see me of the party. The little Princess went up to Mrs. Delany, of whom she is very fond, and behaved like a little angel to her. She then, with a look of inquiry and recollection, came behind Mrs. Delany to look at me. 'I am afraid,' said I, in a whisper, and stooping down, 'your Royal Highness does not remember me?' Her answer was an arch little smile, and a nearer approach, with her lips pouted out to kiss me." The Princess wrote verses herself, and there are some pretty plaintive lines attributed to her, which are more touching than better poetry : -: "But when the hour of trial came, When folly's gay pursuits were o'er, The poor soul quitted it—and ere yet she was dead the agonized father was in such a state, that the officers round about him were obliged to set watchers over him, and from November, 1810, George III. ceased to reign. All the world knows the story of his malady: all history presents no sadder figure than that of the old man, blind and deprived of reason, wandering through the rooms of his palace, addressing imaginary parliaments, reviewing fancied troops, holding ghostly courts. I have seen his picture as it was taken at this time, hanging in the apartment of his daughter, the Landgravine of Hesse Hombourg -amidst books and Windsor furniture, and a hundred fond reminisThe cences of her English home. poor old father is represented in a purple gown, his snowy beard falling over his breast- the star of his famous Order still idly shining on it. He was not only sightless: he became utterly deaf. All light, all reason, all sound of human voices, all the pleasures of this world of God, were taken from him. Some slight lucid moments he had; in one of which, the Queen, desiring to see him, entered the room, and found him singing a hymn, and accompanying himself at the harpsichord. When he had fin ished, he knelt down and prayed aloud for her, and then for his family, and then for the nation, concluding with a prayer for himself, that it might please God to avert his heavy calamity from him, but if not, to give him resignation to submit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again fled. What preacher need moralize on this story; what words save the simplest are requisite to tell it? It is too terrible for tears. The thought of such a misery smites me down in sub mission before the Ruler of kings and men, the Monarch Supreme over em pires and republics, the inscrutable Dispenser of life, death, happiness, victory. "O brothers," I said to those who heard me first in America "O brothers! speaking the same dear mother tongue-O comrades! enemies no more, let us take a mourn. ful hand together as we stand by this royal corpse, and call a truce to battle! Low he lies to whom the proud. est used to kneel once, and who was cast lower than the poorest dead whom millions prayed for in vain Driven off his throne; buffeted by rude hands; with his children in re volt; the darling of his old age killed before him untimely; our Lear hangs over her breathless lips and cries, ‘Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little!' 'Vex not his ghost-oh! let him passhe hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer!' Hush! Strife and Quarrel, over the solemn grave! Sound, trumpets, a mournful march. Fall, dark curtain, upon his pageant, his pride, his grief, his awful tragedy." GEORGE THE FOURTH. IN Twiss's amusing "Life of Eldon," we read how, on the death of the Duke of York, the old Chancellor became possessed of a lock of the defunct Prince's hair; and so careful was he respecting the authenticity of the relic, that Bessie Eldon, his wife, sat in the room with the young man from Hamlet's who distributed the ringlet into separate lockets, which each of the Eldon family afterwards wore. You know how, when George IV. came to Edinburgh, a better man than he went on board the royal yacht to welcome the King to his kingdom of Scotland, seized a goblet from which his Majesty had just drunk, vowed it should remain forever as an heirloom in his family, clapped the precious glass in his pocket, and sat down on it and broke it when he got home. Suppose the good sheriff's prize unbroken now at Abbotsford, should we not smile with something like pity as we beheld it? Suppose one of those lockets of the no-Popery Prince's hair offered for sale at Christie's, quot libras e duce summo invenies? how many pounds would you find for the illustrious Duke? Madame Tussaud has got King George's coronation robes; is there any man now alive who would kiss the hem of that trumpery? He sleeps since thirty years: do not any of you who remember him, wonder that you once respected and huzzaed and admired him? To make a portrait of him at first seemed a matter of small difficulty. There is his coat, his star, his wig, his countenance simpering under it: with a slate and a piece of chalk, I could at this very desk perform a recognizable likeness of him. And yet after reading of him in scores of volumes, hunting him through old magazines and newspapers, having him here at a ball, there at a public dinner, there at races and so forth, you find you have nothing-nothing but a coat and a wig and a mask smiling below it- nothing but a great simulacrum. His sire and grandsires were men. One knows what they were like: what they would do in given circumstances that on occasions they fought and demeaned themselves like tough good soldiers. They had friends whom they liked according to their natures; enemies whom they hated fiercely; passions, and actions, and individualities of their own. The sailor King who came after George was a man the Duke of York was a man, big, burly, loud, jolly, cursing, courageous. But this George, what was he? I look through all his life, and recognize but a bow and a grin. I try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings, padding, stays, a coat with frogs and a fur collar, a star and blue ribbon, a pocket-handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt's best nuttybrown whigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth and a huge black stock, under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats and then nothing. I know of no sentiment that he ever distinctly uttered. Documents are published under his name, but people wrote them - private letters, but people spelt them. He put a great George P. or George R. at the bottom of the page and fancied he had written the paper: some bookseller's clerk, some poor author, some man did the work; saw to the spelling, cleaned up the slovenly sentences, and gave the lax maudlin slipslop a sort of consistency. He must have had an individuality: the dancing-master whom he emulated, nay, surpassed the wig-ma ker who curled his toupee for him down dead over and over again - to the increased delight of the child. So that he was flattered from his cradle upwards; and before his little feet could walk, statesmen and courtiers were busy kissing them. There is a pretty picture of the royal infant-a beautiful buxom child — asleep in his mother's lap; who turns round and holds a finger to her lip, as if she would bid the courtiers around respect the baby's slumbers. From that day until his decease, sixty-eight years after, Isuppose there were more pictures taken of that personage than of any other human being who ever was born and On the 12th August, 1762, the forty- died in every kind of uniform and seventh anniversary of the accession every possible court-dress - in long of the House of Brunswick to the fair hair, with powder, with and withEnglish throne, all the bells in Lon- out a pig-tail-in every conceivable don pealed in gratulation, and an- cocked-hat-in dragoon uniform nounced that an heir to George III. in Windsor uniform-in a fieldwas born. Five days afterwards the marshal's clothes in a Scotch kilt King was pleased to pass letters patent and tartans, with dirk and claymore under the great seal, creating H. R. (a stupendous figure) in a frogged H. the Prince of Great Britain, Elec- frock-coat with a fur collar and tight toral Prince of Brunswick Lüneburg, breeches and silk stockings in wigs Duke of Cornwall and Rothsay, Earl of every color, fair, brown, and black of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord-in his famous coronation robes of the Isles, and Great Steward of finally, with which performance he Scotland, Prince of Wales and Earl was so much in love that he distribof Chester. uted copies of the picture to all the courts and British embassies in Europe, and to numberless clubs, townhalls, and private friends. I remember as a young man how almost every dining-room had his portrait. All the people at his birth thronged to see this lovely child; and behind a gilt china-screen railing in St. James's Palace, in a cradle surmounted by the three princely ostrich feathers, the royal infant was laid to delight the eyes of the lieges. Among the earliest instances of homage paid to him, I read that "a curious Indian bow and arrows were sent to the Prince from his father's faithful subjects in New York." He was fond of playing with these toys; an old statesman, orator, and wit of his grandfather's and great-grandfather's time, never tired of his business, still eager in his old age to be well at court, used to play with the little Prince, and pretend to fall down dead when the Prince shot at him with his toy bow and arrows- - and get up and fall There is plenty of biographical tattle about the Prince's boyhood. It is told with what astonishing_rapidity he learned all languages, ancient and modern; how he rode beautifully, sang charmingly, and played elegantly on the violoncello. That he was beautiful was patent to all eyes. He had a high spirit: and once, when he had had a difference with his father, burst into the royal closet and called out, "Wilkes and liberty forever!" He was so clever, that he confounded his very governors in learning; and one of them, Lord Bruce, having made a false quantity in quoting Greek, the admirable young Prince instantly corrected him. Lord Bruce could not remain a governor after this humiliation; resigned his office, and, to soothe his feelings, was actually promoted to be an earl! It is the most wonderful reason for promoting a man that ever I heard. Lord Bruce was made an earl for a blunder in prosody; and Nelson was made a baron for the victory of the Nile. the Count d'Artois, a charming young Prince who danced deliciously on the tight-rope - -a poor old tottering exiled King, who asked hospitality of King George's successor, and lived a while in the palace of Mary Stuart - divided in their youth the title of first gentleman of Europe. We in England of course gave the prize to our gentleman. Until George's death the propriety of that award was scarce questioned, or the doubters voted Lovers of long sums have added rebels and traitors. Only the other up the millions and millions which day I was reading in the reprint of in the course of his brilliant existence the delightful "Noctes" of Christothis single Prince consumed. Be-pher North. The health of THE sides his income of 50,000l., 70,000l., KING is drunk in large capitals by 100,000l., 120,000l. a year, we read the loyal Scotsman. You would of three applications to Parliament: debts to the amount of 160,000l., of 650,000l.; besides mysterious foreign loans, whereof he pocketed the proceeds. What did he do for all this money? Why was he to have it? If he had been a manufacturing town, or a populous rural district, or an army of five thousand men, he would not have cost more. He, one solitary stout man, who did not toil, nor spin, nor fight,-what had any mortal done that he should be pampered so? In 1784, when he was twenty-one years of age, Carlton Palace was given to him, and furnished by the nation with as much luxury as could be devised. His pockets were filled with money he said it was : not enough; he flung it out of the window: he spent 10,000l. a year for the coats on his back. The nation gave him more money, and more, and more. The sum is past counting. He was a prince most lovely to look on, and was christened Prince Florizel on his first appearance in the world. That he was the handsomest prince in the whole world was agreed by men, and alas! by many women. I suppose he must have been very graceful. There are so many testimonies to the charm of his manner, that we must allow him great elegance and powers of fascination. He, and the King of France's brother, fancy him a hero, a sage, a statesman, a pattern for kings and men. It was Walter Scott who had that accident with the broken glass I spoke of anon. He was the king's Scottish champion, rallied all Scotland to him, made loyalty the fashion, and laid about him fiercely with his claymore upon all the Prince's enemies. The Brunswicks had no such defenders as those two Jacobite commoners, old Sam Johnson the Lichfield chapman's son, and Walter Scott, the Edinburgh lawyer's. Nature and circumstance had done their utmost to prepare the Prince for being spoiled: the dreadful dulness of papa's court, its stupid amusements, its dreary occupations, the maddening humdrum, the stifling sobriety of its routine, would have made a scapegrace of a much less lively prince. All the big princes bolted from that castle of ennui where old King George sat, posting up his books and droning over his Handel; and old Queen Charlotte over her snuff and her tambour-frame. Most of the sturdy, gallant sons settled down after sowing their wild oats, and became sober subjects of their father and brother- not ill liked by the nation, which pardons youthful irregularities readily enough, for the sake of pluck, and unaffectedness, and good-humor. The The boy is father of the man. | tridge worth any thing! Our Prince signalized his entrance friendship between the Prince and into the world by a feat worthy of the Whig chiefs was impossible. his future life. He invented a new They were hypocrites in pretending shoebuckle. It was an inch long to respect him, and if he broke the and five inches broad. "It covered hollow compact between them, who almost the whole instep, reaching shall blame him? His natural comdown to the ground on either side of panions were dandies and parasites. the foot." A sweet invention ! lovely He could talk to a tailor or a cook ; and useful as the Prince on whose but, as the equal of great statesmen, foot it sparkled. At his first appear- to set up a creature, lazy, weak, indoance at a court ball, we read that lent, besotted, of monstrous vanity, "his coat was pink silk, with white and levity incurable — it is absurd. cuffs; his waistcoat white silk, em- They thought to use him, and did broidered with various-colored foil, for a while; but they must have adorned with a profusion of French known how timid he was; how enpaste. And his hat was ornamented tirely heartless and treacherous, and with two rows of steel beads, five have expected his desertion. His thousand in number, with a button next set of friends were mere table and loop of the same metal, and companions, of whom he grew tired cocked in a new military style." too; then we hear of him with a very What a Florizel! Do these details few select toadies, mere boys from seem trivial? They are the grave school or the Guards, whose sprightincidents of his life. His biographers liness tickled the fancy of the wornsay that when he commenced house-out voluptuary. What matters what keeping in that splendid new palace of his, the Prince of Wales had some windy projects of encouraging literature, science, and the arts; of having assemblies of literary characters; and societies for the encouragement of geography, astronomy, and botany. Astronomy, geography, and botany! Fiddlesticks! French ballet-dancers, French cooks, horse-jockeys, buffoons, procurers, tailors, boxers, fencingmasters, china, jewel, and gimcrack merchants these were his real companions. At first he made a pretence of having Burke and Fox and Sheridan for his friends. But how could such men be serious before such an empty scapegrace as this lad? Fox might talk dice with him, and Sheridan wine; but what else had these men of genius in common with their tawdry young host of Carlton House? That fribble the leader of such men as Fox and Burke! That man's opinions about the constitution, the India Bill, justice to the Catholics-about any question graver than the button for a waistcoat or the sauce for a par friends he had? He dropped all his friends; he never could have real friends. An heir to the throne has flatterers, adventurers who hang about him, ambitious men who use him; but friendship is denied him. And women, I suppose, are as false and selfish in their dealings with such a character as men. Shall we take the Leporello part, flourish a catalogue of the conquests of this royal Don Juan, and tell the names of the favorites to whom, one after the other, George Prince flung his pocket-handkerchief? What purpose would it answer to say how Perdita was pursued, won, deserted, and by whom succeeded? What good in knowing that he did actually marry Mrs. FitzHerbert according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church; that her marriage settlements, have been seen in London; that the names of the witnesses to her marriage are known. This sort of vice that we are now come to presents no new or fleeting trait of manners. Debauchees, dissolute, heartless, fickle, cowardly, have been ever since the world began. |