66 KEW GARDENS 



reports Miss Burney, " wear it in their caps all 

 the labourers in their hats, and all the sailors 

 in their voices-, for they never approach the 

 house without shouting it aloud nor see the 

 King, or his shadow, without beginning to 

 huzza, and going on to three cheers. . . . Nor 

 is this all. Think but of the surprise of His 

 Majesty when, the first time of his bathing, he 

 had no sooner popped his royal head under water 

 than a band of music concealed in a neighbour- 

 ing machine struck up * God save great George 

 our King ! '" It was now that occurred the 

 ludicrous incident of the wooden-legged Mayor 

 presenting an address, and not being able to 

 kneel, to the scandal of the officials. And here, 

 the "Royals" having gone on a day's visit to 

 Sherborne Castle, for the first time in three years 

 Miss Burney had a holiday, which she spent 

 with a friend in a "romantic and lovely ex- 

 cursion" to the ruins of Sandsfoot Castle near 

 the neck of Portland Island, a peep into which 

 she might have found more romantic, had some 

 couple of miles not been a Georgian lady's limit 

 on foot 



After a tour through the loyal West country, 

 the Court returned to its routine of London and 



