"Is he, your Majesty!" suggests the Smoking Parliament .-- About the middle of March, Dubourgay hears Borck, an Official not of the Grumkow party, sulkily commenting on "the constant hostility of the Hanover Ministry to us" in all manner of points;---inquires withal, Could not Mecklenburg be somehow settled, his Prussian Majesty being somewhat anxious upon it?
[Despatch, 17th March, 1729.] Anxious, yes: his poor Majesty, intensely meditative of such a matter in the night-watches, is capable of springing out of bed, with an "Eureka! I have found what will do!" and demanding writing materials.
He writes or dictates in his shirt, the good anxious Majesty; despatches his Eureka by estafette on the wings of the wind: and your Townshend, your UNmeditative George, receives it with curt official negative, and a polite sneer.

[Dubourgay, 12th-14th April, 1729; and the Answer from St.
James's.] A few weeks farther on, this is what the Newspapers report of Mecklenburg, in spite of his Prussian Majesty's desire to have some mercy shown the poor infatuated Duke: "The Elector of Hanover and the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel," his Britannic Majesty and Squire in that sad business, "REFUSE to withdraw their forces out of Mecklenburg, or part with the Chest of the Revenues thereof, until an entire satisfaction be given them for the arrears of the Charges they have been at in putting the Sentence of the Aulic Council [Kaiser's REICHSHOFRATH and rusty thunder] into execution against the said Duke." [Salmon's _Chronological Historian_ (London, 1748,--a Book never to be quoted without caution), ii.

216;--date (translated into new style), 10th July, 1729.] Matters grew greatly worse when George paid his first Visit to Hanover in character of King, early in the Summer of 1729.

Part of his road lies through Prussian Territory: "Shall he have free post-horses, as his late Majesty was wont ?" asks the Prussian Official person.

"If he write to request them, yes," answers Friedrich Wilhelm; "if he don't write, no." George does not write; pays for his post-horses;--flourishes along to Hanover, in absolute silence towards his clownish Brother-in-Law.