stepping down, as the great iron gates are thrown open to receive him, looks neither like a king or a gentleman.  A thin, worn face, in which weakness and passion are at once pictured; a form buttoned and padded up to the chin; high Hessian boots without a wrinkle; a sword and a swagger, no more constituting him the military character than the ‘your majesty’ from every lip can make a poor thing of clay a king.  Such was George II.:  brutal, even to his submissive wife.  Stunted by nature, he was insignificant in form, as he was petty in character; not a trace of royalty could be found in that silly, tempestuous physiognomy, with its hereditary small head:  not an atom of it in his made-up, paltry little presence; still less in his bearing, language, or qualities.

The queen and her court have come from chapel, to meet the royal absentee at the great gate:  the consort, who was to his gracious majesty like an elder sister rather than a wife, bends down, not to his knees, but yet she bends, to kiss the hand of her royal husband.  She is a fair, fat woman, no longer young, scarcely comely; but with a charm of manners, a composure, and a savoir faire that causes one to regard her as mated, not matched to the little creature in that cocked-hat, which he does not take off even when she stands before him.  The pair, nevertheless, embrace:  it is a triennial ceremony performed when the king goes or returns from Hanover, but suffered to lapse at other times; but the condescension is too great:  and Caroline ends, where she began:  ’gluing her lips to the ungracious hand held out to her in evident ill-humour.

They turn, and walk through the court, then up the grand staircase, into the queen’s apartment.  The king has been swearing all the way at England and the English, because he has been obliged to return from Hanover, where the German mode of life and new mistresses were more agreeable to him than the English customs and an old wife.  He displays, therefore, even on this supposed happy occasion, one of the worst outbreaks of his insufferable temper, of which the queen is the first victim.  All the company in the palace, both ladies and gentlemen, are ordered to enter:  he talks to them all, but to the queen he says not a word.

She is attended by Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady Sundon, whose lively manners and great good temper and good will—­lent out like leasehold to all, till she saw what their friendship might bring,—­are always useful at these tristes rencontres.  Mrs. Clayton is the amalgamating substance between chemical agents which have, of themselves, no cohesion; she covers with address what is awkward; she smooths down with something pleasant what is rude; she turns off—­and her office in that respect is no sinecure at that court—­what is indecent, so as to keep the small majority of the company who have respectable notions in good humour.  To the right of Queen Caroline stands another of her majesty’s