of the day or night that the door was not open for him to the Presence, and he took the fullest advantage of his position. Nay, even in illness, he was not banished, having the honour to sit t’other side of the door that gave on the Queen’s bed and there entertain her with the tittle-tattle, political or social, of the day. ’Twas more than was allowed to the Peachum and Lockit of the court, Sir Robert Walpole and my Lord Townshend. Behold then a sombre room in the great red brick palace. The windows were narrow and high with small panes and richly draped damask, still further to exclude the light. Tall portraits of departed royalties and worthies or unworthies glimmering in massive gilt frames adorned the high walls and were lost in the upper gloom, and above the door leading to her Majesty’s toilette room was the corpulent nude Venus beneath which the chaplain on duty for the day would kneel to perform morning prayers for the Queen’s benefit whilst she and her ladies proceeded with her toilette within. “And a very proper altar-piece!” cried the pious Dr. Madox, reviewing its contours and harkening to the chatter from behind the door. Indeed, with the exception of the Queen herself and a very few others, ’twas the patron saint of the courtiers of both sexes. The lady who sat in her great armed-chair was a fine presence still, though her handsome features had lost the delicacy that was once the admiration of Europe. Perhaps there was the more majesty to take its place, but even this could be and was sufficiently laid aside in her hours of intimacy. You are then to picture a florid handsome woman,—the King’s fat Venus, as Lord Hervey himself had audaciously described her with a side eye on the altar-piece aforesaid. Her stiff-bodied gown of velvet laced with gold could scarce contain her exuberant charms, and had it not been for the high brow and bright commanding eye a chance observer had said “Here’s a fine ample housewife in the autumn of her days,” and little suspected that here instead was the lady that ruled her husband through his vices, her country through its venality and her family through a lashing tongue and a hard heart. My Lord Hervey perhaps understood her and was valued by her as much as she could value any one, which does not necessarily set his value high. “But, Madam,” he continued, “if the Prince of Wales is to be married ’twas plain he must part with Mrs. Vane, the present Sultana, the more so as ’twas your own opinion; and the matter was discust by him and his friends. I leave your perspicacity to guess whom your Royal son appointed as Ambassador to the lady to announce that he preferred her room to her company. In short, though exprest handsomely enough, that he was dog-tired of her.”