parallel to the estimation in which North was held by his sovereign, we must come down to the times of Addington and Eldon. The King's letters to Addington and Eldon resemble nothing so much as his letters to Lord North. The King's personal regard for Addington or Scott was perhaps stronger than his regard for North. At least there are more instances of unbending familiarity in his letters to his dear Chan'cellor' and his own Chancellor of the Exchequer,' than in his letters to Lord North. But His Majesty's letters to each of these three contrast signally with his letters to Chatham and Rockingham. Here, however, the parallel ends. The King was a shrewd man and could not fail to measure the distance which separated the ability of Addington from the ability of North. He might like to confer with Addington better than to confer with Pitt; but he felt that in the hands of Pitt a policy might flourish which could only fail in the hands of Addington. On the other hand, not only did he prefer taking counsel with North to taking counsel with Lord Rockingham or Mr. Fox, but he felt that in defending any political measure favoured by the Court, Lord North could do infinitely better than Lord Rockingham, and not so much worse than Mr. Fox. Lord North brought to the service of his sovereign not only personal devotion, but sympathy or at least submission of opinion, and a considerable influence over the House of Commons. Those who only judge of him by the bitter declamation with which he was assailed during the angry debates of the American War should correct their opinion by reperusing the panegyric which Burke pronounced. According to the universal report of his contemporaries, he had a ready eloquence, a pleasing wit, and invincible good humour. A Minister who was all this, and also sympathetic with the King, was a Minister after the King's own heart, even although, to quote Burke's qualification, he may have wanted something of the vigilance and spirit of command 'that the time required.'

The correspondence which Mr. Donne has ably edited and abundantly illustrated will bring into strong relief the more pliable and submissive traits in Lord North's character, with the King's friendly and affectionate sentiments to his first favourite Minister. Before examining this correspondence, which extends from the beginning of the end of 1768 to the middle of 1783, it may not be superfluous to recapitulate some of the more important changes which preceded Lord North's assumption of the Government. When George II. died England was in the full blaze of that glory with which the energetic counsels of the

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elder Pitt had surrounded her. Victorious in the extreme East and the extreme West, she was both feared and courted on the continent of Europe. France regarded her with awe, Prussia with hope and confidence. Had Pitt long continued to retain both office and influence, it is possible that he would have consummated the humiliation of the House of Bourbon, which faction had prevented the Whig statesmen of Queen Anne's time from effecting. But the first speech delivered by the young monarch dispelled the hopes of those who longed for that consummation as completely as Queen Anne's speech in 1711 had dispelled the hopes of Marlborough and his partisans. The plan for striking a final blow at the power of France received its fatal check when the capricious Queen informed her Parliament that notwithstanding the arts of those who delight in war, both place and time are appointed for opening the treaty of a general peace.' These words could not have startled the ears of Marlborough more than the reference to the bloody and ex'pensive war' which Mr. Pitt had conducted must have startled Mr. Pitt himself and the two other Ministers whom George III. had summoned, not to compose or to correct, but to listen to, the first speech which he was about to address to Parliament. Great as was the slight thus shown to the whole Ministry, and especially to its most conspicuous ornament, the slight was further embittered by the knowledge that the obnoxious speech was the composition of the Earl of Bute. The impression made so early in the King's reign remained for many years firmly engraven on the minds not only of the vulgar but of statesmen and Ministers. Bute's influence over the young King was supposed to be as potent as his intimacy with the young King's mother was supposed to be criminal. In the course of this Correspondence and the review which it suggests of the various political changes in George III.'s reign, we shall see the consequences, sometimes ludicrous, sometimes baneful, which sprung from a belief as lasting and as obstinate as it was unfounded. But it is hardly possible to explain its origin or weigh its consequences without an examination of the King's previous history and education.

Of his father, Frederic, Prince of Wales, the most that is known amounts to this. He was popular with the country because he was obnoxious to the King and Queen, and reciprocated the aversion which they felt towards him. He was probably weak and unstable; but can hardly have been so utterly false in heart and false in tongue as his mother described him to be. His popularity made Leicester House the head-quarters of the Opposition, whose leaders looked forward with high hope to the

day when their idol should sit on the throne of England. His sudden death which disappointed these hopes, committed the young Heir Presumptive to the exclusive tutelage of the Princess Dowager and her Court. The education which Prince George received under these conditions was more favourable to the development of his moral than of his intellectual faculties. It inculcated religious sentiments and religious observances; but it gave him no knowledge of the history or constitution of European governments, and a very imperfect knowledge of the constitution under which he was himself to reign. George III. was brought up in all but entire ignorance of the conditions on which his family had been called to the throne of England, and the principles by which their sway was to be guided. But this was not all. He was most superficially instructed in those points which in our days the pupils of our national schools are expected to master. Although he made it his boast that he had been born and bred a Briton, his progress in the English language was so defective that not only did he never write it idiomatically, but, to his latest day, he made marvellous blunders in spelling. Of these two defects, the latter, of which we shall see curious instances, was a defect which he shared with many contemporaries of rank and talent, whose correspondence, often sprightly, clever, picturesque and entertaining, is disfigured by barbarisms of which nowadays only housemaids and footmen would be guilty. For instance, in the Royal letters we shall come words as seperate, conferr,'owne,'' aleviate,' oppulence,` enumerable(for innumerable'), 'cirround' (for surround'), and many others equally strange. The style is even more peculiar than the spelling: uncouth, blunt, confused both in the use and the arrangement of words; but never so uncouth or so confused as to conceal the meaning or mar the shrewdness of the writer. However, it was not only in the articles of spelling and composition that George III.'s early education failed. It erred both as much in what it taught as in that which it did not teach. While his preceptor, the Bishop of Norwich, forbore to instruct him in the principles of the Constitution, his sub-preceptor, Mr. Stone, equally forbore out of deference to his ecclesiastical superior. Accordingly the young Prince was left very much to the persons in his mother's Court, from whom he imbibed high notions of monarchical prerogative. Lord Bute has hitherto been held responsible for the bias thus early given to the King's mind. But it is at least probable that other persons beside Lord Bute may have impressed upon his young intelligence the

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across such

necessity of liberating himself from the dominion of Ministers. George II. had been in the habit of saying, 'Ministers are King in this country.' And he was not far wrong. Any one who reads the pamphlets and the novels of the first half of the eighteenth century cannot fail to remark what a great personage a leading Peer was in those days. The Peerage comprised the bulk of the landed property, and nearly all the historical traditions of the kingdom. If a Noble Lord took an interest in any candidate for employment, that candidate's fortune was made. If a Noble Lord expressed his resentment or disappointment to any Minister whom he had supported, his forgiveness was to be solicited by entreaties and his support conciliated by concessions. Mr. Massey says, When George III. came to the throne, the English "Government was, in practice, assuming the form of an exclusive oligarchy. The King, though his prerogative still existed in theory unimpaired, had no more real power than a Doge of Venice or a Merovingian King in the 'hands of the Mayor of the Palace.' It is no wonder, then, that when the two first Sovereigns of the House of Hanover had died with the consciousness that they had enjoyed little more authority than was wielded by the Podestà of an Italian city, the first resolution of their successor should be not to chafe as they had chafed with impotent rage under the cold re'lentless thraldom to which they had been subjected.' This correspondence, like many other memoirs of the time, shows that the King ill brooked the dictation of powerful Ministers; but we do not think that, by itself, it shows any secret or underhand measures to get rid of them. We know that it is a theory of certain political writers that in his relations to some of his Ministers, notably to Lord Chatham, Mr. Grenville, and Lord Rockingham, George III. habitually availed himself of a system of intrigue, untruthfulness, and evasion. The origin of this belief is to be found in the character given of the young monarch, of which the following portions should be read together for their mutual verification or correction :

...

'He is strictly honest, but wants that frank and open behaviour which makes honesty appear amiable. . . . He has spirit, but not of the active kind, and does not want resolution, but it is mixed with too much obstinacy. . . . He has great command of his passions and will seldom do wrong, except when he mistakes wrong for right; but as often as this shall happen, it will be difficult to undeceive him, because he is unusually indolent and has strong prejudices.... Whenever he is displeased his anger does not break out with heat and violence, but he becomes sullen and silent and retires to his

closet, not to compose his mind by study or contemplation, but merely to indulge the melancholy enjoyment of his own ill-humour.' This description may have been mainly true of the young Prince, but it does not follow that it was equally true of the King. Indeed, what character given of a young man at the age of twenty holds equally good of him in the fortieth or the fiftieth year of his life? No disposition remains unchanged by the manifold incidents of life and long association with mankind. The reserve of the recluse pupil is broken down by contact with different men and different minds: the diffidence of conscious ignorance vanishes before a daily increasing knowledge of events, opinions, and characters; personal prejudice melts beneath the warmth of friendship or acquaintance, indolence gives way to the exactions of duty and occupation; and a moody sullenness is dispelled by the growing interests of an active life. Take the character which we have just quoted. Assume that it was true of the young son of Frederic Prince of Wales. Yet it is illogical to infer that it was wholly true of King George III. Lord Waldegrave portrays him as indolent. We know-and, if we did not know from other sources, this correspondence alone would teach us that in his years of sovereignty the King was the least indolent man in his dominions. May not other traits, such as his sullenness, his secretiveness and his duplicity, have been modified by advancing years and enlarged experience of life? Mr. Massey accuses the King of a secret and tortuous policy; of fomenting the jealousies among the great Whig houses, and organising select bands of favourites to thwart and obstruct his Ministers. We shall see in the review of these letters the unconstitutional views which he held of the Royal prerogative, and the indulgence which he required for the predilections of the Royal Will. But starting from these premises, it is unnecessary to import into the King's conduct the elements of intrigue, duplicity, or falsehood. He had been taught to believe that a king ought to govern as well as reign, and that the kings of England since the Revolution had been puppets in the hands of their Ministers. Entertaining this belief he found himself, on his accession, brought into daily contact with a Minister whose consciousness of power, popularity, and success, combined with a dramatic faculty of expressing pride or resentment or disdain beyond the ability of any actor except Garrick, gave to his presence all the attributes of a despotic Mayor of the Palace. Is it strange that the King felt the thraldom of this presence irksome, burdensome, and oppressive? Or is it strange that he shrunk from interviews with a