Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/295

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240
APPENDIX.
NO. 9.

ness discharged the debt. After which rightly judging that the properest course, if he would extend his benevolence, was to employ the artist professionally, he set him to take a portrait of his Princess—a fact directly at variance with the general, if not the universal belief, that mutual disgust, and a separation from bed and board took place almost immediately after their nuptials.—If so, that the bridegroom shortly after should have employed an artist to take the likeness of his partner, cannot be reconciled to—is indeed quite incompatible with ordinary notions in such concerns, for no man separated from his wife under such circumstances ever thinks of introducing a painter with such an object. How can he be supposed to contemplate the production of art with pleasure, if the original, from whatever causes is wholly an alien to his satisfaction? How, we ask, is a difficulty to be got over, directly opposed to historical credence?[1] for it leads


  1. Neither was this circumstance a solitary exception to the current belief which supposes the match was forced on the heir apparent and wholly contrary to his inclination: for Mr. Jefferys, of Picadilly, who furnished the jewellery ordered in consequence of the marriage, and was a principal creditor of his royal highness, having published a pamphlet on account of some dispute with the Commissioners appointed to settle the Princes affairs: incidentally informs us—that at the period of the proposed nuptials of the Prince of Wales with his Cousin, the Princess Caroline of Brunswic, he passed much of his time at Carlton House; and though it is at such complete variance with the generally received opinion, he continues—'I declare it to be my firm belief, however subsequent events,