Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/220

 me say, Mr. Pitt, you have not reason to be proud that you are a minister, for there have been many before you, and will be many after you; but you have reason to be proud of her, who unites everything that is great in man and woman.' Doctor, the tears came in Mr. Pitt's eyes, and how the court ladies did bite their lips!

"The what what what? certainly did the old king harm, in point of dignity, when no subject of conversation interested him; but he sometimes was more serious, and could assume a manner and a tone befitting a king. A peer, who had never known the Duke of Cambridge, told me that, on the return of the Duke from the continent, the king presented him to H.R.H. with this short but fine compliment—'This is my son, my lord, who has his first fault to commit.' How fond the king was of him and the Duke of York! He was a fine man, and with a person so strong, that I don't think there was another like him in England.