hout seeming to become at once more manly and
gentle, strong and sweet. Of the other princesses, Emily had perhaps
the most marked character, but there would appear to have been little
in her to admire. Hervey says of her that she had the least sense of
all the family, except, indeed, her brother Frederick; and we shall
soon come to appreciate the significance of this comparison.

{39}

Frederick, the eldest son, like George the Second himself, had not been
allowed to come to England in his early days. The young prince was in
his twenty-second year when, on the accession of his father to the
throne, he was brought over to this country and created Prince of
Wales. At that time he was well spoken of generally, although even
then it was known to every one that he was already addicted to some of
the vices of his father and his grandfather. The Court of Hanover was
not a good school for the training of young princes. The sovereign of
Hanover was a positive despot, both politically and socially.
Everything had to be done to please him, to amuse him, to conciliate
him. The women around the Court were always vying with each other to
see who should most successfully flatter the King, or, in the King's
absence, the Royal Prince. It was intellectually a very stupid Court.
Its pleasures were vulgar, its revels coarse, its whole atmosphere
heavy and sensuous. Frederick was said, however, to have given some
evidence of a more cultivated taste than might have been expected of a
Hanoverian Crown Prince. He was said to have some appreciation of
letters and music. When he settled in London he very soon began to
follow the example of his father and his grandfather; he threw his
handkerchief to this lady and to that, and the handkerchief was in
certain cases very thankfully taken up. Some people said that he
entered on this way of life not so much because he really had a strong
predilection for it as because he thought it would be unbecoming of the
position of a Prince of Wales not to have an adequate number of women
favorites about him; so he maintained what seemed to him the dignity of
his place in society and in the State.

The prince's character at his first coming over, says Hervey in his
pleasantest vein, though little more respectable, seemed much more
amiable than, upon his opening himself further and being better known,
it turned out to be; for, though there appeared nothing in him to be
{40} admired, yet there seem