A. By Lord Hervey.
Source.—Memoirs. Vol. i., pp. 145, 146.
His faults were more the blemishes of a private man than of a King. The affection and tenderness he invariably showed to a people over whom he had unbounded rule [in Hanover] forbid our wondering that he used circumscribed power with moderation [in England]. Often situated in humiliating circumstances, his resentments seldom operated when the power of revenge returned. He bore the ascendant of his Ministers, who seldom were his favourites, with more patience than he suffered any encroachment on his will from his mistresses. Content to bargain for the gratification of his two predominant passions, Hanover and money, he was almost indifferent to the rest of his royal authority, provided exterior observance was not wanting; for he comforted himself if he did not perceive the diminution of Majesty, though it was notorious to all the rest of the world. Yet he was not so totally careless of the affection and interests of his country as his father had been. George the First possessed a sounder understanding and a better temper: yet George the Second gained more by being compared with his eldest son, than he lost if paralleled with his father.