reserve which he afterwards indulged in to such an extent. It is spoken of by his contemporaries as splendidly furnished. One room was embellished with pictures of court beauties by Sir Peter Lely. Here he lost two sons-a bereavement which Coke huddles up in his narrative with a most incongruous assortment of other gossip. The King (Charles II.), he tells us, was returning from feeding his birds in the Park, followed by the narrator, when, at the farther end of the Mall, he was overtaken by Prince Rupert. "The King told the Prince how he had shot a duck, and such a dog fetched it; and so they walked on till the King came to St. James's House, and there the King said to the Prince, 'Let's go and see Cambridge and Kendal,' the Duke of York's two sons, who then lay a-dying. But upon his return to Whitehall he found all in an uproar-the Countess of Castlemaine, as it was said, bewailing above all others, that she should be the first torn in pieces." The news of the Dutch fleet having arrived in the river had just reached the palace. James left St. James's for Whitehall on the morning of his coronation; but it was in the former palace that his son was born who forced so many grave and conscientious people, who could not forgive themselves for keeping a legitimate prince out of his inheritance, to convince themselves he was not the son of his father by the vehemence of their own protestations and oaths to the contrary.

But amid the frivolities of the court of Charles II., as amid the sadness of his father's, the Destiny working out the completion of those events which had been set in motion by Henry VIII. was inexorably holding on the even tenor of its way. The self-willed James was the instrument which in a few years brought on the dénouement. Affairs were so ripe that his ejection was accomplished without a struggle. He walked out, and the first prince under the new order of things walked in, entirely as a matter of course.

We have now arrived at the period when the Palace of St. James's became the principal residence of the English sovereigns: not because the Revolution dynasty thought it necessary to have a new abode of their own, in which the memory of the old should not haunt them at every turning; but because, Whitehall having been accidentally burned soon after the accession of William, St. James's was at first occupied as a temporary arrangement, protracted it may have been at first from some doubts as to the permanence of the new order of things, and afterwards from the hurry of important business, which kept men from thinking of such a subordinate matter as the proper lodging of the sovereign. Until George III. the Revolution sovereigns (with the exception of Anne) never seem to have felt quite at home in England; and his reign was too busy a one to leave much leisure for palace building.

We have already observed that the presence chamber is understood to be part of the "Manor House " erected by Henry VIII. The north gateway also formed a part of that building. For many years after its erection it stood quite in the country. An idea of its appearance in this its state of isolation may be gathered from the engraving at the head of this paper.

By degrees, however, houses sprung up along the north side of Pall Mall, and on both sides of St. James's Street. After the Restoration, Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Alban's, contrived to obtain a grant of a large piece of ground, between Pall Mall and Piccadilly, on which he began to build St. James's Square and several streets. King Charles's grant of the site of a house on the south of

Pall Mall to Nell Gwynn seems to have been the beginning of the row of houses on that side of the street, as his grant of the site on which Bridgewater House lately stood seems to have been the beginning of the range of building fronting the western wing of the Palace. Thus it came that in the time of Queen Anne and the two first Georges the Palace was as completely in town as it now is. Nor does an attempt seem at any time to have been made to render the houses in its vicinity specimens of architectural taste. Possibly a modest forbearance rendered the subjects (with the exception of the Duke of Marlborough-and old Sarah may have been at the bottom of that) reluctant to outshine their Sovereign. Evelyn who was a commissioner for improving the streets of Westminster and London. bears testimony to the shameful state of St. James's Street in his day. Bubb Doddington, with his wonted solemn emphasis, notes in his Diary, that he had been attending a committee, which had in view to pave Pall Mall-out of which, as out of most undertakings Bubb engaged in, nothing seems to have come. A paragraph in the Chronicle department of the Annual Register for 1765, apparently extracted from some newspaper of the day, after announcing the alterations made in the Strand, by "taking down of signs and fixing up of lights in a regular way," thus proceeds :-" It may be said that no street in London, paved, lighted, and filled with signs in the old way, ever made so agreeable an appearance, or afforded better walking, than the Strand does in the new. But great as the alteration in the Strand may be, that in St. James's Street greatly surpasses it." Seeing what St. James's Street still is, and bearing in mind how many improvements have been made upon it since 1765, the reader may, by the reflected light of this puff portentous, be able to see it in something approaching to the likeness of its carlier days; or, if his imagination fail him, the back ground of Hogarth's picture of the Rake, arrested by bailiffs, will help to supply its deficiencies.

The environs of St. James's Palace seem to have been every way worthy of it; and one learns rather to sympathise with than wonder at the indignation of the King of Denmark's favourite, Count Holcke, at seeing his master trundled into it on his arrival in this country in 1768. "Christian the Seventh," says the editor of Brown's Secret History of the Courts of Sweden and Denmark, "was lodged in those apartments in the stable-yard that are now (1818) occupied by the Duke of Clarence, and where the King of Prussia was lodged when he visited this metropolis in the summer of 1814. When Count Holcke, a gay, extravagant, dissipated young nobleman, first saw the exterior of the place, he exclaimed, ‘By God, this will never do it is not fit to lodge a Christian in! When he saw the interior, the Count was less dissatisfied."

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The most remarkable feature of the Court of St. James's during the period that the Revolution dynasty was undergoing a process of naturalization-becoming English is the unimportant part played by the Sovereign in the Court pageant. There was a Court, and there was a Sovereign; but the Sovereign, with reverence be it spoken, much resembled a dummy at whist, or a chair set up as the representative of the dancer wanted to make up a quadrille. The courtiers agreed to go through their wonted ceremonies round an impersonation of royalty, that took marvellous little part or concern in what was going forward.

Queen Anne was English, and might have been a real acting and speaking Queen, had she not been phlegmatic and somewhat timid. During the first part of her reign she was domineered over by the Duchess of Marlborough, and during the latter part by Mrs. Masham, Harley, and their coadjutors. The poor woman, after long suffering, broke from her first termagant mistress, to subject herself to a horde of taskmasters. Swift's Journal to Stella' shows the state of incessant alarm in which the party lived into whose arms the Queen had thrown herself, lest she should return to her old friends; and the language in which they speak of her does not augur much deference or regard for her feelings in the means adopted to keep her fast. She seems to have felt relieved when an opportunity offered of taking refuge at Hampton Court or Windsor; and when the posse comitutus from St. James's broke in upon her retreat, her attitude very much resembles that of an unfortunate hare surprised in its form. "There was a drawing-room to-day at court," says Swift, writing from Windsor, "but so few company, that the Queen sent for us into her bedchamber, where we made our bows, and stood, about twenty of us, round the room, while she looked at us round with her fan in her mouth, and once a minute said about three words to some that were nearest her; and then she was told dinner was ready, and went out." The poor woman had been so unceremoniously pulled about in the struggle between Whig and Tory to seize or retain hold of her, that she felt alarm when any of them came near her.

Of George I. Lady Mary Wortley Montague avers that he "could speak no English, and was past the learning of it." He must have felt in England like a fish out of water. At his first council board there was only one minister (Mr. Wortley) of whom it is affirmed with certainty that he could speak French: in the Introductory Anecdotes' to Lord Wharncliffe's edition of Lady Mary's Letters, it is hesitatingly suggested that "perhaps" Lord Halifax spoke it also. German was out of the question. Walpole is said always to have conversed with his Majesty in Latin-of the purity of which his loss of half-a-guinea to Pulteney,

by solemn decision of the Speaker in face of the assembled House of Commons, on a wager respecting the accuracy of a Latin quotation, is not calculated to convey a very exalted idea. So the King left matters of state, in so far as Great Britain was concerned, to be managed by his ministers. Lady Mary—but point was of more weight with her in retailing a story than truth-alleges that he never felt quite easy on the score of his right to the throne. "The natural honesty of his temper, joined with the narrow notions of a low education, made him look upon his acceptance of the crown as an act of usurpation, which was always uneasy to him." He lived in St. James's Palace like a quiet private gentleman of independent fortune. His evening parties consisted of the Germans who formed his familiar society, a few English ladies, and fewer Englishmen ; who amused themselves "soberly," as Lady Townley would say, at cards, under the presidency of Mademoiselle de Schulenberg, afterwards Duchess of Kendal, whom he was suspected to have married with the left hand. When seeking pleasure out of doors of an evening he "went to the play or opera in a sedanchair, and sat, like another gentleman, in the corner of a lady's box, with a couple of Turks in waiting, instead of lords or grooms of the bedchamber."

Yet even into this dull circle did livelier thoughts intrude. The old King, who Lady Mary says was "rather dull than lazy," liked to look upon a pretty face, and therefore affected her society much in the same way that the Laird of Dumbiedikes stuck to the apron string of Jeannie Deans. In the work already quoted a descendant of that lively lady has recorded a pleasing incident, the memory of which has been preserved by family tradition :-" She had on one evening a particular engagement that made her wish to be dismissed unusually early; she explained her reasons to the Duchess of Kendal, and the Duchess informed the King, who, after a few complimentary remonstrances, appeared to acquiesce. But when he saw her about to take her leave, he began battling the point afresh, declaring it was unfair and perfidious to cheat him in such a manner, and saying many other fine things, in spite of which she at last contrived to escape. At the foot of the great stairs she ran against Mr. Secretary Craggs, just coming in, who stopped her to inquire what was the matter-was the company put off? She told him why she went away, and how urgently the King had pressed her to stay longer, possibly dwelling on that head with some small complacency. Mr. Craggs made no remark, but when he had heard all, snatching her up in his arms, as a nurse carries a child, he ran full speed with her upstairs, deposited her within the ante-chamber, kissed both her hands respectfully, still saying not a word, and vanished. The pages, seeing her returned, they knew not how, hastily threw open the inner door, and before she had recovered her breath she found herself in the King's presence. 6 Ah! la revoilà" cried he and the Duchess, extremely pleased, and began thanking her for her obliging change of mind. Lady Mary, bewildered, fluttered, and entirely off her guard, beginning with Oh, Lord, Sir! I have been so frightened!' told his Majesty the whole story, exactly as she would have told it to any one else. He had not done exclaiming, nor his Germans wondering, when again the door flew open, and the attendants announced Mr. Secretary Craggs, who, but that moment arrived, it should seem, entered with the usual obeisance, and with as composed an air as if nothing had happened. 'Mais comment donc, Monsieur Craggs,' said the King,

going up to him, 'est-ce que c'est l'usage de ce pays de porter des belles dames comme un sac de froment?' The minister, struck dumb by this unexpected attack, stood a minute or two, not knowing which way to look; then, recovering his selfpossession, answered with a low bow, 'There is nothing I would not do for your Majesty's satisfaction.' This was coming off tolerably well; but he did not forgive the tell-tale culprit, in whose ear, watching his opportunity, when the King turned from him, he muttered a bitter reproach, with a round oath to enforce it, 'which I durst not resent,' continued she, for I had drawn it upon myself; and indeed I was heartily vexed at my own imprudence.'"

George II. could speak English after a fashion, but he was, nevertheless, scarcely less taciturn than his predecessor. Father and son brought with them a coolness from Germany. Lady Mary attributes it to the anxiety of the Princess (afterwards Queen Caroline) to isolate her husband from his family, in order to obtain an entire ascendancy over him: probably, however, the conduct of his father towards his mother was the commencement of the domestic feud. Whatever the source of the quarrel, it ended in such a coldness towards his family as left him entirely under the government of his wife. The indolent Elector contented himself with showing his resentment by his silence towards him; and this was the situation the family first appeared in when they came to England. The strong common sense, integrity, and repressed energy of the character of George II. were things Lady Mary either could not discern or could not appreciate to the foibles and gaucherie of that Prince she was lynx-eyed. Perhaps disappointment sharpened her apprehension-he had betrayed unequivocal symptoms of warm admiration till he learned that the lady frequented his father's private parties, after which he grew cool and distant.

The pride which prevented him explaining or defending any action, however startling it might appear to others, as for example the suppression of his father's will, left the parties opposed to him in all his quarrels, domestic or public, to tell their own story. He was not a man to conceal his dislikes. From the energetic mode in which he expressed them, and his carelessness of appearances, an unfavourable impression of his temper went abroad. His only marriage, however, was a marriage of affection; and till the day of his death he never attempted to describe a beautiful woman but he unconsciously drew a picture of his wife. He was stern to his son; but the boisterous emptiness of that unfortunate Princethe "Fred, who was alive, and is dead" of the lampoons of his day-converted by faction into a thorn in his father's side, was sufficiently provoking. The simple statement of Horace Walpole, who entertained no very kindly feelings towards George II., indicates a terrible convulsion in the breast of the cold, silent monarch, when told of his son's death:-"As soon as the Prince of Wales was dead, Lord North was sent to notify it to the King, who was playing at cards. He immediately went down to Lady Yarmouth, looking extremely pale and shocked, and only said Il est mort." His unwonted gentleness and constant kindness to the widow show that the impression was lasting. Everything in his history betrays the working of an energetic character under a rigid exterior; but the courtiers who surrounded him for the most part saw only the external effigy of a man; his thoughts were not about the matters in which they took an interest, and were not communicated to them.