The Court poets were not behindhand with their fulsome verses concerning him, of which this is a sample:
“Fresh as a rosebud newly blown and fair
As opening lilies: on whom every eye
With joy and admiration dwells. See, see,
He rides his docile barb with manly grace.
Is it Adonis for the chase arrayed?
Or Britain’s second hope?”
Britain’s first hope apparently was George II.
But probably as regards his appearance when he first came to England, Lady Bristol was nearest the mark, though there is no doubt that from this time forward he steadily improved both in stature and in handsomeness of person. Another description of him which will appear in due course will give an idea of the dignity and stateliness to which he attained in his maturer years.
Prince Frederick came from the obscure old town of Hanover with its narrow streets and tall gabled houses to what was then, as it is now, one of the great capitals of the world, London. But yet a very different London to that of our own time. A London of streets narrow and paved with cobbles, unlit save for a few dim swinging oil lamps held across the streets by ropes, leaving the intervening spaces in darkness, so that in winter time a man with a link or torch was an absolute necessity.