Electress of Hanover. George II. retained a lively affection for his mother, and seems to have been persuaded that her sufferings were unmerited. But whatever he thought of her innocence during the life-time of his father, he was obliged carefully to conceal, and it was not until after his own accession to the throne that he ventured to hang up the portrait of his mother in his apartment. A German writer has dramatized this story under the title of the Princess of Zelle, but we have not seen his work; there are likewise two or three French romances, and, if we mistake not, one in our own language, on the same subject. We have given the leading features in the history of this mysterious affair, and we have only to add, that the passage is still shewn in the palace of Heranhausen where the wretched and pro

fligate Konigsmerk is said to have been put to death, and afterwards buried under a staircase.

The first quarrel between Frede rick Prince of Wales and his father George II. originated in an intrigue of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, then in high opposition to the court, who possessing immense riches, and inflamed with boundless ambition, conceived the design of marrying one of her granddaughters to the heir apparent to the crown. The beauty of the young lady and the largeness of the dower which the duchess promised to bestow with her, amounting to 100,000l. had nearly caused this scheme to have taken effect, but intelligence of it reaching the ears of Sir Robert Walpole, he took the necessary measures to render it abortive, and the prince soon afterwards was married to Augusta Princess of Saxe-Gotha. But he ap

pears never to have forgiven the conduct of the minister in this affair, for immediately on his coming of age and receiving his establishment, he connected himself with Pulteney, Bolingbroke, and the leaders of the party then in opposition, and became one of the most determined opponents of Sir Robert Walpole.

The line of conduct adopted by his son failed not to prove extremely offensive to the king, but the parties did not come to an open rupture till some time after. What at length induced the prince to act in so extraordinary a manner as he did, is not, and probably never will, to a certainty be known; but the particulars of the transaction. were nearly as follow. A few days before the delivery of the Princess of Wales of her first child, when the royal family were at Hampton Court in expectation of that event, the prince

thought proper suddenly to remove the princess from Hampton Court to the palace at St. James's, where no preparations were made for her reception. This step, so personally insulting to the king, roused, as may naturally be conceived, a high degree of resentment in the royal breast. The queen attended at the labour of the princess in obedience to court etiquette, and was handed to and from her carriage by the Prince of Wales, but did not deign to bestow a single word on him. At the christening of the royal infant, which proved a daughter, and who is now the venerable Duchess Dowager of Brunswick, fresh occasion of quarrel arose. The Duke of Newcastle, who was personally disagreeable to the Prince of Wales, was appointed by the king to stand proxy for one of the absent sponsors, and the prince,

magnifying this into a premeditated insult on the part of the duke, as soon as the king had quitted the presence chamber, attacked the duke in very severe language, and, in extremely reprehensible terms, vowed revenge. This very unjustifiable circumstance

was

immediately reported to the king, who commanded the Prince of Wales to be put under an arrest in his apartment, and in a few days afterwards sent him orders to quit the palace.

Before a reconciliation took place, Queen Caroline died, after having sent for all her other children, and embraced them with great tenderness on her death-bed; but no submissions of the Prince of Wales could molify her resentment, or induce her to see him. She is supposed, however, to bave sent him her forgiveness, and to have used