A similar pastime was frequently indulged in by her grand-daughter-in-law, Queen Caroline, wife of George II., who was also most tolerant of her husband’s mistresses. No doubt she learned both these peculiarities from Sophia. ----- Hitherto we have viewed this Princess in a somewhat unamiable light—the side she showed to Eléonore; it is only fair to turn the other side of the shield. Her failings were the failings of her time, her virtues were all her own. Reared in a dissolute court, married into a vicious one, no word of scandal was ever breathed against her moral character. She remained beyond and apart, a serene and haughty figure, head and shoulders above the mean, coarse, voluptuous, lying crowd with which she was surrounded. Whatever was pure and of good repute, whatever made for the higher and intellectual life, turned to Sophia at the court of Hanover. She was a woman of great parts, speaking five languages—Low Dutch, German, French, Italian, and English—fluently, and was learned in the literature of them all. She attracted to Hanover some of the choicest intellectual spirits of the age, and among them was the great and learned Leibniz, whose friend and patron she was. In turn he warmly respected and admired her: she was the “Serena” of his letters, and together they discussed those subtle philosophies beside which such things as court intrigues and court courtesans were as nothing worth. It was doubtless her communing in these serene altitudes, together with the considerations before mentioned, which enabled the Duchess Sophia to ignore Madame Platen and lesser annoyances. Outwardly she received from the court mistress every mark of respect and homage. However impudent, brazen, and intriguing Madame Platen might be, she was always submissive and decorous before the Duchess Sophia, always her very humble lady-in-waiting. The Duchess was not of a jealous temperament, and in matters where her rank and her rights were not imperilled her heart did not enter. Madame Platen would always be Madame Platen; she could never rise, for instance, to the heights of the upstart Eléonore, and arrogate to herself the position of an equal of the daughter of kings; and so long as she kept her place, what matter? Besides, according to her lights, the woman was working for the greater glory of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg and against the hated Eléonore. These seem the ostensible grounds on which it can be explained why the Duchess Sophia allowed, without protest, such a power near her throne. But there was perhaps another reason, too, which overshadowed all the rest.