140 CHAPTER V. The Princess Amelia-Her Love for Horses and HuntingThe Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton-The Princess at Bath-Society at the Wells-The Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey--The Princess Mary and Prince Frederick of Hesse-The King's youngest Daughter. HE Princess Amelia, or, as she was more THE often called, Emily, was the king's second daughter; she was possessed of a greater share of personal charms than her elder sister, and her manners were far more lively. In early life she had a great passion for horses, hunted two or three times a week, visited the royal stables if her horses were ill, and carried her sporting proclivities so far (according to Horace Walpole) as to shock the good people at Hampton by going to church one Sunday in riding clothes, with a dog under each arm. In her later years OBNOXIOUS TO THE QUEEN. 141 cards and snuff supplied the place that dogs and horses had held in her affection. She lived and died unmarried, refusing the hands of some petty German princes, because she preferred enjoying liberty in England. The scandal of the time, indeed, connected her name with the Duke of Newcastle, who was twenty-eight years her senior, and also with his Grace of Grafton, who was obnoxious to the queen. The Duke was the grandson of Charles II., a distinction of which he was extremely proud; from being in this way a connection of the reigning house, he considered everything which affected its members touched him likewise. This opinion made him freer in his manner with the queen and the Princess Emily than Her Majesty quite liked; but he had an established right of saying what he pleased, and used to talk to the king on all subjects, sometimes touching on very tender points as no one else dared. Her Majesty's dislike to him principally originated because of his attentions to the Princess Emily, and this was strengthened by the fact that, when she and his Grace were one day out hunting, as was their wont, they, losing their attendants, sought shelter in a private house in Windsor Forest, and were kept out unusually late. Being Lord Chamberlain, the Duke lived at court, and had many opportunities of private intercourse with the royal family. His appearance was handsome, and he had always an air of great dignity; he was recognised as an able courtier and a man of much common sense, though thoroughly illiterate, and fond of turning politics into ridicule. In his conduct towards Her Majesty he usually adopted a plan of plain speaking by no means agreeable to her. He told her once that he believed she could not love anybody. Some one had told him a story of her being enamoured of a German prince before her marriage, and this he used to tell her in order to vex her, usually ending by saying, 'God, madam! I wish I could have seen the man you could love.' The year after her father came to the throne, the Princess Amelia, being in ill-health, was ordered to drink the waters and went to Bath, which city was known for centuries as a place beneficial to health, according to a column that stood in those days over the principal spring, BATH IN ITS GLORY. 143 on which an inscription was traced to the founder, who was none other than Bladud, the son of Lud, who lived three hundred and thirty years before Christ. Bath, under the reign of George II., was in the heyday of all its glory. Those who suffered from the time-honoured complaints of gout, dissipation, or rheumatism, or the general exhaustion of town life, or imaginary illnesses, all flocked here to kill time as agreeably as they could, and consult the fashionable physician Dr. Bave, who was somewhat of a man of fashion, dressed in black velvet, and was 'strangely powdered and perfumed.' Here the fine beaux came from town, powdered, patched, and be-wigged, with the last witticism fresh from Wills' coffee-house, or the last bon mot which Doddington had made, on the tip of their tongues. Here it was that the famous Beau Nash strutted in all the fulness of his glory; and here it was that the yet more famous Duke of Marlborough, who was eminently illiterate; wrote bad, and spoke it worse,' was to be seen in those later years of his life, when grown parsimonious and infirm, he would walk on a dark night from the public rooms to his lodgings in order to save the sixpence a hackney coach would cost him. Here, too, came Lady Bristol and her witty daughter-inlaw, Lady Hervey, who ironically speaks of the former as a poor lady who abounds with peccant humours, and has a complication of distempers; for she has frequently had ruptures, is subject to inflammations, false conceptions, diseases of the tongue, and indeed I believe there is no hopes of her ever being better, and, in my opinion, the best things that can be given her are repeated quieting draughts.' Here also came Mrs. Barber, the poetess,' a strange, bold, disagreeable woman,' made famous by the letter of introduction to the queen purported to be written by Dean Swift, whose name she forged. Here, too, walking slowly in the garden made for people of rank and fashion, might be seen the brave Northumbrian earl, Lord Widdrington, a little bowed, and somewhat worn by time and evil fortune, He had been one of those who led the unhappy insurrection of 1715, and had been thrown into the Tower to suffer much, and have sentence of death passed upon him, but he was afterwards reprieved under the |