B. By Horace Walpole.
Source.—Memoirs of the Reign of George II. (2nd ed.), 1848. Vol. i., pp. 175, 176; vol. iii., pp. 303, 304.
The King had fewer sensations of revenge, or at least knew how to hoard them better, than any man who ever sat upon a Throne. The insults he experienced from his own and those obliged servants, never provoked him enough to make him venture the repose of his people, or his own. If any object of his hate fell in his way, he did not pique himself upon heroic forgiveness, but would indulge it at the expense of his integrity, though not of his safety. He was reckoned strictly honest; but the burning his father's will must be reckoned an indelible blot upon his memory; as a much later instance [1749] of his refusing to pardon a young man who had been condemned at Oxford for a most trifling forgery, contrary to all example when recommended to mercy by the Judge, merely because Welles, who was attached to the Prince of Wales, had tried him and assured him his pardon, will stamp his name with cruelty, though in general his disposition was merciful if the offence was not murder. His avarice was much less equivocal than his courage; he had distinguished the latter early [at Oudenarde]; it grew more doubtful afterwards[7]: the former he distinguished very near as soon, and never deviated from it. His understanding was not near so deficient, as it was imagined; but though his character changed extremely in the world, it was without foundation; for [whether] he deserved to be so much ridiculed as he had been in the former part of his reign, or so respected as in the latter, he was consistent in himself, and uniformly meritorious or absurd.
[7] This is unjust—George II. displayed conspicuous courage at Dettingen.