hend and the others: but before signing, there was
Parliament to be apprised, there were formalities, expenditure of time;
between the cup and the lip, such things to intervene;--and the sad fact
is, the Double-Marriage Treaty never was signed at all!--However, all
things being now settled ready for signing, his Britannic Majesty, next
morning, set off for the GOHRDE again, to try if there were any hunting
possible.

This authentic glimpse, one of the few that are attainable, of their
first Constitutional King, let English readers make the most of. The act
done proved dreadfully momentous to our little Friend, his Grandson; and
will much concern us!

Thus, at any rate, was the Treaty of the Double-Marriage settled, to the
point of signing,--thought to be as good as signed. It was at the
time when Czar Peter was making armaments to burn Sweden; when
Wood's Halfpence (on behalf of her Improper Grace of Kendal, the lean
Quasi-Wife, "Maypole" or Hop-pole, who had run short of money, as she
often did) were about beginning to jingle in Ireland; [Coxe (i. 216,
217, and SUPPLY the dates); Walpole to Townshend, 13th October, 1723
(ib. ii. 275): _"The Drapier's Letters"_ are of 1724.] when Law's Bubble
"System" had fallen, well flaccid, into Chaos again; when Dubois the
unutterable Cardinal had at length died, and d'Orleans the unutterable
Regent was unexpectedly about to do so,--in a most surprising
Sodom-and-Gomorrah manner. [2d December, 1723: Barbier, _Journal
Historique du Regne de Louis XV. _ (Paris, 1847), i. 192, 196;
Lacretelle, _Histoire de France, 18me siecle;_ &c.] Not to mention other
dull and vile phenomena of putrid fermentation, which were transpiring,
or sluttishly bubbling up, in poor benighted rotten Europe here or
there;--since these are sufficient to date the Transaction for us; and
what does not stick to our Fritz and his affairs it is more pleasant to
us to forget than to remember, of such an epoch.

Hereby, for the present, is a great load rolled from Queen Sophie
Dorothee's heart. One, and, that the highest, of her abstruse
negotiations, cherished, labored in, these fourteen years, she has
brought to a victorious issue,--has she not? Her poor Mother, once so
radiant, now so dim and angry, shut in the Castle of Ahlden, does not
approve this Double-Marriage; not she for her part;--as indeed evil to
all Hanoverian interests is now chiefly her good, poor Lady; and she is
growing more and more of a Megaera