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.55 The poets who wrote Pindaric verses in
his praise complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond
his comprehension.56 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 ladies of quality. The stainless purity of her
private life and the strict attention which she paid to her
religious duties were the more respectable, because she was
singularly free from censoriousness, and discouraged scandal as
much as vice. In dislike of backbiting indeed she and her husband
cordially agreed; but they showed their dislike in different and
in very characteristic ways. William preserved profound silence,
and gave the talebearer a look which, as was said by a person who
had once encountered it, and who took good care never to
encounter it again, made your story go back down your throat.57
Mary had a way of interrupting tattle about elopements, duels,