t purposes of it might not be quite unfulfilled.

Gentleman Ernst had lately been made "Elector" (_ Kurfurst, _ instead
of _ Herzog _),--his Hanover no longer a mere Sovereign Duchy, but an
Electorate henceforth, new "NINTH Electorate," by Ernst's life-long
exertion and good luck;--which has spread a fine radiance, for the time,
over court and people in those parts; and made Ernst a happier man than
ever, in his old age. Gentleman Ernst and Electress Sophie, we need not
doubt, were glad to see their burly Prussian grandson,--a robust,
rather mischievous boy of five years old;--and anything that brought her
Daughter oftener about her (an only Daughter too, and one so gifted) was
sure to be welcome to the cheery old Electress, and her Leibnitz and her
circle. For Sophie Charlotte was a bright presence, and a favorite with
sage and gay.

Uncle George again, "_ Kurprinz _ Georg Ludwig" (Electoral Prince and
Heir-Apparent), who became George I. of England; he, always a taciturn,
saturnine, somewhat grim-visaged man, not without thoughts of his own
but mostly inarticulate thoughts, was, just at this time, in a deep
domestic intricacy. Uncle George the Kurprinz was painfully detecting,
in these very months, that his august Spouse and cousin, a brilliant not
uninjured lady, had become an indignant injuring one; that she had gone,
and was going, far astray in her walk of life! Thus all is not radiance
at Hanover either, Ninth Elector though we are; but, in the soft
sunlight, there quivers a streak of the blackness of very Erebus withal.
Kurprinz George, I think, though he too is said to have been good to the
boy, could not take much interest in this burly Nephew of his just now!

Sure enough, it was in this year 1693, that the famed Konigsmark tragedy
came ripening fast towards a crisis in Hanover; and next year the
catastrophe arrived. A most tragic business; of which the little Boy,
now here, will know more one day. Perhaps it was on this very visit, on
one visit it credibly was, that Sophie Charlotte witnessed a sad scene
in the Schloss of Hanover high words rising, where low cooings had
been more appropriate; harsh words, mutually recriminative, rising ever
higher; ending, it is thought, in THINGS, or menaces and motions towards
things (actual box on the ear, some call it),--never to be forgotten
or forgiven! And on Sunday 1st of July, 1694, Colonel Count Philip
Konigsmark, Colonel in the Hanover Dragoons, was seen for the