Lockhart, of Carnwath, in his Memoirs, relates a somewhat romantic anecdote, connected with the last illness of George the First, which was formerly current in Germany. According to this writer, the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea, shortly before her death, addressed a letter to her royal consort, in which, after emphatically asserting her innocence, she reproached him with the long course of ill-usage that she had experienced at his hands, and concluded by solemnly citing him to appear on a certain day before the Divine tribunal. This letter, it is said, was entrusted by the dying princess to a faithful attendant, by whom it was presented to the King on his entering his German dominions. He read it; appeared to be awe-struck by the contents, and immediately afterwards was seized by the disorder which carried him off. Lockhart, a trustworthy chronicler, informs us, that the same year in which the King died, he was actually shown the letter in question by Count Welling, Governor of Luxemburg. It is more likely, however, that Lockhart was imposed upon, than that the story had any foundation in fact. Indigestion, and not superstition, seems to have shortened the life of George the First.

King George expired on the 11th of June, 1727, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and the thirteenth of his reign over England. His remains were interred at Hanover on the 3rd of September following. In person he was somewhat beneath the middle stature. His general appearance was

undignified; his address awkward. Though not handsome, his features were good, and the slight expression which they bore is said to have been that of benignity. The King's character has already been sufficiently illustrated in the foregoing pages, without requiring any general summary of his virtues or his vices. It may be remarked, however, that, with the single exceptions of social pleasantry and constitutional goodhumour, he seems to have been possessed of no redeeming quality which reflected dignity on him as a monarch, or rendered him amiable as a man. Profligate in his youth, and libidinous in old age, he figures through life as a bad husband, a bad father, and, in as far as England is concerned, a bad king. He wanted even those graceful qualifications of the Stuarts, a love for polite literature and the fine arts: he possessed no taste for the one, and extended no patronage to the other. The only thing he seems to have had a regard for was his own ease; the only being he hated heartily was probably his own son. Many of these unamiable characteristics were unquestionably owing to his indifferent education; for, notwithstanding his wrong-headiness, he is said to have meant well. A single favourable anecdote is related of this monarch, that when, on his accession to the throne, a German nobleman congratulated him on his elevation, "Rather," he said, “congratulate me on having Newton for a subject in one

The au

country, and Leibnitz in the other."* thenticity of the story may reasonably be doubted, but, if true, it deserves to be written in letters of gold.

His

George the First, (by his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Zell,) was the father of two children,-a son and a daughter, of whom the former succeeded him on the throne of England as King George the Second. His remaining child was Sophia Dorothea, born in 1684. This lady, on the 28th of November, 1706, became the wife of Frederick William, of Brandenburg, afterwards King of Prussia, a man whose eccentric brutalities have been rendered so celebrated by Voltaire. unhappy wife is said to have combined the strong sense of her grandmother, the old Electress, with the beauty and fascinating manners of her unfortunate mother, Sophia of Zell. Neither her virtues, however, nor her accomplishments were sufficient to protect her against the inhumanities of her husband. This despicable and unmanly ruffian is known to have practised the same cruelties towards his wife and children which he exercised so notoriously towards his oppressed subjects. On different occasions, we find him kicking his daughter, with brutal violence, from his apartment; † pro

* This anecdote is related by Seward, but without giving his authority.-Anecdotes of distinguished Persons, vol. ii. p. 295. + Lord Chesterfield writes to the plenipotentiaries on the 15th of September, 1750, from the Hague ;-" My last letters from Rome inform me that the King of Prussia had beaten the

posing to behead his son, afterwards Frederick the Great, for having been guilty of writing a copy of verses; forcing that son to be a witness of the execution of his friend; and subsequently to be present at the public castigation of a beloved mistress. Harassed by her own misfortunes, and by witnessing the distresses of her children, the Queen of Prussia continued to drag on an existence of misery and disease till 1757, when she expired in the seventy-fourth year of her

age.

Princess-Royal, his daughter, most unmercifully, dragged her about the room by the hair, kicking her in the belly and breast, till her cries alarmed the officer of the guards, who came in. She keeps her bed of the bruises she received. Twenty-pence a day is allowed for the maintenance of the Prince-Royal in the Castle of Custan."-Lord Mahon's Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 72, Appendix. The Princess, on the occasion above referred to, received a severe injury on her left breast, the marks of which she, some years afterwards, exhibited to Voltaire.

321

MELESINA,

DUCHESS OF KENDAL.

Sister of the Count of Schulenberg. Appointed Maid of Honour to the Electress Sophia, mother of George the First. -The Duchess's birth in 1659.-Her personal appearance. -Reluctantly accompanies George the First to England. Created an Irish peeress, Duchess of Munster, in 1716.— Afterwards created an English peeress, Duchess of Kendal, for life, and, subsequently, Princess of Eberstein in Germany. -Supposed to have contracted a left-handed marriage with George the First.-Her assumption of piety.-Sir R. Walpole's mean opinion of her.-Her political influence.Letter respecting her from Count Broglio to Louis the Fifteenth. The latter's reply.-The Duchess presides at the King's evening parties. His nightly visits to her apartments. Accompanies him on his last visit to Hanover.-Her grief on hearing of his death.-Singular anecdote. The Duchess's death in 1743.

ERENGARD MELESINA SCHULENBERG, the celebrated mistress of George the First, was sister of Frederic Achatius, Count of Schulenberg and Hedlen. The influence of her family procured her the appointment of Maid of Honour to the Electress Sophia, mother of George the First, at the period when her royal lover was only Electoral Prince. Thus early did their intercourse commence, and it is remarkable that the influence obtained by the one, and the affection felt by

VOL. II.

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