'And other half lives,' rather than any particular phase of his biography. Going with his mother to buy some bugles (beads), at the time when the opposition to his father was at its highest, he notes that having made her purchase, - beads were then out of fashion, and the shop was in some obscure alley in the City, where lingered unfashionable things, Lady Walpole bade the shopman send it home. Being asked whither, she replied, To Sir Robert Walpole's.' who,' rejoined he coolly, 'is Sir Robert Walpole?' But the most interesting incident of his youth was the visit he paid to the King, which he has himself related in Chapter I. of the Reminiscences. How it came about he does not know, but at ten years old an overmastering desire seized him to inspect His Majesty. This childish caprice was so strong that his mother, who seldom thwarted him, solicited the Duchess of Kendal (the maîtresse en titre) to obtain for her son the honour of kissing King George's hand before he set out upon that visit to Hanover from which he was never to return. It was an unusual request, but being made by the Prime Minister's wife, could scarcely be refused. To conciliate etiquette and avoid precedent, however, it was arranged that the audience 1 Walpole to the Miss Berrys, 5 March, 1791. |