soon after he had been laid upon his bed, without having been able to utter more than a few inarticulate sounds.

Thus died, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, a monarch who swayed the sceptre of Great Britain more than three-and-thirty years; throughout the whole of which he continued to be, in his manners, in his language, and in his feelings, a stranger to the people over whose destinies he presided. A Hanoverian in heart, to a degree not surpassed by his predecessor, it was the great object of his whole life to aggrandize his native country; in order to effect which, he hurried England into frequent wars, which, brilliant in their results, cannot, on any ground of wise policy, be advocated in their beginnings. As a man, George the Second was brave, temperate, and frugal; of an irritable, but not an unforgiving, disposition,―utterly devoid of genius, yet not insensible to it in others. As a monarch, he was what a succession of cabinets, most of them venal and corrupt, were calculated to make him. Hence the striking contrast which appears between both the moral and political condition of England, at the commencement and at the close of his reign; a contrast which is not to be accounted for on any other ground, than by looking to the different kinds of impulse which are given to the public mind according as the reins of government are held by an honest or a dishonest minister.

The reign of George the Second is memorable as the era of many important innovations on the established order of society. In religion, Whitfield and the two Wesleys laid the foundations of a system of dissent which has since taken deep root in the affections of a large and respectable portion of the community. Hutchinson, a visionary rabbinical scholar, was less fortunate in the number of his converts, as well as in the stability of the creed which he laboured to establish. The

Moravians, in like manner, imported from Germany by Count Zinzendorf, though they succeeded for a time in bringing over a few proselytes, were the teachers of a code, both of morals and of faith, which accorded little with the sober sense of the English people. Meanwhile, commerce enlarged itself; manufactures were improved; and in all the branches of science and of art great progress was made towards perfection. Genius also, in every imaginable form, shone forth conspicuously. Among the divines of that age we find the names of Sherlock, Secker, and above all, of 'Warburton. Among philosophers, Sanderson, Bradley, Smith, and the two Simpsons. Hunter and Monro did much for anatomy; and Cheselden and Sharp for practical surgery. Young still survived, a patriarch among the poets; of whom Thomson, Gray, Akenside, and the Wartons, Collins, and Shenstone, were the chief. Johnson as a moralist; Hume as a historian; Fielding as a novelist; have in no age been surpassed: and if the dramatic writers, with the exception of Hoadly and Cibber, take but an humble rank, the histrionic art never stood so high as when the talents of Garrick and of Quin supported it. I say nothing of such men as Robertson, the historian of Scotland; of Richardson, the author of Grandison and Clarissa Harlowe; of Pitt, Francis, Hampton, and Franklin, the translators of Virgil, Horace, Polybius, and Sophocles. These were all, in their several departments, great, as were Miss Carter, Mrs. Pritchard, Miss Lennox, and Miss Reid, in theirs; while of painters, Hogarth stood forth the chief, though not unworthily supported by Reynolds, Ramsay, Wootton, Seymour, Lambert, the Smiths, and Scot. Meanwhile, Strange, Grignon, Baron, Ravenet, and others, effected prodigious improvements in the art of engraving; Rysbrach, Roubiliac, and Wilton, cultivated, not unsuccessfully, that of sculpture; and music attained, it may fairly be said, to its utmost degree of perfection, under the guidance of the

immortal Handel. In architecture alone, no advance seems to have been made; for though Burlington gave to it all the impulse which one man's genius can give, the public taste was too much vitiated to profit by his recommendations.

The illustrations which accompany the history of the reign of George the Second, consist of a portrait of the king in his royal robes; a group of figures, exhibiting the court costume of the day; a view of Stirling Castle, memorable in the civil wars with the pretender; and a copy of an old picture representing a fair which was held upon the Thames during a severe frost, in the Winter of 1739-40, when the river was completely frozen over. To these are added a copy of West's celebrated historical picture of the death of general Wolfe, at the siege of Quebec, in 1759.

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CHAPTER III.

GEORGE THE THIRD-HIS PATRIOTIC SENTIMENTS-PROSECUTES THE WAR WITH VIGOUR.-SUCCESSES IN GERMANY. - PORTUGAL DEFENDED.-REDUCTION OF THE WEST-INDIA ISLANDS CUBA.- AFFAIRS OF INDIA. PEACE.-DISCONTENTS IN THE AMERICAN COLONIESTHEIR CAUSES. RIOTS IN BOSTON REBELLION.AMERICAN WAR.-FRANCE, SPAIN, AND HOLLAND, ESPOUSE THE CAUSE OF THE INSURGENTS.-MISCONDUCT OF AFFAIRS.-NAVAL VICTORIES.-AMERICA DECLARED INDEPENDENT.-PEACE OF PARIS.

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[A. D. 1760 to A. D. 1783.]

GEORGE the Second was succeeded in both his royal and electoral dignities by his grandson, George the Third; a prince of the most amiable dispositions and purest character,-who had learned, during an education strictly private, to value the power which his station conferred, only in proportion as it enabled him to promote the real welfare of his people. With him it was a subject of honest pride that he was the first of his race who had been born and bred a Briton." That title," he said, "is my glory:" and never, throughout the course of a long and arduous reign, did his actions, as a man or as a prince, contradict this boast. His father, Frederick prince of Wales, dying prematurely, the uneasy burden of royalty devolved upon him at a period when the vigour of his grandfather's constitution led no one to anticipate such a result, and when he himself had but recently entered into the twenty-third year of his age.

No immediate change, either in the foreign or domestic policy of England, ensued upon the accession of the young king. Whatever his private sentiments might have been, he saw that the moment was critical; and he hastened to assure the public that he

would prosecute the expensive but just war in which his country was involved, so as to secure, in concert with his allies, the blessings of an honourable and permanent peace. This statement, together with the continuance in office of Mr. Pitt, gave great satisfaction abroad; nor did either the parliament or the people of England express the slightest disapprobation of it. The Commons voted twenty millions towards the expenses of the year; fresh fleets were manned; fresh troops embodied; indeed, it seemed as if to the resources of a nation in unity with itself there could be no limits. The consequence was, that the courts both of Versailles and Vienna took the alarm, and made various efforts, in conjunction with Russia and Sweden, to bring about an accommodation. But these were either insincere in themselves, or carried forward without judgment; for they led to nothing. A convention which had been proposed at Augsburg never met; and the ministers of France and England, after wasting a whole session in discussions, separated without coming to any conclusion.

Meanwhile, the decease of Ferdinand the Sixth, and the accession of Don Carlos as Charles the Third, opened out a wide and convenient field for the exercise of French intrigue in the guidance of Spanish councils. The growing power of England in America was beheld with little satisfaction by Charles; and it proved an easy matter, by alarming his fears, to excite also his jealousy. This done, a proposition was made and acceded to, that "a family compact" should be formed, to which the kings of France, Spain, and Sicily should be parties, that as princes descended from a common stock, they should each extend to the subjects of the other the same privileges, both of commerce and protection, which were enjoyed by his own people; and above all, that an alliance, offensive and defensive, should be contracted on terms so close, that

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