A.D. 1734. When the Bishop of Winchester was stricken with apoplexy, Lord Hervey announced it to Hoadly, Bishop of Salisbury, and urged him in the strongest terms to apply for the See, which would surely be vacant within a few days, because the bishop's attack would without doubt prove fatal. Now this promotion had been promised to Hoadly by the king, the queen, and Walpole at various times, and he felt no doubt that he would get it, but Hervey knew better; so he wrote the bishop to apply to the king at once through his "two ears"—the queen and Walpole—and make his request as though it were according to an agreement. Caroline disliked Hoadly, and pronounced his letter indelicate and ill-timed; but he had followed Hervey's instructions so accurately that he got the appointment. When he went to make an acknowledgment of his advancement, the king, who hated him too, treated him with incivility that was at least honest; but Caroline showered congratulations and compliments on him, not one of which was sincere. Walpole did worse, for he hated the man more than either of the sovereigns did; but, leading the new Bishop of Winchester aside, he deceitfully pressed his hand, and with warm congratulations assured him that his elevation was entirely due to the efforts of himself, Sir Robert. The minister was not aware of the part Lord Hervey had played, or he would not have said that, and the bishop did not tell him.
A.D. 1735. Shortly after this the king set out for Hanover, and Caroline rejoiced at the extra power his absence would give her, but still more at the idea of being relieved from the dreary task of entertaining him for hours at a time. But a few months later he returned, quite suddenly and unexpectedly. The queen and her court had just left the chapel at Kensington on Sunday, October 26, when it was announced that the king was driving up the road. Her majesty went quickly to the gate, with her ladies and gentlemen, to receive her husband, who, after condescendingly permitting her to kiss him, led her up stairs with stately formality. George had returned in a bad humor, which he took no pains to conceal. Besides, he was ill, and very much fatigued from travelling, so he conversed with everybody but the queen, just as though she were to blame for it all. She understood him perfectly, and knew what a trial it always was to him to leave his dear Hanover, where he thought everything and everybody perfection as compared with England. She therefore bore his ill-nature with wonderful patience, which only seemed to increase the king's crossness and brutality.
He found fault with everything Queen Caroline had done in his absence; and, when Lord Hervey ventured to defend her for removing some inferior pictures and statues and replacing them by works of art, he said: "I suppose you assisted the queen with your fine advice when she was pulling my house to pieces and spoiling my furniture. Thank God! at least she has left the walls standing!" He then ordered that several old daubs of paintings should be restored to their places before his departure for London the next day, adding that "otherwise he knew it would not be done at all."
A night's repose did not restore King George's temper. When he made his appearance in the queen's morning-room, she was drinking chocolate with her two daughters, the Princess Amelia and Princess Caroline, while the Duke of Cumberland, her son, stood at her side. Princess Anne had returned to Holland some weeks previously, much to the satisfaction of her parents. The father of the family only stopped in their midst long enough to tell the queen that she was always stuffing; to scold Princess Amelia, who was slightly deaf, for not hearing him; to ridicule Princess Caroline for growing fat, and, finally, to abuse the Duke of Cumberland for standing awkwardly. Then having made himself thoroughly hateful, he requested his wife to go for a walk in the garden. In the evening he was sauntering backwards and forwards in the queen's apartment, while she was engaged with some fancy work. Presently Lord Hervey entered, and the queen laughingly began to tease him about an answer that had just appeared to a book written by his friend, Bishop Hoadly, in which the bishop was rather roughly handled. Before she had half finished what she wanted to say, her ill-natured husband interrupted her, and told her "she was always talking such nonsense about things she did not understand;" and added, "that if it were not for such foolish people loving to talk of these things when they were written, the fools who wrote such nonsense would never think of publishing it." The queen bowed, and said, "Sir, I only wanted to let Lord Hervey know that his friend's book had not met with the general approbation he had pretended."
"A pretty fellow for a friend," said the king, turning to Lord Hervey. "Pray, what is it that charms you in him? His pretty limping gait?" and then he mimicked the bishop's lameness, besides other defects, and wound up by saying: "If the Bishop of Winchester is your friend, all I have to say is, that you have a great puppy, a very dull fellow, and a very great rascal for your friend. He is just the same thing in the church that he is in the government, and as ready to receive the best pay for preaching the Bible, though he does not believe a word of it, as he is to take favor from the crown, though he would be glad to abolish its power." It was dreadful for the king to say such things; for if he did not think Hoadly a proper person to be at the head of the church, he had no business to appoint him. The queen kept smiling and nodding her head all the time he was delivering this most disgraceful, undignified speech, and wishing with all her heart that he would stop. Lord Hervey tried to introduce another topic, but that was unfortunate, and only set his majesty off in a different direction, though he continued to be equally violent and insulting. At last the queen began to talk of the custom of feeing servants in private houses where one happened to be visiting, and said that it had been a great expense to her when she visited in town during the previous summer. "That is your own fault," growled George, "for my father when he went to people's houses in town, never was fool enough to give away his money."
"But I only gave what my chamberlain, Lord Grantham, informed me was customary," meekly replied Caroline. "Oh yes," returned George, "always asking some fool or another what to do; only a fool would ask another fool's advice. Stay at home, as I do; you do not see me running into every puppy's house to see his new chairs and tables, and you need not be poking your nose everywhere, and trotting about wherever you can get bread and butter." Finding that he could not be sufficiently abusive with his broken English,—though we think he was,—George had recourse to German, and poured a torrent of unpronounceable words on the head of the unoffending queen, who kept on with her work, then snuffed the candles, and was taken to task for putting one of them out. Such scenes as this were of frequent occurrence; and the king seemed never so happy as when he was raving like a madman, and making every one near him uncomfortable.
Strange as it may seem, English literature began to rise in this reign from the low state into which it had fallen under George I. Queen Caroline laughed heartily over the "Travels of Gulliver," in which Swift ridiculed statesmen, scholars, and men of every class of society. Pope wrote a satire upon the literature of his time, which he called the "Dunciad." It created a tremendous uproar among men of letters, and he was assailed in all the news- papers for having produced such a work. His personal appearance was ridiculed, too, for he was anything but prepossessing; and he was represented with a perfect likeness of his head and face on the body of a repulsive-looking monkey, with its long, bony arms embracing a huge pile of ponderous volumes. A weekly journal published this:—
A RECEIPT AGAINST POPE-ISH POETRY.=
"Select a wreath of withered bays,
And place it on the brow of Pope;