“Pardon me,” said the host, “eggs are plentiful enough, but kings are scarce”—a story of which there are several versions.
“This is a very odd country,” King George remarked, speaking of England. “The first morning after my arrival at St. James’s, I looked out of the window and saw a park with walls and a canal, which they told me were mine. The next day Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of my park, sent me a brace of fine carp out of my canal, and I was told I must give five guineas to my Lord Chetwynd’s man for bringing me my own carp out of my own canal in my own park.”
Equally did George I. enjoy listening to those who either exposed their own follies, or retailed those of others. The Duchess of Bolton, for instance, often made him laugh by reason of her ridiculous blunders. Having been present when Colley Cibber’s first dramatic performance, “Love’s Last Shift,” was played, the King asked her the next day what piece she had seen performed, when she answered, with a serious face, “La dernière chemise de l’amour.”
Like George I., his successor, George II., had a certain amount of humour, and his fondness for Hanover occasioned all sorts of rough jokes among his English subjects. He thought there were no manners out of Germany, and on one occasion when her Royal Highness “was whipping one of the roaring royal children,” George, who was standing by, said to Sarah Marlborough, “Ah, you have no good manners in England, because you are not properly brought up when you are young.”
A smart retort was that of his Majesty to the French ambassador. The regiment that principally distinguished itself at the battle of Dettingen was the Scots Greys, who repulsed the French gens d’armes with much loss. Some years afterwards, when the King was reviewing some English regiments before the French ambassador, the latter, after admitting that they were fine troops, remarked disparagingly, “But your Majesty has never seen the gens d’armes.” “No,” replied the King, “but I can tell you, and so can they, that my Scotch Greys have.”
When George II., too, was once expressing his admiration of General Wolfe, some one remarked that the general was mad. “Is he, indeed?” said his Majesty. “Then I wish he would bite some of my other generals.”
Queen Caroline thought she had the foolish talent of playing off people, and, after Sir Paul Methuen had left the Court, she frequently saw him when she dined abroad during the King’s absence at Hanover. On one occasion, when she dined with Lady Walpole at Chelsea, Sir Paul was there as usual. The Queen still harped upon the same string—her constant topic for teasing Sir Paul being his passion for romances—and she addressed him with the remark: “Well, Sir Paul, what romance are you reading now?”
“None madam! I have gone through them all.”
“Well, what are you reading then?”
“I am got into a very foolish study, madam—the history of the kings and queens of England.”