A HUSBAND AND A LOVER.
It has been said that Frederick possessed artistic tastes and loved to
gather round him men of talent and wit. He was also devoted to music,
and gave frequent private concerts at Leicester House in which he
himself took part.
One of Frederick’s favourites, a man devoted to music like himself, was
Horace Walpole’s brother, Edward--afterwards Sir Edward--who frequently
performed with him at these concerts. The Prince, however, made the
mistake of introducing politics at these meetings, and on one occasion
while walking about the room with his arm round Edward Walpole’s
shoulder, he endeavoured to persuade him to keep from the House of
Commons when a certain Army Bill was under discussion, this being a
measure the Prince’s party wished to defeat. Walpole, however, declined
to give the required promise, and when the Prince pressed him for his
motive answered:--
“You will forgive me, sir, if I give you my reasons?”
“I will,” replied the Prince with an oath, according to the prevailing
fashion.
“Sir, you will not,” replied Walpole with another oath, “yet I will
tell you. I will not stay away because your father and mine are for the
question.”
This was just the answer the Prince might have expected from a son of
the man who, perhaps, was one of his greatest enemies. Nevertheless,
he flung away from Walpole, while one of the Princesses who was at the
harpsichord cried out: “Bravo, Mr. Walpole.”
This made matters worse, and the Prince was thoroughly incensed.
Nevertheless, Mr. Edward Walpole duly appeared at the next concert with
his violoncello, but the Prince had not apparently forgiven him. At any
rate, no doubt, by way of a joke, he affected to regard him as one of
the hired musicians at the concert.
Edward Walpole, however, did not take the matter as a joke, but rushed
to the bell and ordered his servants to be called to take away his
violoncello. He would be slighted, he remarked, by no man.
The Prince, seeing that he had gone too far, tried to pacify him, but
Walpole would listen neither to him nor to the peers and commoners who
tried to bring him back.
As might be expected, the Prince apologised, and Walpole was at last
persuaded to bring his violoncello to the concerts.
But the house, of course, reeked with the politics of the Opposition,
and in a very short time Edward Walpole was again solicited by some
follower of the Prince to join his party. Edward Walpole then wrote
his well-known letter to the Prince in which he asks him, how he would
wish him to behave when he himself was King? In the same manner would
he behave while George the Second reigned.
“He is an honest man,” the Prince commented as he read it, “I will keep
this letter.”
He did keep it, and it was given many years after to George the Third
by his mother.
The Princess of Wales, it cannot be doubted, was very much beloved by
her husband. He had quite forgotten that early love affair with his
cousin, Wilhelmina, and it is said was never tired of appearing in
public with Augusta, that the people might frequently see and admire
her; and admire her they certainly did.
Even sharp-tongued old Sarah of Marlborough had a kind word for her.
“The Princess speaks English much better than any of the family that
have been here so long,” she wrote to her confidant, Lord Stair,
“appears good-natured and civil to everybody: never saying anything to
offend, as the late Queen did perpetually, notwithstanding her great
understanding and goodness.”[59]
Among other artistic accomplishments Frederick wrote poetry, and the
following verses addressed to his wife under the name of “Sylvia” could
only have been written by a very devoted husband and lover:--
SONG.
THE CHARMS OF SYLVIA.[60]
By the Prince of Wales on the Princess.
’Tis not the liquid brightness of those eyes
That swim with pleasure and delight,
Nor those heavenly arches which arise
O’er each of them to shade their light.
’Tis not that hair which plays with every wind
And loves to wanton round thy face,
Now straying round thy forehead, now behind,
Retiring with insidious grace.
’Tis not that lovely range of teeth so white,
As new-shorn sheep, equal and fair;
Nor e’en that gentle smile, the heart’s delight,
With which no smile could e’er compare.
’Tis not that chin so round, that neck so fine,
Those breasts which swell to meet my love,
That easy-sloping waist, that form divine,
Nor ought below, nor ought above.
’Tis not the living colours over each
By Nature’s finest pencil wrought
To shame the full-blown rose, and blooming peach,
And mock the happy painter’s thought.
No--’tis that gentleness of mind, that love
So kindly answering my desire;
That grace with which you look and speak and move,
That thus has set my soul on fire.
The following song, according to Horace Walpole, was written
immediately after the Battle of Fontenoy, and was addressed to Lady
Catherine Hanmer, Lady Falconberg, and Lady Middlesex, who were to act
the three goddesses with Frederick, Prince of Wales, in Congreve’s
mask “The Judgment of Paris,” whom he was to represent, and Prince
Lobkowitz, Mercury.
SONG.
By Frederick, Prince of Wales.
1.
Venez, mes chères Dèesses,
Venez, calmer mon chagrin;
Aidez, mes belles Princesses
A le noyer dans le vin
Poussons cette douce ivresse
Jusqu’ au milieu de la nuit
Et n’ecoutons que la tendresse
D’un charmant vis-à-vis.
2.
Quand le chagrin me devore,
Vite à table je me mets,
Loin des objets que j’abhorre,
Avec joie j’y trouve la paix.
Peu d’amis, restes d’un naufrage
Je rassemble autour de moi
Et je me ris de l’etalage,
Qu’a chez-lui toujours un Roi.
3.
Que m’ importe que l’ Europe
Ait un ou plusieurs tyrans?
Prions seulement Calliope
Qu’elle inspire nos vers, nos chants.
Laissons Mars et toute la gloire
Livrons nous tous à l’amour
Que Bacchus nous donne à boire;
A ces deux faisons la cour.
4.
Passons ainsi notre vie,
Sans rêver à ce qui suit;
Avec ma chère Sylvie,[61]
Le tems trop vite me fuit.
Mais si par un malheur extreme
Je perdois cette objêt charmante;
Oui, cette compagnie même
Ne me tiendroit un moment.
5.
Me livrant à ma tristesse,
Toujours plein de mon chagrin,
Ne n’aurois plus d’allegresse
Pour mettre Bathurst[62] en train
Ainsi pour vous tenir en joie
Invoquez toujours les Dieux,
Qu’elle vive et qu’elle soit
Avec nous toujours heureux.
It may here be stated that in the year 1735 there appeared in Paris a
silly book which was attributed--by his enemies--to Prince Frederick,
or said to be “inspired” by him, if that term could be applied to a
children’s fairy tale, for so it was regarded for many years in France.
It was translated into English and published under the title of “The
Adventures of Prince Titi,” and was supposed to be a travestie of the
King and Queen.
As, however, no evidence exists to connect it with the Prince of Wales,
it deserves no further comment.
As an example of the way in which Prince Frederick has been
misrepresented in history, Dr. Doran’s comment on the latter of the
two above songs in his “Queens of the House of Hanover” will be
instructive; he says with reference to the French song addressed by the
Prince to the ladies with whom he was going to act in “The Judgment of
Paris”:
“It was full of praise of late and deep drinking, of intercourse with
the fair,” an expression liable to be misunderstood, “of stoical
contempt for misfortune, of expressed indifference, whether Europe had
one or many tyrants, and of a pococurantism for all things and forms,
except his _chère Sylvie_, by whom he was good-naturedly supposed to
mean his wife.”
Now Horace Walpole records the fact that “Sylvie” was the Princess
of Wales, and he certainly cannot be credited with an abundance of
good-natured feeling towards the Prince.
If Dr. Doran thought all he wrote, then--Dr. Doran’s knowledge of
French--at least the Prince’s French--could not have been perfect.
The English verses are not good; he was bred abroad; but it is quite
clear that the object of the Prince’s love-rhapsodies in the French
song is his wife, though those rhapsodies are expressed in the language
of the time, none too delicately. Still for a Prince to fall into
passionate verse over the delightful attractions of his wife is not a
matter to be jeered at; as far as we are permitted to search into the
private doings of such exalted personages, history certainly conveys
the impressions in divers places, that their habit was usually to fall
into passionate rhapsodies over somebody else’s wife, a custom which
has not been without honour in our own time.
As regards our unfortunate Prince, nobody appears to have thought him
of sufficient importance to write any sort of connected history about
him. When he had to be mentioned, the faithful historian appears to
have dived either into Hervey’s “Memoirs” or those of Horace Walpole,
and to have taken all he found there as Gospel truth without waiting
to consider that both those gentlemen were reckoned among the Prince’s
enemies; enemies who were not sufficiently gentlemen to treat him with
common fairness.
We have but to read the satires and pamphlets of the time, many of them
written or inspired by at any rate one of the above staunch adherents
of the Prince’s parents, to see how much of fairness and “_noblesse_”
was meted out to a political enemy in those days even by men of
education and supposed refinement.
Under the date of 1748-9, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough writes as
follows to Lord Stair:--
“The Prince of Wales has done, I think, a very right thing, for he has
declared to everybody that though he did design to bring the business
of his revenue into the House, he is now resolved not to do it, it
being but a trifle, and what could not succeed after losing a question
of so much consequence for the preservation of the nation.[63]
“But I think all this prudence will be of no use to prevent France
settling this country as that King pleases, after we are still made
poorer by what Sir Robert has done, and will do further.”
It is much more likely that the Prince gave up the idea of appealing to
Parliament concerning his income, because he had come to, or was about
to come to, some agreement with his father on this much worried subject.
The Duchess writes again to Lord Stair in 1739 about the Prince: “I
hear some people find fault with the Prince’s having voted in the
House of Lords with the minority; but I can see no reason for that.
For surely he was as much at liberty to do it as any other Peer; and I
can’t comprehend why he should not give his vote in anything that so
manifestly was for the good of England.”
This apparently concerned the Convention with Spain.
The following is a word picture of the Prince at the period of 1740,
which appears a very vivid one. It was contributed anonymously about
the year 1830 to the _New European Magazine_, and was evidently culled
from some older publication. It depicts the Prince during a visit to
old “Bartlemy Fair” in Smithfield.
“The multitude behind was impelled violently forwards, and a broad
blaze of red light, issuing from a score of flambeaux, streamed into
the air. Several voices were loudly shouting “Room there for Prince
Frederick! make way for the Prince!” And there was that long sweep
heard to pass over the ground which indicates the approach of a grand
and ceremonious train. Presently the pressure became much greater, the
voices louder, the light stronger, and as the train came onward, it
might be seen that it consisted firstly of a party of the Yeomen of the
Guard, clearing the way; then several more of them bearing flambeaux,
and flanking the procession; while in the midst of all appeared a tall,
fair, and handsome young man, having something of a plump foreign
visage, seemingly about four and thirty years of age, dressed in a
ruby-coloured frock coat, very richly guarded with gold lace, and
having his long flowing hair curiously curled over his forehead and
at the sides, and finished with a very large bag and courtly queue
behind. The air of dignity with which he walked; the blue ribbon and
Star and Garter with which he was decorated; the small, three cornered,
silk court-hat which he wore while all around him were uncovered; the
numerous suite as well of gentlemen as of guards, which marshalled
him along; the obsequious attention of a short stout person who, by
his flourishing manner, seemed to be a player; all these particulars
indicated that the amiable Frederick, Prince of Wales, was visiting
Bartholomew Fair by torchlight, and that Manager Rich was introducing
his royal guest to all the amusements of the place.”
To turn to another subject, it will be interesting at the present time
to note the strength of the British Navy in this year 1740. Also those
of France and Spain. The information is contained in “Minutes of the
Cabinet” volume 4 of Lord Hervey’s Memoirs, page 552 (Edition 1848).
An Account of the present Naval Strength of England.
With Mr. Haddock[64] in the Mediterranean thirty-two ships--twenty-two
of the line, five twenty-gun ships, three fire ships, two bomb vessels.
All these are at present with Haddock to defend Minorca except four
left at Gibraltar with Captain William Hervey, brother to Lord Hervey,
which properly belong to (Sir Challoner) Ogle’s squadron of ten, who
went with the other six to join Haddock. Balchen and Maine had ten to
cruise on the north-west of Spain, near Cape Finisterre and Ferrol; but
Maine’s five are returning home to refit.
At home there are thirty ships for the Channel, to guard our own coasts
and protect this country; but twenty only being manned, one third of
the nominal strength is absolutely useless.
In the West Indies there are now with Vernon nine ships of the line,
five fire ships, and two bomb vessels; and dispersed in the West Indies
about sixteen ships more of different sizes.
SPANISH STRENGTH IN EUROPE.
At Carthagena five ships of the line, commanded by Clavijo, who
commanded the Cales (Cadiz) squadron last year. The Cales squadron,
nine ships of the line, three frigates, commanded by Pintada.
The Ferrol Squadron, six ships of the line, and the three Assogne ships
refitting, and sixteen thousand men in Galicia.[65]
On the Catalonia side of Spain several transport ships, three men
of war, seven thousand men in Majorca; and another body of troops,
commanded by Count Celemis, in Catalonia, ready for an embarcation at
Barcelona, which Spain dare not hazard for fear of Haddock’s Squadron
ready in those seas to intercept them. Their strength, or rather their
weakness in Spain, uncertain.
FRENCH STRENGTH IN EUROPE.
France has at Brest, ready to sail, commanded by Monsieur D’Antin, a
squadron of twenty-two ships; the lowest accounts say eighteen; and at
Toulon twelve, all great ships from fifty-four to seventy-four guns.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] Opinions of the Duchess of Marlborough, 1737-8.
[60] Sylvia was the well-known name by which he designated his wife in
verse. _Vide_ Walpole’s “Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second.”
Vol. I., p. 434.
[61] The Princess.
[62] Allen, Lord Bathurst.
[63] Respecting the Convention with Spain.
[64] A distinguished officer: he had been many years a Lord of the
Admiralty, was now Admiral of the Fleet, and was appointed in the
summer to the command of the Channel Fleet.
[65] The _Azogne_ (quicksilver) ships, which plied annually between
Vera Cruz and Cadiz, and the interception of which had been an early
object of the British Government, but having heard of the hostilities,
they left their usual track, made for the coast of Ireland, and thence
ran down the coast of France, and got safe into Santander.