COURT LIFE BELOW STAIRS.

CHAPTER I.

The Coronation-Description of the Scene-The late King's Will-Hereditary Dishonesty of the Royal Family-Mrs. Howard and the King-Lady Sundon-Lord Hervey-Queen Caroline's Influence--Mrs. Clayton and the Courtiers-She distributes Appointments -Dorothy Dyves and her Lover-The Favourite's Influence concerning Church Matters-Alexander Pope's Revenge-Extract from Letters on Court Life.

HOUGH the new king had come to the throne

THOUGH

in June, it was not until the following October that his coronation took place. He was desirous that that ceremony should be conducted with all the pomp and state possible to the occasion. George I. invariably shrank from all display, but his successor was of another way of thinking. The coronation was

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therefore made a pageant from which nothing that could add to its splendour was missing. Lord Hervey tells us that the dress of the queen on this occasion was as fine as the accumulated riches of the City and suburbs could make it; for, besides her own jewels. (which were a great number, and very valuable), she had, on her head and on her shoulders, all the pearls she could borrow of the ladies of quality at one end of the town, and on her petticoat all the diamonds she could hire of the Jews and jewellers at the other.'

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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has left a racy description of the ceremony. I saw the procession much at my ease,' she writes, with a house filled with my own company, and then got into Westminster Hall without much trouble, where it was very entertaining to observe the variety of airs that all meant the same thing. The business of every walker there was to conceal vanity and give admiration. For these purposes some languished and others strutted; but a visible satisfaction was diffused over every countenance as soon as the coronet was clapped on the head. But she that drew the greater

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number of eyes was indisputably Lady Orkney. She exposed behind a mixture of fat and wrinkles, and before a very considerable protuberance which preceded her. Add to this the inestimable roll of her eyes, and her grey hairs, which by good fortune stood directly upright, and 'tis impossible to imagine a more delightful spectacle. She had embellished all this with considerable magnificence, which made her look as big again as usual; and I should have thought her one of the largest things of God's making, if my Lady St. John had not displayed all her charms in honour of the day. The poor Duchess of Montrose crept along with a dozen black snakes playing round her face, and my Lady Portland (who is fallen away since her dismissal from Court) represented very finely an Egyptian mummy, embroidered over with hieroglyphics. In general, I could not perceive but that the old were as well pleased as the young; and I, who dread growing wise more than anything else in the world, was overjoyed to find that one can never outlive one's vanity.'

The whole town was mightily diverted by the splendour of the ceremony, and was not

easily disposed to let it pass from its mind. The management of Drury Lane seized on the opportunity of playing Henry VIII.,' having the coronation of Anne Boleyn at the close, a spectacle on which a thousand pounds was expended. All London went to see the performance, including the king and queen, who highly enjoyed the show. This scene, indeed, met with such success that it was afterwards frequently put on the stage mal apropos at the close of a comedy or farce. The poet of Twickenham mentions in his correspondence that the Drury Lane triumph is to be succeeded by a more ridiculous one of the harlequin's (almost as ridiculous a farce as the real state one of a coronation itself). After that the people hope for it again in a puppet-show, which is to recommend itself by another qualification of having the exact portraits of the most conspicuous faces of our nobility in waxwork, so as to be known at sight without Punch's help, or the masters pointing to each with his wand as they pass.'

The next ceremony was the dinner given to their Majesties on the Lord Mayor's Day at the

DESTROYING THE WILL.

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Guildhall, when two hundred and seventy-nine dishes were placed on the royal table. The cost of this entertainment amounted to the decent sum of £4,889 4s.

At the commencement of his reign, George II. signalised himself by an act of glaring injustice which must remain as a great stain upon a character covered with blemishes. At the meeting of the first council which he held, Dr. Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, produced the late king's will, and handed it to His Majesty, who received it in silence, and, instead of opening it before the council as his Grace expected, put it quietly into one of his pockets, and without more ado walked out of the room. The Archbishop was so much surprised at the coolness of this act that he had not presence of mind to interfere, nor did any other members of the council venture to do so. The result was that this will was never heard of again. But the late king, probably fearing that such a fate might happen to the copy entrusted to Dr. Wake, had made a second, which he left in the hands of the Duke of Wolfenbüttel; this the honest Duke soon sold for a subsidy. The morning