‘Your Majesty,’ was the reply, ‘will soon be released.’

‘So much the better,’ the queen calmly answered.

At ten o’clock that night, whilst the king lay at the foot of her bed, on the floor, and the Princess Emily on a couch-bed in the room, the fearful death-rattle in the throat was heard.  Mrs. Purcell, her chief and old attendant, gave the alarm:  the Princess Caroline and Lord Hervey were sent for; but the princess was too late, her mother had expired before she arrived.  All the dying queen said was, ’I have now got an asthma; open the window:’  then she added, ‘Pray!’ That was her last word.  As the Princess Emily began to read some prayers, the sufferer breathed her last sigh.  The Princess Caroline held a looking-glass to her lips, and finding there was no damp on it, said, ‘’Tis over!’ Yet she shed not one tear upon the arrival of that event, the prospect of which had cost her so many heartrending sobs.

The king kissed the lifeless face and hands of his often-injured wife, and then retired to his own apartment, ordering that a page should sit up with him for that and several other nights, for his Majesty was afraid of apparitions, and feared to be left alone.  He caused himself, however, to be buried by the side of his queen, in Henry VII.’s chapel, and ordered that one side of his coffin and of hers should be withdrawn; and in that state the two coffins were discovered not many years ago.

With the death of Queen Caroline, Lord Hervey’s life, as to court, was changed.  He was afterwards made lord privy seal, and had consequently to enter the political world, with the disadvantage of knowing that much was expected from a man of so high a reputation for wit and learning.  He was violently opposed by Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, who had been adverse to his entering the ministry, and since, with Walpole’s favour, it was impossible to injure him by fair means, it was resolved to oppose Lord Hervey by foul ones.  One evening, when he was to speak, a party of fashionable Amazons, with two duchesses—­her grace of Queensberry and her grace of Ancaster—­at their head, stormed the House of Lords and disturbed the debate with noisy laughter and sneers.  Poor Lord Hervey was completely daunted, and spoke miserably.  After Sir Robert Walpole’s fall Lord Hervey retired.  The following letter from him to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu fully describes his position and circumstances:—­

‘I must now,’ he writes to her, ’since you take so friendly a part in what concerns me, give you a short account of my natural and political health; and when I say I am still alive, and still privy seal, it is all I can say for the pleasure of one or the honour of the other; for since Lord Orford’s retiring, as I am too proud to offer my service and friendship where I am not sure they will be accepted of, and too inconsiderable to have those advances made to me (though I never forgot or failed to return any obligation I ever received), so I remain as illustrious