the levee-room had
lost so entirely the air of the lion's den. This sovereign don't stand
in one spot, with his eyes fixed royally on the ground, and dropping
bits of {80} German news: he walks about, and speaks to everybody. I
saw him afterwards on the throne where he is graceful and genteel, sits
with dignity and reads his answers to addresses well; it was the
Cambridge address, carried by the Duke of Newcastle in his doctor's
gown, and looking like the _Medecin malgre lui_. He had been
vehemently solicitous for attendance for fear my Lord Westmoreland, who
vouchsafes himself to bring the address from Oxford, should outnumber
him. Lord Litchfield and several other Jacobites have kissed hands;
George Selwyn says, "They go to St James', because _now_ there are so
many Stuarts there."

Do you know, I had the curiosity to go to the burying t'other night; I
had never seen a royal funeral; nay, I walked as a rag of quality,
which I found would be, and so it was, the easiest way of seeing it.
It is absolutely a noble sight. The Prince's chamber, hung with
purple, and a quantity of silver lamps, the coffin under a canopy of
purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers of silver on high stands, had a
very good effect. The ambassador from Tripoli and his son were carried
to see that chamber.

The procession, through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man
bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, their officers
with drawn sabres and crape sashes on horse-back, the drums muffled,
the fifes, bells tolling, and minute guns,--all this was very solemn.
But the charm was the entrance of the abbey, where we were received by
the dean and chapter in rich robes, the choir and almsmen bearing
torches; the whole abbey so illuminated, that one saw it to greater
advantage than by {81} day; the tombs, long aisles, and fretted roof,
all appearing distinctly, and with the happiest _chiaroscuro_. There
wanted nothing but incense, and little chapels here and there, with
priests saying mass for the repose of the defunct; yet one could not
complain of its not being catholic enough. I had been in dread of
being coupled with some boy of ten years old; but the heralds were not
very accurate, and I walked with George Grenville, taller and older, to
keep me in countenance. When we came to the chapel of Henry the
Seventh, all solemnity and decorum ceased; no order was observed,
people sat or stood where they could or would; the Yeomen