Lady Darlington, whom I saw at my mother’s in my infancy, and whom I remember by being terrified at her enormous figure, was as corpulent and ample as the Duchess was long and emaciated.  Two fierce black eyes, large and rolling beneath two lofty arched eyebrows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of neck that overflowed and was not distinguished from the lower part of her body, and no part restrained by stays 80) no wonder that a child dreaded such an ogress, and that the mob of London were highly diverted at the importation of so uncommon a seraglio!  They were food from all the venom of the Jacobites; and, indeed nothing could be grosser than the ribaldry that was vomited out in lampoons, libels, and every channel of abuse, against the sovereign and the new court, and chaunted even in their hearing about the public streets. (81)

On the other hand, it was not till the last year or two of his reign that their foreign sovereign paid the nation the compliment of taking openly an English mistress.  That personage was Anne Brett, eldest daughter by her second husband, (82) of the repudiated wife of the Earl Of Macclesfield, the unnatural mother of Savage the poet.  Miss Brett was very handsome, but dark enough by her eyes, complexion, and hair, for a Spanish beauty.  Abishag was lodged in the palace under the eyes of Bathsheba, who seemed to maintain her power, as other favourite sultanas have done, by suffering partners in the sovereign’s affections.  When his Majesty should return to England, a countess’s coronet was to have rewarded the young lady’s compliance, and marked her secondary rank.  She might, however, have proved a troublesome rival, as she seemed so confident of the power of her charms, that whatever predominant ascendant the Duchess might retain, her own authority in the palace she thought was to yield to no one else.  George I., when his son the Prince of Wales and the Princess had quitted St. James’s on their quarrel with him, had kept back their three eldest daughters, who lived with him to his death, even after there had outwardly been a reconciliation between the King and Prince.  Miss Brett, when the King set out, ordered a door to be broken out of her apartment into the royal garden.  Anne, the eldest of the Princesses, offended at that freedom, and not choosing such a companion in her walks, ordered the door to be walled up again.  Miss Brett as imperiously reversed that command.  The King died suddenly, and the empire of the new mistress and her promised coronet vanished.  She afterwards married Sir William Leman, and was forgotten before her reign had transpired beyond the confines of Westminster! (70) Her names were Sophia Dorothea ; but I call her by the latter, to distinguish her from the Princess Sophia, her mother-in-law, on whom the crown of Great Britain was settled. (71) Konigsmark behaved with great intrepidity, and was wounded at a bull-feast in Spain.  See Letters