It is Sunday, and repose renders the retirement of Kensington and its
avenues and shades more sombre than ever. Suburban retirement is usually
so. It is noon; and the inmates of Kensington Palace are just coming
forth from the chapel in the palace. The coach is now stopping, and the
equerries are at hand to offer their respectful assistance to the
diminutive figure that, in full Field-marshal regimentals, a cocked-hat
stuck crosswise on his head, a sword dangling even down to his heels,
ungraciously heeds them not, but stepping down, as the great iron gates
are thrown open to receive him, looks neither like a king or a
gentleman. A thin, worn face, in which weakness and passion are at once
pictured; a form buttoned and padded up to the chin; high Hessian boots
without a wrinkle; a sword and a swagger, no more constituting him the
military character than the 'your majesty' from every lip can make a
poor thing of clay a king. Such was George II.: brutal, even to his
submissive wife. Stunted by nature, he was insignificant in form, as he
was petty in character; not a trace of royalty could be found in that
silly, tempestuous physiognomy, with its hereditary small head: not an
atom of it in his made-up, paltry little presence; still less in his
bearing, language, or qualities.
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