tainty of either enjoying a great portion of it as long as he should survive, or at least commanding his own terms whenever he should retire; and could not restrain his activity from laying for a monopoly of it in the next reign.[1] Frederick, Prince of Wales, died in 1751: the present King being then twelve years of age. It became necessary to consider of his establishment and more particularly of his education, and that of his brothers, which had been very much neglected during his father's life, who was the weakest Prince that ever came out of Germany. The Duke of Newcastle made a faint attempt to insist upon their removal to St. James's. Lord Granville laughed at the folly of their looking to a future reign, 'when they would be young gentlemen of seventy and upwards.' Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt were kept from taking a very forward part from the suspicion above mentioned, and I suppose an apprehension that they might be left in the lurch by his unsteady Grace, where all real power at the time rested. The Princess played the part of the widow and the mother with every show of affecting tenderness possible.[2]
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"It appears by Lord Melcombe's diary that everything was kept perfectly quiet for a considerable time after. The Princess acted her part with singular propriety. She lived retired without the least ostentation. The Publick supposed her occupied and attached to her numerous family. The Court was old; the Ministry was old; there was a long generation between them and the heir-apparent and his brothers and sisters. The old King, who had been always violent against his son, sought to prove himself in the right by his tenderness for the Princess. She knew admirably how to improve the appearance if not the reality of this to her advantage. She likewise omitted no proper occasion of showing herself and her sons and daughter in situations which might interest the publick, descending to the excess of affability,
