SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

1116TORICAL MATERI 41.5,

Xemoirs of the Reign of George the Second. from his Accession to the Death of Queen Caroline. Hy John Lord Hervey. Edited, from the original Manuscript at

jeksrerth, by the Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, LLD., F.H.B In two yoimee Hurray.

An 'Englishwoman in America. By Sarah Mytton Maury, Authoress of " The

Statesmen of America in 1846." An Appendix contains the History of the Erni-

grant Surgeons' Bill. Richardson and Son.

LORD HERVEY'S m.Emosits OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE SECOND.

ALTHOUGH a poet, pamphleteer' Parliamentary speaker, and success- ful oourtier of his own day, John Lord Hervey has been chiefly preserved to posterity by the contemptuous satire of Pope, espeeially in the cha- racter of Sporus. Nor was another fate to be looked for. Compared with common men, weakness was by no means the characteristic of Lord Hervey's intellect, nor exactly of his verse, as his great antagonist would. imply.

.-(" The lines are weak anotheea :pleased to nay; 1.4Ak Fanny 'Tinaa tinaa441101-a daY1') Bu,neasured by great metal Aefl depth and comprehension ter •Jes or history, gayetriand s$J.h9 lighter parts of poetry, 6;1144 penetration and 4 pereePtift galtlittOr, ,a satirist. He had the personal, which he exaggeratali 44iettt point aud malignityjor qf • r be chiefly regarded .•; I • tag,la too mean a temper to allow any merit in an enemy, hie:ontitdelicient in truth, might rise to smart caricatures, but had no .Np, po*IiitA, and perished (save to the curious) as much from RI ffieir faults. The

work before us is better calculated4, d,ifeterve his name; for

it contains new and curious facts, with„mi,qh3à4ial observation ; and peculiar knowledge stands next to original genius. The father of Lord. Hervey, a man of Considerable learning, large fortune, and a stanch Revolutionary Whig, was 'created Earl of Bristol on the accession of George the First. Ills sou John Was born in 1696; educated at °Westminster .1111 Cambridge:. he set out on his travels in 1715, and visited .Hanover ; where he successfully paid his court to the younger portion of the Brunswick family. After his return, he joined the little eourt of Frederick Prince of Wales. On the acces- sion of George the Second, (1727,) Harvey seems to have expected pub- lic office; but Walpole preferred to retain him as a hanger-on about the Queen, On a pension of 1,000/. a year ; and it is evident from the whole of the 'volumes before us, that both the Queen and the Minister used him as a medium and reporter, although old associations, and perhaps a liking for his, manners, induced the queen to treat him with great confidence and kindness, Which confidence the King extended to him in a degree. In jZ30 he was made. Vice-Chamberlain; in 1733 he was called to the 17p je Reuse, as Baron Llervey of Ickwortlf.' tplaniily-seat); in 17°40, afterlife Queen's deatib4r beettn4 ,nroF 14 laud died in 1743. Oil the accession o -royargia • 'determined to write, no eo int0 histot`if.Ae •bJttothat fell under his cit'61:6bse.4Artlf)r • se - era it1either private I IA' afreCtly Concerned, •••In the Houses of Parlia-

Merit. This he ...lied:wit er. as a dr:Ty, but still apparently as events were going on, espevialy ' n their occurrence was their comple-

tion,—as anecdote the drse in a personal interview. The ten

years embraced in Memo 727-1737) occupy upwards Of a

thouSand pages in th goJunies beffirejtai,, free, to have been Carefully” Prepared for the press jay their anthill. fee, not to say the ealum- nireie remarks on tildividuals and m i sqf the Royal Family, rendered an early pabhcatiorympreper ; and a: reelion of Lord Hervey, or More probahly,the jur et his son, forbade their appearance, by the

will ofilie latter,,,t r, the death of George the 'Third. This limita-

tion most probably..,asaw from the gross abuse which Lord Hervey pours forth from •InmseIC. and puts into the month of everybody else, against his Majesty's father, Frederick Prince of Wales.. The same spirit of detraction, or rather of cold malignity—the "venom" ascribed to Spo- rn's—is indeed displayed towards most . other people ; but, except as re- garded delicacy towards George the Third, "Some Materials towards Me- moirs of the Reign of King George the Second," as their author Properly described them, might have been published half a century ago. The form of the work is desultory, its matter very. various: Several causes have contributed to an irregular narrative, and a broken, incom- plete shape. But, in substance, the contents consist of-1. Characters, more or less elaborated, of the Royal Family, the Ministers, and the leading public men and women of the day. 2. Amounts of interviews between Lord Hervey and the King, Queen, Walpole, and others, frequently upon public affairs or the concerns of the Royal Family, and when essentially of a more personal nature still taking the historical .air from the historical Character of the persons. 3. Narratives of the secret Working of 477, liamentary questions; which partly, perhaps, appertains to the preceding class, but also gives some interesting sketches of the debates; occasionally accompanied with outlines of the speeches, and judicious critical remarks by Lord Hervey. 4. A more general history of particular events, chiefly relating to foreign affairs. And these last are the worst parts of the "ma- terials": they were not designed to be complete history; had they been, Lord Hervey was not very -capable of writing it., and the story has already been fully told. We are inclined to think the third class of the matter the most valuable ; though the two first classes are un- doubtedly the must curious, and, from their aneedotical nature, their. scandalous character, and the mean or profligate light in which they ex- hibit the great ones of the land, will be by far the most generally enter- tsining. The most prominent and perpetually recurring topic of the Volumes is " family jars "—the unseemly contentions between the Prince of Wales and his parents; in which the Prince, if not so bad and base as he is here painted, was beyond all question in the wrong -.both morally and prudentially. The most striking features in the-Memoirs are the cha- racters of Walpole and of the King and Queen. - Although Hervey had some grounds of complaint against the Minister, for -keeping him in the background, and rewarding him with money, (which' he did not want,) or with a Court place, (which he professed to despise,) he is more just to Walpole than to anybody else; apparently subdued by his great abilities in the art of managing men and parties, and his skilful and Imo- cessful conduct of public affairs. These traits are indeed continually brought out by the narrative Lord Hervey is telling ; and his Memoirs will raise Walpole's character higher than before as the minister of a free but rather- corrupt country. In. addition to the inherent difficulties of public business, and the greater difficulties of dealing with corrupt and interested partisans and opponents, be had the King and Queen to manage and persuade, governing the former by the latter ; in all which, his skill, his temper, his, patience, stand out prominently ; and finally his bold- ness, when as. a last resource he sometimes had to take the bull by the horns, - and- -assume a consent that - had not been given. How highly he.; was „imoreeiated in the . end, though at first disliked, was known. alreadyibp.the manner in whielt. the Queen on her deathbed recomracnde4 thcilfrigg-,4.t. him, (and, it now appears, her family and the country),:,,bat4erds, pine of great, anxiety Jest the King should be drowned on his passage .from Hanover, she observed in a conversation with Her- vey—" Sir Robert too,. I know, said he would retire.; but I assure Yon I would have begged him on my knees not to desert my son." Anidall his business and vexations, and with all.hia knowledge of the worst paits of mankind, Walpole's equanimity and good-natare seem scarcely to have been willed ; and he always comes out considerate for .individuals. Dn. ring the time of uncertainty alluded to,. these were his remarks on the :Royal Family. . . ' " Lord Hervey dined this disagreeable Friday at Sir Solivt Walpole's. As they were going together froth Court thither in the chariot, Sir Robert seemed full of many melancholy reflections, and to wish the KinessafetY, much less for the sake of the King than for the:fest of WS lenity. He said, and very truly,- ' If any fie- cident should happen to our sweet master, whom I feel more peevish with than I can express,1 do not know, my dear Lord, any peopls. in the world- so much to be pitied as that gay young company [the Duke and Princesses] with which you and I stand every day in the draWingroom, at that doer from which we this mo- ment came., bred pp m state, in affluence, caressed, and courted; and to go at once

from I

that nto dependence on a brother who loves them not, and whose extrava- gance and covetousness--olieni appetens sal profusus, (greedy of other people's money, and lavish of his own)—will mats hint grudge every guinea they spend, as it must come out of a purse not sufficient to defray the expenses of his awn vices. On the other band, what a situation is the Queen's, between the Scylla and Charybdis of falling into the hands of a son who hates her, or re- ceiving.a husband whorivshe has as much Velma to hate, and who, if one was to see her heart, perhaps 410'1M-es the least of the two, as she thinks she has not been better used by him when she has deserved everything from him i What will be the Prince's Can 2 A poor, weak, irresolute, false,.1 ing, dishonest, eau- I:050

tempuble w ^ .kbp4poimitipes, that nobody believes , at nobody will trine;

Sid that wi .•teyetitindflif tfirne, and thatevery hy turns will Impalas upon, beintY,Mialeakte-ovnaR't-And what then will.hecome of thisAvidall- faini ta& divided eotintry; is too melancholy a prospect for one toadmit eon--

jean - pa " , ' •- - - • - , . . . -

"Lord Hervey-slid, that -with regard to the avarice and profusion of the Priam, he Agreed it would make him do. a thousand wrong things; and by the by said, he wondered that that part of Catiline's character, drawn by gannet, should be thought se extraordinary a one, when, • in his opinion, there were no two qualities. oftener' Weattogether. 'But, Sir,' - continued herd Meriey, 'there is one Very material pout in which I differ from you, and that is concerning the influence the Queen would have over the Prince if ever he came to be King: 'I Am far from believing her interest there would be so low as you imagine." Zoundal my Lord,' interrupted Sir Robert, very eagerly, 'he would tear the flesh off-her bones with het irons: the notion he has of her making his fatherdo everything she has a mind to, and the father doing nothing the son has a mind to,yoined.to that rancour' against his 'mother which those about him are continually whetting,' would make himt use her worse than you or I can foresee; his resentment for the distinctions she shows to you too, I believe, would not be forgotten. Then the no, don he has of her great riches, and the desire he would feel to be fingering them, would make him pinch her and pinch her again, in order to make her buy her ease, till she had not a groat left.'" Equally conspicuous, in another light, are the King and Queen : although, perhaps, as in . the case of Walpole, no absolute novelty is ex- hibited, we have them much fuller, and ranch more en famille and in business, than we had seen them before. Their characters, however, will have to be read with some allowances for the age, for German nature, and for personal peculiarities, and in the case of the Queen, we are in-. dined to think, for a sense of duty and necessity, of which Hervey could form no idea. The manner in which the Queen not-only winked' at the King's connexions of gallantry, but also encouraged them, has often heeti: wondered at; and the details in these pages will be still more surprisillg.: It is equally surprising that the King should have "gone on in way he did : but he seems to have been a,very-peenliar man, of a coarse patriarchal nature who from the habits of Germany, at least in his day,. his disposition, and this peculiarity, thought no more of speaking to the Queen of such matters, than would a Mahometan. or Oriental patriaiiik' Of discussing with his principal wife the Merits or demerits of a Ile* ' handmaiden whom he had bought, but over whom she was to exercise absolute power. That the Queen felt this acutely, is admitted ; but what could she do better than she did? She alone could manage the man ; and if she had broken out, what would have been the effects on her condition and family ? Had Caroline, imitating Frederick, formed a third court, and, with her abilities and prudence, made another Opposition party to the King and his government, the house of Brunswick might as well have abdicated at once. We think too, the King is, throughout these volumes, somewhat disparaged, from being misunderstood. His behaviour during the Queen's last illness must redeem him from the coldness and selfishness attributed to him; while the oddities arose from want of , retinence—a want of dramatic consistency in the role be had to play. Both George and Caroline come out attentive to business, full of in- dustry, Arid with less of frivolity in their conversation than might have been supposed despite the dulness induced by the formal routine of a court, which last is pretty clearly impressed.

BREAKFAST-TABLE TALK.

The King, in telling Lord Hervey this circumstance, one morning at breakfast in the garden at Hampton Court, when nobody was present but the Queen, said that the King of Sardinia's conduct appeared to him to be fall as weak with regard to his own interest as it was impertinent with regard to England, and that he would soon find he had exchanged an ally for a master. "His Sardinian Ma- ;piety," replied Lord Hervey, "is so poor a creature, that vary few testimonies of -his folly could surprise me ; but this step would prove all the people about him equal fools to their master, if one imagined they advised this measure as thinking it for the interest of their country; for which reason, (continued Lord Hervey,) I cannot help believing he must have been secret!, sold to France by some Min- ister in whom he has confided upon this occasion. "That may easily be," the King answered, "if he is really so poor a creature as you say." Lord Hervey assured his Majesty that it was impossible to describe either the aspect or the understanding of this King as meaner than it had ap- peared to him; and that the short acquaintance he had had with him five years ago at the Court of Turin, during the life and before the abdication of his father, had given him so low an opinion of his abilities, that he could imagine no error too gross for his Sardinian Majesty to be capable of committing. The Queen asked Lord Hervey, if this was said to be merely owing to his natural want of understanding, or if his father had ever been reproached with neglecting his edu- cation. Lord Hervey told her Majesty, that his father had always., as he had heard, kept him in great subjection, but that no pains had been spared to form him or to make something of him, if there had been any materials to work upon. Here the King interrupted, and, colouring with a mixture of anger and hatred, said, [alluding to his son,] "I do not want to know that there may be people On whom all pains and care in education are thrown away." Upon which the Queen winked at Lord Hervey to make no reply, and immediately turned the Oenversation.

EVENING AMUSEMENT.

trir Robert thanked Lord Hervey for his compliment, and then began to inquire haw the King behaved [on his return from Hanover] to the Queen; whether she had gained any ground, or he lost any of his ill-temper. Lord Hervey told him he did not perceive either, and told him what was the true state of the case; that the King was generally in a most abominable humour, and that the Queen was the chief mark at which all the sharpest arrows were aimed. Ills Lordship added, too, that if he was the Qaeen he should be more exasperated still at his Majesty's good-humour than his bad; for whenever in these vicissitudes the transient fit of good-humour took its turn, it was only to relate the scenes of his happy loves when he was at Hanover, and give her Majesty a detail of all his amorous amusements with her rival [Madame Wahnoden]. The suppers, the balls, the shows and masquerades with which this son of Mars entertained his new Venus, were not only the frequent topics of his private con- versation with the Queen at this time, but added to this he had the goodness to bring over pictures of these scelaes in fine gilt frames, to adorn the Queen's dres- sing-room; and was often so gracious to Laid Hervey when be was with their Ma- jesties in this dressing-room for an hour or two in the evening, to take a candle in his own royal hand, and tell him the story of these pictures; running through the names and characters of all the persons represented in them, and what they had said and done the whole night these entertainments had been exhibited: du- ring which lecture, Lord Hervey, whilst he was peeping over his Majesty's boulder at these pictures, was shrugging up his own, and now and then stealing a look to make faces at the Queen; who, a little angry, a little peevish, and a little tired with her husband's absurdity, and a little entertained with his Lordship's grimaces, used to sit and knot in a corner of the room, sometimes yawning and sometimes smiling, and equally afraid of betraying those signs either of her lassi- tude or her mirth.

ROYAL LETTER-WRITING.

When Sir Robert Walpole told Lord Hervey of this letter that the Queen had written to the King [by Walpole's advice] in solicit his bringing Madame Wal- moden over, he gate the.manner of cooking it the greatest encomiums in which it was possible to speak of such a performance: he said she had not pared away the least part of his meaning, but bad clothed his sentitneuts in so pretty a dress, had mixed so many tender turns in every paragraph, and spoke with such de- cent concern of her own situation as well as consideration of the King's, had covered all her own passions so artfully, and applied so pathetically to his, that Sir .Robert Walpole said he did not believe anybody bat a womancould have writ- ten a letter of that sort, nor any woman but the Queen so good a one. Lord Hervey said he was quite satisfied with this report of the letter; and had only one question more to ask, which was, if Sir Robert thought the letter went?

Sir Robert said he really believed it did. • •

Soon after, all apprehensions of this letter not having been sent were totally dis- sipated; for an answer to it came from the King, which the Queen showed to Sir Robert Walpole. This letter wanted no marks of kindness but those that men express to women when they love ; had it been written to a man, nothing could have been added to strengthen its tenderness friendship, and affection. He extolled the Queen's merit towards him in the strongest expression of his sense of all her goodness to him and the gratitude he felt towards her. He commended her un- derstanding, her temper, and in short left nothing unsaid that could demonstrate the opinion he had of her head and the value he set upon her heart. He told her too, she knew him to be just in his nature, and how much be wished he could be everything she would have him. " Mais vous voyez mes passions, ma chere Ca- roline! Vous connaissez rnes foiblesses, il n'y a rien de cache dans won casur pour Inns, et plat I Dieu qua vous poumez ins corriger avec Is mime facilite qua vons mapprofondissezi Plitt a Dien quo je pourrais vow baiter autant quo je Sate VMS admirer, et quo .je pourrais apprendre de vous tontes lee vertus quo vous me fakes voir, senur, et aimed " His Majesty then came to the point of Madame Walmoden's coming to England, and said that she had told him she would do anything he would have her; that she relied on the Queen's goodness, and would give herself up to whatever their Majesties thought fit, and to be of implicitly as they should direct. Sir Robert Walpole, who gave Lord Hervey an account of this letter merely by memory, (bat said he had read it several times,) assured Lord Hervey it was so well written, that if the King was only to write to women, and never to strut and talk to them, he believed his Ma- jesty would get the better of all the men in the world with them.

The Queen's last illness occupies three chapters, and is full of interest ; but we can only take a passage or two illustrative of what we have al- ready said.

"During this time the King talked perpetually to Lord Hervey, the physicians and surgeons, and his children, who were the only people he ever saw out of the Queen's room, of the Queen's good qualities his fondness for her, his anxiety for her welfare, arid the irreparable loss her qualities, would be to him; and repeated day, and many times in the day, all her merits in every capacity with re- gall to him and every other body she had to do with. He said she was the best wife, the best mother, the best companion, the beat friend, and the best woman that ever was born; that she was the wisest, the most agreeable, and the most useful body, man or woman, that he had ever been acquainted with; that he firmly believed she never, since he first knew her, ever thought of anything she was to do or to say, but with the view of doing or saying it in what manner it would be most agreeable to his pleasure or most serviceable for his interest; that he had never seen her out of humour in his life; that he had passed more hours with her than he believed any other two people in the world had ever passed together, and that he never had been tired in her company one minute; and that he was sere be could have been happy with no other woman upon earth for a wife, and that if she had not been his wife, he had rather have bad her for his mistress than any woman he had ever been acquainted with that he believed she never had had a thought of people or things which she had not communicated to him; that she had the best head, the best heart, and the best temper that God Almighty hat' ever given to any human creature, man or woman; and that she had not only softened all his leisure hours' but been of more use to him as a minister than any other body had ever been to him or to any other prince; that, with a patience which he knew he was not master of, she had listened to the nonsense of all the impertinent fools that wanted to talk to him, and had taken all that trouble off his hands, reporting nothing to him that was unnecessary or would have been tedious for him to hear, and never forgetting anything that was material, useful, or entertaining to him to know. He said that, joined to all the softness and de-. licacy of her own sex, she had all the personal as well as political courage of the firmest and bravest man; that not only he and her family, but the whole nation, would feel the loss of her if she died; and that, as to all the brillant and enjeue, meat of the Court, there would be an end of it when she was gone; and that there would be no bearing a drawingroom when the only body that ever enlivened it, and one that alwaya enlivened it, was no longer there. 'Poor woman I how she always found something obliging, agreeable, and pleasing, to say to everybody, and always sent people away from her better satisfied than they came ! Coaune elle soutenoit as dignite avec grace' avec politesse, avec douceur ' " These were the terms in which he was for ever now talking of the Queen, and. in which he likewise talked to her; and yet, Bo unaccountable were the sudden sallies of his temper, and so little was he able or willing to command them, that in the midst of all this flow of tenderness he hardly ever went into her room that he did not, even in this moving situation, snub her for something or other she

said or did." •

" On Sunday the 20th November, in the evening, she asked Dr. Tesier—with no seeming impatience under any article -of her present circumstances but their duration—how long he thought it was possible for all this to last: to which he answered, 'de crois qua vette Majeste sera bientOt soulagee.' And she calmly replied, Taut mieux.' "About ten o'clock on Sunday night—the King being in bed and asleep on the floor at the feet of the Queen% bed, and the Princess Emily in a couch- bed in a corner of the room—the Queen began to rattle in the throat; and Mrs. Purcel giving the alarm that she was expiring, all in the room started up. Princess Caroline was sent for, and Lord Hervey; but before the last arrived the Queen was just dead. All she said before she died was, have now got an asthma: open the window.' Then she said, Pray.' 'Upon which the Princess Emily began to read some prayers; of Which she scarce repeated ten words before the Queen expired. The Princess Caroline held a looking-glass to her lips; and, finding there was not the least damp upon it, cried, ''Tis over!' and said not one wori more, nor shed as yet one tear, on the arrival of a misfortune the dread of which had cost her so many. "The King kissed the face and hands of the lifeless body several times; but in a few minutes left the Queen's apartment and went to that of his daughters, ac- companied only by them. Then, advising them to go to bed and take care of themselves, he went to his own side; and as soon as he was in bed, sent for Lord Hervey to come and sit by him; where, after talking some time, and more calmly than one could have expected, of the manner of the Queen's death, he dismissed Lord Hervey, and sent for one of his pages to sit up in his room all night; which order he repeated for several days afterwards. And, by the by, as he ordered One of them, for some time after the death of the Queen, to lie in his room, and that I am very sure he believed many stories of ghosts and witches and apparitions, I take this order (with great deference to his magnanimity on other occasions) to have been the result of the same way of thinking that makes many weak minds fancy themselves more secure from any supernatural danger in the light than in the dark, and in company than alone."

The gist of Pope's satire on Hervey is, that his character defeated the advantages of nature and fortune ; and this book rather ocaifirms that conclusion. It displays very considerable abilities ; is sustained in its attraction, except in the chapters on general history ; is smart and well- turned, yet not too artificial in its style ; curious in its particulars; exhibiting the qualities of industry, memory, observation, and judgment ; and will take high rank and permanent place among the class of works to which it belongs. Yet the book is unequal to the advantages of the au- thor. The bulk is out of proportion to the matter or the information; if not "shallow," there is a want of depth ; "half froth, half venom," is not exactly a characteristic, for there is little or no froth, but nearly all is venom. It is exceedingly well and easily conveyed—a serpent could not have done it better ; but it is so obvious as to shake the author's credit when he speaks censoriously -of a person, or reports the disparag- ing remarks of others—he is a witness that cannot be credited unless con- firmed. His vanity shows itself in assuming an importance, and an ap- parent equality with Walpole, which neither his position nor his exhibited abilities warranted; he tells stories of his own malice, weakness, tricks, and artifices, (for it would be too severe to stigmatize conventional fibs as lies) ; he used his wit for no better purpose than to gratify his own malice or the Queen's anger ; and though professing that contempt of the great which the wits, with Dryden, Pope, and Voltaire at their head, had rendered fashionable, he continued a half-discontented hanger-on of the Court and Minister, without necessity, since his father offered if he would resign to make up his allowance to whatever he might lose.