There is nothing attractive about George the First and his two ugly old
mistresses, the "Elephant" and the "Maypole"; nor about his court of
Germans, utilizing their time in England by accumulating money to carry
back to Hanover when the harvest time had passed. George the Second,
brave, but narrow and ill-tempered, embodied in himself the coarseness
of the time. He loved his wife, who was faithful to him through every
outrage and every neglect. He caused one side to be taken out of her
coffin, so that when he should be laid beside her his dust might mingle
with hers. He esteemed her so highly, that in his grief at losing her,
he went so far as to say that if she had not been his wife, he would
have wished her for a mistress. To this wife, whom, in his own way, he
sincerely loved and sincerely mourned, he confided all the details of
his amours with other women. From Hanover, where he was acquiring
Madame Walmoden as his mistress, "he acquainted the queen by letter of
every step he took--of the growth of his passion, the progress of his
applications, and their success, of every word as well as every action
that passed--so minute a description of her person that, had the queen
been a painter, she might have drawn her rival's picture at six hundred
miles' distance. He added, too, the account of his buying her, and what
he gave her, which, considering the rank of the purchaser, and the
merits of the purchase as he set them forth, I think he had no great
reason to brag of, when the first price, according to his report, was
only one thousand ducats--a much greater proof of his economy than his
passion.
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