him, and when the first green peas of the year were put on the table, devour the whole dish without offering a spoonful to her Royal Highness; and they pronounced that this great soldier and politician was no better than a Low Dutch bear.[1]
One misfortune, which was imputed to him as a crime, was his bad English. He spoke our language, but not well. His accent was foreign: his diction was inelegant; and his vocabulary seems to have been no larger than was necessary for the transaction of business. To the difficulty which he felt in expressing himself, and to his consciousness that his pronunciation was bad, must be partly ascribed the taciturnity and the short answers which gave so much offence. Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or of understanding. He never once, during his whole reign, showed himself at the theatre.[2] The poets who wrote Pindaric verses in his praise complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond his comprehension.[3] Those who are acquainted with the panegyrical odes of that age will perhaps be of opinion that he did not lose much by his ignorance.
It is true that his wife did her best to supply what was wanting, and that she was excellently qualified to be the head of the Court. She was English by birth, and English also in her tastes and feelings. Her face was handsome, her port majestic, her temper sweet and lively, her manners affable and graceful. Her understanding, though very imperfectly cultivated, was quick. There was no want of feminine wit and shrewdness in her conversation; and her letters were so well expressed that they deserved to be well spelt. She took much pleasure in the lighter kinds of literature, and did something towards bringing books into fashion among
- ↑ Ronquillo; Burnet, ii. 2.; Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication. In a pastoral dialogue between Philander and Palæmon, published in 1691, the dislike with which women of fashion regarded William is mentioned. Philander says
"But man methinks his reason should recall,
Nor let frail woman work his second fall." - ↑ Tutchin's Observator of November 16, 1706.
- ↑ Prior, who was treated by William with much kindness, and who was very grateful for it, informs us that the King did not understand poetical eulogy. The passage is in a highly curious manuscript, the property of Lord Lansdowne.
