Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

"The peace of 1782 threw open the continent; and it was
scarcely proclaimed, when France was crowded with the
English nobility. Versailles was the centre of all that was
sumptuous in Europe. The graces of the young queen, then in
the pride of youth and beauty; the pomp of the royal family
and the noblesse; and the costliness of the fetes and
celebrations, for which France has been always famous,
rendered the court the dictator of manners, morals, and
politics, to all the higher ranks of the civilized world.
But the Revolution was now hastening with the strides of a
giant upon France: the torch was already waving over the
chambers of this morbid and guilty luxury. The corrective
was terrible: history has no more stinging retrospect than
the contrast of that brilliant time with the days of shame
and agony that followed--the untimely fate of beauty, birth,
and heroism,--the more than serpent-brood that started up in
the path which France once emulously covered with flowers
for the step of her rulers,--the hideous suspense of the
dungeon,--the heart-broken farewell to life and royalty upon
the scaffold. But France was the grand corruptor; and its
supremacy must in a few years have spread incurable disease
through the moral frame of Europe.

"The English men of rank brought back with them its
dissipation and its infidelity. The immediate circle of the
English court was clear. The grave virtue of the king held
the courtiers in awe; and the queen, with a pious wisdom,
for which her name should long be held in honour,
indignantly repulsed every attempt of female levity to
approach her presence. But beyond this sacred circle, the
influence of foreign association was felt through every
class of society. The great body of the writers of England,
the men of whom the indiscretions of the higher ranks stand
most in awe, had become less the guardians than the seducers
of the public mind. The 'Encyclopedie,' the code of
rebellion and irreligion still more than of science, had
enlisted the majority in open scorn of all that the heart
should practise or the head revere; and the Parisian
atheists scarcely exceeded the truth, when they boasted of
erecting a temple that was to be frequented by worshippers
of every tongue. A cosmopolite, infidel republic of letters
was already lifting its front above the old sovereignties,
gathering under its banners a race of mankind new to public
struggle,--the whole secluded, yet jealous and vexed race of
labourers in the intellectual field, and summoning them to
devote their most unexhausted vigour and masculine ambition
to the service of a sovereign, at whose right and left, like
the urns of Homer's Jove, stood the golden founts of glory.
London was becoming Paris in all but the name. There never
was a period when the tone of our society was more polished,
more animated, or more corrupt. Gaming, horse-racing, and
still deeper deviations from the right rule of life, were
looked upon as the natural embellishments of rank and
fortune. Private theatricals, one of the most dexterous and
assured expedients to extinguish, first the delicacy of
woman, and then her virtue, were the favourite indulgence;
and, by an outrage to English decorum, which completed the
likeness to France, women were beginning to mingle in public
life, try their influence in party, and entangle their
feebleness in the absurdities and abominations of political
intrigue. In the midst of this luxurious period the Prince
of Wales commenced his public career. His rank alone would
have secured him flatterers; but he had higher titles to
homage. He was, then, one of the handsomest men in Europe:
his countenance open and manly; his figure tall, and
strikingly proportioned; his address remarkable for easy
elegance, and his whole air singularly noble. His
contemporaries still describe him as the model of a man of
fashion, and amusingly lament over the degeneracy of an age
which no longer produces such men.

"But he possessed qualities which might have atoned for a
less attractive exterior. He spoke the principal modern
languages with sufficient skill; he was a tasteful musician;
his acquaintance with English literature was, in early life,
unusually accurate and extensive; Markham's discipline, and
Jackson's scholarship, had given him a large portion of
classical knowledge; and nature had given him the more
important public talent of speaking with fluency, dignity,
and vigour.

"Admiration was the right of such qualities, and we can feel
no surprise if it were lavishly offered by both sexes. But
it has been strongly asserted, that the temptations of
flattery and pleasure were thrown in his way for other
objects than those of the hour; that his wanderings were
watched by the eyes of politicians; and that every step
which plunged him deeper into pecuniary embarrassment was
triumphed in, as separating him more widely from his natural
connexions, and compelling him in his helplessness to throw
himself into the arms of factions alike hostile to his
character and his throne."

Our readers may compare the above portrait of his royal highness, with that which Mr. Jefferson draws of him in one of his letters.

In 1787, the Prince had involved himself in debt to such an amount, that it was found necessary to solicit Parliament, not only for a sum sufficient to liquidate his obligations, but also for an increase of his income, the salary first granted having proved quite inadequate for his royal propensities. The following account of his debts and expenditure was laid before the House of Commons, and furnishes a teeming commentary on the blessings of hereditary government. In considering this matter, one might be tempted to regard Parliament as a species of eleemosynary institution, for the relief of insolvent royalty.

_Debts._

Bonds and debts, L13,000
Purchase of houses, 4,000
Expenses of Carlton House, 53,000
Tradesmen's bills, 90,804
--------
L160,804

_Expenditure from July 1783, to July 1786._

Household, &c., L29,277
Privy purse, 16,050
Payments made by Col. Hotham,
particulars delivered in
to his majesty, 37,203
Other extraordinaries, 11,406
--------
L93,936
Salaries, 54,734
Stables, 37,919
Mr. Robinson's, 7,059
--------
L193,648

The debate upon the grant was of a highly animated character, and in the course of it the Prince was not spared. He was befriended by the opposition, with Fox at its head, having thrown himself into the arms of that party, who were endeavouring in every way to drive Pitt from his ministerial seat. But in this instance, as in most others, the latter succeeded in carrying his point; in consequence of which, L161,000 were issued out of the civil list to pay the Prince's debts, and L20,000 for the completion of Carlton House, but no augmentation of his income was allowed. "Hopeless of future appeal, stung by public rebuke, and committed before the empire in hostility to the court and the minister, the Prince was now thrown completely into Fox's hands."

Perhaps the two most interesting chapters in Mr. Croly's book, are those entitled "the Prince's friends," in which he has brought into review most of the principal characters of that period of intellectual giants, whose renown continues to shed increasing lustre around the political and literary horizon of England. The world is never tired of reading whatever has reference to those personages, and a book that professes to speak respecting them, may be said to possess a sure passport to public favour at the present day. Well may the old man now living in England, the prime of whose life was passed in that time, be allowed to be a "laudator temporis acti," without having it imputed to the fond weakness of senility. We shall make copious extracts from this portion of our author's work.

"England had never before seen such a phalanx armed against
a minister. A crowd of men of the highest natural talents,
of the most practised ability, and of the first public
weight in birth, fortune, and popularity, were nightly
arrayed against the administration, sustained by the
solitary eloquence of the young Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"Yet Pitt was not careless of followers. He was more than
once even charged with sedulously gathering round him a host
of subaltern politicians, whom he might throw forward as
skirmishers,--or sacrifices, which they generally were.
Powis, describing the 'forces led by the right honourable
gentleman on the treasury bench,' said, 'the first
detachment may be called his body-guard, who shoot their
little arrows against those who refuse allegiance to their
chief.' This light infantry were of course, soon scattered
when the main battle joined. But Pitt, a son of the
aristocracy, was an aristocrat in all his nature, and he
loved to see young men of family around him; others were
chosen for their activity, if not for their force, and some,
probably, from personal liking. In the later period of his
career, his train was swelled by a more influential and
promising race of political worshippers, among whom were
Lord Mornington, since Marquess Wellesley; Ryder, since Lord
Harrowby; and Wilberforce, still undignified by title, but
possessing an influence, which, perhaps, he values more. The
minister's chief agents in the house of commons, were Mr.
Grenville (since Lord Grenville) and Dundas.

"Yet, among those men of birth or business, what rival could
be found to the popular leaders on the opposite side of the
house,--to Burke, Sheridan, Grey, Windham, or to Fox, that

"'Prince and chief of many throned powers,
Who led the embattled seraphim to war.'"

Without adopting the bitter remark of the Duke de Montausier
to Louis the Fourteenth, in speaking of Versailles:--'Vous
avez beau faire, sire, vous n'en ferez jamais qu'un favori
sans merite,' it was impossible to deny their inferiority on
all the great points of public impression. A debate in that
day was one of the highest intellectual treats: there was
always some new and vigorous feature in the display on both
sides; some striking effort of imagination or masterly
reasoning, or of that fine sophistry, in which, as was said
of the vices of the French noblesse, half the evil was
atoned by the elegance. The ministerialists sarcastically
pronounced that, in every debate, Burke said something which
no one else ever said; Sheridan said something that no one
else ought to say, and Fox something that no one else would
dare to say. But the world, fairer in its decision, did
justice to their extraordinary powers; and found in the
Asiatic amplitude and splendour of Burke; in Sheridan's
alternate subtlety and strength, reminding it at one time of
Attic dexterity, and another of the uncalculating boldness
of barbarism; and in Fox's matchless English
self-possession, unaffected vigour, and overflowing
sensibility, a perpetual source of admiration.

"But it was in the intercourses of social life that the
superiority of Opposition was most incontestable. Pitt's
life was in the senate; his true place of existence was on
the benches of that ministry, which he conducted with such
unparalleled ability and success: he was, in the fullest
sense of the phrase, a public man; and his indulgences in
the few hours which he could spare from the business of
office, were more like the necessary restoratives of a frame
already shattered, than the easy gratifications of a man of
society: and on this principle we can safely account for the
common charge of Pitt's propensity to wine. He found it
essential, to relieve a mind and body exhausted by the
perpetual pressure of affairs: wine was his medicine: and it
was drunk in total solitude, or with a few friends from whom
the minister had no concealment. Over his wine the speeches
for the night were often concerted; and when the dinner was
done, the table council broke up only to finish the night in
the house.

"But with Fox, all was the bright side of the picture. His
extraordinary powers defied dissipation. No public man of
England ever mingled so much personal pursuit of every thing
in the form of indulgence with so much parliamentary
activity. From the dinner he went to the debate, from the
debate to the gaming-table, and returned to his bed by
day-light, freighted with parliamentary applause, plundered
of his last disposable guinea, and fevered with
sleeplessness and agitation; to go through the same round
within the next twenty-four hours. He kept no house; but he
had the houses of all his party at his disposal, and that
party were the most opulent and sumptuous of the nobility.
Cato and Antony were not more unlike, than the public
severity of Pitt, and the native and splendid dissoluteness
of Fox.

"They were unlike in all things. Even in such slight
peculiarities as their manner of walking into the house of
commons, the contrast was visible. From the door Pitt's
countenance was that of a man who felt that he was coming
into his high place of business. 'He advanced up the floor
with a quick firm step, with the head erect, and thrown
back, looking to neither the right nor the left, nor
favouring with a glance or a nod any of the individuals
seated on either side, among whom many of the highest would
have been gratified by such a mark of recognition.' Fox's
entrance was lounging or stately, as it might happen, but
always good-humoured; he had some pleasantry to exchange
with every body, and until the moment when he rose to speak,
continued gaily talking with his friends."

* * * * *

"Of all the great speakers of a day fertile in oratory,
Sheridan had the most conspicuous natural gifts. His figure,
at his first introduction into the house, was manly and
striking; his countenance singularly expressive, when
excited by debate; his eye large, black, and intellectual;
and his voice one of the richest, most flexible, and most
sonorous, that ever came from human lips. Pitt's was
powerful, but monotonous; and its measured tone often
wearied the ear. Fox's was all confusion in the commencement
of his speech; and it required some tension of ear
throughout to catch his words. Burke's was loud and bold,
but unmusical; and his contempt for order in his sentences,
and the abruptness of his grand and swelling conceptions,
that seemed to roll through his mind like billows before a
gale, often made the defects of his delivery more striking.
But Sheridan, in manner, gesture, and voice, had every
quality that could give effect to eloquence.

"Pitt and Fox were listened to with profound respect, and in
silence, broken only by occasional cheers; but from the
moment of Sheridan's rising, there was an expectation of
pleasure, which to his last days was seldom disappointed. A
low murmur of eagerness ran round the house; every word was
watched for, and his first pleasantry set the whole
assemblage in a roar. Sheridan was aware of this; and has
been heard to say, 'that if a jester would never be an
orator, yet no speaker could expect to be popular in a _full
house_, without a jest; and that he always made the
experiment, good or bad; as a laugh gave him the country
gentlemen to a man.'

"In the house he was always formidable; and though Pitt's
moral or physical courage never shrank from man, yet
Sheridan was the antagonist with whom he evidently least
desired to come into collision, and with whom the collision,
when it did occur, was of the most fretful nature. Pitt's
sarcasm on him as a theatrical manager, and Sheridan's
severe, yet fully justified retort, are too well known to be
now repeated; but there were a thousand instances of that
'keen encounter of their wits,' in which person was more
involved than party."

* * * * *

"Burke was created for parliament. His mind was born with a
determination to things of grandeur and difficulty.

"'Spumantemque dari, pecora inter inertia, votis
Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem.'"

Nothing in the ordinary professions, nothing in the trials
or triumphs of private life, could have satisfied the noble
hunger and thirst of his spirit of exertion. This quality
was so predominant, that to it a large proportion of his
original failures, and of his unfitness for general public
business, which chiefly belongs to detail, is to be traced
through life. No Hercules could wear the irresistible
weapons and the lion's skin with more natural supremacy; but
none could make more miserable work with the distaff.
Burke's magnitude of grasp, and towering conception, were so
much a part of his nature, that he could never forego their
exercise, however unsuited to the occasion. Let the object
be as trivial as it might, his first instinct was to turn it
into all shapes of lofty speculation, and try how far it
could be moulded and magnified into the semblance of
greatness. If he had no large national interest to summon
him, he winged his tempest against a turnpike bill; or flung
away upon the petty quarrels and obscure peculations of the
underlings of office, colours and forms that might have
emblazoned the fall of a dynasty."

* * * * *

"Erskine, like many other characters of peculiar liveliness,
had a morbid sensibility to the circumstances of the moment,
which sometimes strangely enfeebled his presence of mind;
any appearance of neglect in his audience, a cough, a yawn,
or a whisper, even among the mixed multitude of the courts,
and strong as he was there, has been known to dishearten him
visibly. This trait was so notorious, that a solicitor,
whose only merit was a remarkably vacant face, was said to
be often planted opposite to Erskine by the adverse party,
to yawn when the advocate began.

"The cause of his first failure in the house, was not unlike
this curious mode of disconcerting an orator. He had been
brought forward to support the falling fortunes of Fox, then
struggling under the weight of the 'coalition.' The 'India
Bill' had heaped the king's almost open hostility on the
accumulation of public wrath and grievance which the
ministers had with such luckless industry been employed
during the year in raising for their own ruin. Fox looked
abroad for help; and Gordon, the member for Portsmouth, was
displaced from his borough, and Erskine was brought into the
house, with no slight triumph of his party, and perhaps some
degree of anxiety on the opposite side. On the night of his
first speech, Pitt, evidently intending to reply, sat with
pen and paper in his hand, prepared to catch the arguments
of this formidable adversary. He wrote a word or two;
Erskine proceeded; but with every additional sentence Pitt's
attention to the paper relaxed; his look became more
careless; and he obviously began to think the orator less
and less worthy of his attention. At length, while every eye
in the house was fixed upon him, he, with a contemptuous
smile, dashed the pen through the paper, and flung them on
the floor. Erskine never recovered from this expression of
disdain; his voice faltered, he struggled through the
remainder of his speech, and sank into his seat dispirited
and shorn of his fame.

"But a mind of the saliency and variety of Erskine's, must
have distinguished itself wherever it was determined on
distinction; and it is impossible to believe, that the
master of the grave, deeply-reasoned, and glowing eloquence
of this great pleader, should not have been able to bring
his gifts with him from Westminster-hall to the higher altar
of parliament. There were times when his efforts in the
house reminded it of his finest effusions at the bar. But
those were rare. He obviously felt that his place was not in
the legislature; that no man can wisely hope for more than
one kind of eminence; and except upon some party emergency,
he seldom spoke, and probably never with much expectation of
public effect. His later years lowered his name; by his
retirement from active life, he lost the habits forced upon
him by professional and public rank; and wandered through
society, to the close of his days, a pleasant idler; still
the gentleman and the man of easy wit, but leaving society
to wonder what had become of the great orator, in what
corner of the brain of this perpetual punster and
story-teller, this man of careless conduct and rambling
conversation, had shrunk the glorious faculty, that in
better days flashed with such force and brightness; what
cloud had absorbed the lightnings that had once alike
penetrated and illumined the heart of the British nation."

The following investigation of the authorship of Junius will be read with interest.

"The trial of Hastings had brought Sir Philip Francis into
public notice, and his strong Foxite principles introduced
him to the prince's friends. His rise is still unexplained.
From a clerk in the War-office, he had been suddenly exalted
into a commissioner for regulating the affairs of India, and
sent to Bengal with an appointment, estimated at ten
thousand pounds a-year. On his return to England he joined
Opposition, declared violent hostilities against Hastings,
and gave his most zealous assistance to the prosecution;
though the house of commons would not suffer him to be on
the committee of impeachment. Francis was an able and
effective speaker; with an occasional wildness of manner and
eccentricity of expression, which, if they sometimes
provoked a smile, often increased the interest of his
statements.

"But the usual lot of those who have identified themselves
with any one public subject, rapidly overtook him. His
temperament, his talents, and his knowledge, were all
Indian. With the impeachment he was politically born, with
it he lived, and when it withered away, his adventitious and
local celebrity perished along with it. He clung to Fox for
a few years after; but while the great leader of opposition
found all his skill necessary to retain his party in
existence, he was not likely to solicit a partisan at once
so difficult to keep in order and to employ. The close of
his ambitious and disappointed life was spent in ranging
along the skirts of both parties, joining neither, and
speaking his mind with easy, and perhaps sincere, scorn of
both; reprobating the Whigs, during their brief reign, for
their neglect of fancied promises; and equally reprobating
the ministry, for their blindness to fancied pretensions.

"But he was still to have a momentary respite for fame.
While he was going down into that oblivion which rewards the
labours of so many politicians; a pamphlet, ascribing
Junius's letters to Sir Phillip, arrested his descent. Its
arguments were plausible; and, for a while, opinion appeared
to be in favour of the conjecture, notwithstanding a denial
from the presumed Junius; which, however, had much the air
of his feeling no strong dislike to being suspected of this
new title to celebrity. But further examination extinguished
the title; and left the secret, which had perplexed so many
unravellers of literary webs, to perplex the grave idlers of
generations to come.

"Yet the true wonder is not the concealment; for a multitude
of causes might have produced the continued necessity even
after the death of the writer; but the feasibility with
which the chief features of Junius may be fastened on almost
every writer, of the crowd for whom claims have been laid to
this dubious honour: while, in every instance, some
discrepancy finally starts upon the eye, which excludes the
claim.

"Burke had more than the vigour, the information, and the
command of language; but he was incapable of the virulence
and the disloyalty. Horne Tooke had the virulence and the
disloyalty in superabundance; but he wanted the cool sarcasm
and the polished elegance, even if he could have been fairly
supposed to be at once the assailant and the defender.
Wilkes had the information and the wit; but his style was
incorrigibly vulgar, and all its metaphors were for and from
the mob: in addition, he would have rejoiced to declare
himself the writer: his well-known answer to an inquiry on
the subject was, 'Would to Heaven I had!' _Utinam
scripsissem!_ Lord George Germaine has been lately brought
forward as a candidate; and the evidence fully proves that
he possessed the dexterity of style, the powerful and
pungent remark, and even the individual causes of bitterness
and partisanship, which might be supposed to stimulate
Junius: but, in the private correspondence of Junius with
his printer, Woodfall, there are contemptuous allusions to
Lord George's conduct in the field, which at once put an end
to the question of authorship.

"Dunning possessed the style, the satire, and the
partisanship; but Junius makes blunders in his law, of which
Dunning must have been incapable. Gerard Hamilton
(Single-speech) might have written the letters, but he never
possessed the moral courage; and was, besides, so consummate
a coxcomb, that his vanity must have, however involuntarily,
let out the secret. The argument, that he was Junius; from
his notoriously using the same peculiarities of phrase at
the time when all the world was in full chase of the author,
ought of itself to be decisive against him; for nothing can
be clearer, than that the actual writer was determined on
concealment, and that he would never have toyed with his
dangerous secret so much in the manner of a school-girl,
anxious to develop her accomplishments.

"It is with no wish to add to the number of the
controversialists on this bluestocking subject, that a
conjecture is hazarded; that Junius will be found, if ever
found, among some of the humbler names of the list. If he
had been a political leader, or, in any sense of the word,
an independent man, it is next to impossible that he should
not have left some indication of his authorship. But it is
perfectly easy to conceive the case of a private secretary,
or dependent of a political leader, writing, by his command,
and for his temporary purpose, a series of attacks on a
ministry; which, when the object was gained, it was of the
highest importance to bury, so far as the connexion was
concerned, in total oblivion. Junius, writing on his own
behalf, would have, in all probability, retained evidence
sufficient to substantiate his title, when the peril of the
discovery should have passed away, which it did within a few
years; for who would have thought, in 1780, of punishing
even the libels on the king in 1770? Or when, if the peril
remained, the writer would have felt himself borne on a tide
of popular applause high above the inflictions of law.

"But, writing for another; the most natural result was, that
he should have been _pledged_ to extinguish all proof of the
transaction; to give up every fragment that could lead to
the discovery at any future period; and to surrender the
whole mystery into the hands of the superior, for whose
purposes it had been constructed, and who, while he had no
fame to acquire by its being made public, might be undone by
its betrayal.

"The marks of _private secretaryship_ are so strong, that
all the probable conjectures have pointed to writers under
that relation; Lloyd, the private secretary of George
Grenville; Greatrakes, Lord Shelburne's private secretary;
Rosenhagen, who was so much concerned in the business of
Shelburne house, that he may be considered as a second
secretary; and Macauley Boyd, who was perpetually about some
public man, and who was at length fixed by his friends on
Lord Macartney's establishment, and went with him to take
office in India.

"But, mortifying as it may be to the disputants on the
subject, the discovery is now beyond rational hope; for
Junius intimates his having been a spectator of
parliamentary proceedings even further back than the year
1743; which, supposing him to have been twenty years old at
the time, would give more than a century for his experience.
In the long interval since 1772, when the letters ceased:
not the slightest clue has been discovered; though doubtless
the keenest inquiry was set on foot by the parties assailed.
Sir William Draper died with but one wish, though a
sufficiently uncharitable one, that he could have found out
his castigator, before he took leave of the world. Lord
North often avowed his total ignorance of the writer. The
king's reported observation to Gen. Desaguiliers, in 1772,
'We know who Junius is, and he will write no more,' is
unsubstantiated; and if ever made, was probably prefaced
with a supposition; for no publicity ever followed; and what
neither the minister of the day, nor his successors ever
knew, could scarcely have come to the king's knowledge but
by inspiration, nor remained locked up there but by a
reserve not far short of a political error.

"But the question is not worth the trouble of discovery;
for, since the personal resentment is past, its interest can
arise only from pulling the mask off the visage of some
individual of political eminence, and giving us the amusing
contrast of his real and his assumed physiognomy; or from
unearthing some great unknown genius. But the leaders have
been already excluded; and the composition of the letters
demanded no extraordinary powers. Their secret information
has been vaunted; but Junius gives us no more than what
would now be called the 'chat of the clubs;' the currency of
conversation, which any man mixing in general life might
collect in his half-hour's walk down St. James's Street: he
gives us no insight into the _purposes_ of government; of
the _counsels_ of the _cabinet_ he knows nothing. The style
was undeniably excellent for the purpose, and its writer
must have been a man of ability. If it had been original, he
might have been a man of genius; but it was notoriously
formed on Col. Titus's letter, which from its strong
peculiarities, is of easy imitation. The crime and the
blunder together of Junius was, that he attacked the king, a
man so publicly honest and so personally virtuous, that his
assailant inevitably pronounced himself a libeller. But if
he had restricted his lash to the contending politicians of
the day, justice would have rejoiced in his vigorous
severity. Who could have regretted the keenest application
of the scourge to the Duke of Grafton, the most incapable of
ministers, and the most openly and offensively profligate of
men; to the indomitable selfishness of Mansfield; to the
avarice of Bedford, the suspicious negotiator of the
scandalous treaty of 1763; or to the slippered and
drivelling ambition of North, sacrificing an empire to his
covetousness of power?"

Mr. Croly has recorded a quantity of the "good things" that were said by the wits of the day at the table of the Prince, who used the facilities which his rank afforded him, of collecting around him all that was most distinguished in intellect, with praiseworthy zeal. Had his companions been chosen only from among that highest class, we might have quoted with regard to him, the sentence of Cicero--"facillime et in optimam partem, cognoscuntur adolescentes, qui se ad claros et sapientes viros, bene consulentes rei publicae, contulerunt: quibuscum si frequentes sunt, opinionem afferunt populo, eorum fore se similes quos sibi ipsi delegerint ad imitandum"--but unfortunately his intimacy was habitually shared by far less worthy associates--persons whom it was contamination to approach. Many of these _jeux d'esprit_ are of respectable antiquity; we transcribe a few which are attributed to the Prince himself, as specimens of royal humour.

"The conversation turning on some new eccentricity of Lord
George Gordon; his unfitness for a mob leader was instanced
in his suffering the rioters of 1780 to break open the
gin-shops, and, in particular, to intoxicate themselves by
the plunder of Langdale's great distillery, in Holborn. 'But
why did not Langdale defend his property?' was the question.
'He had not the means,' was the answer. 'Not the means of
defence?' said the prince; 'ask Angelo: he, a brewer, a
fellow all his life long at _carte_ and _tierce_.'"

"Sheridan was detailing the failure of Fox's match with Miss
Pulteney. 'I never thought that any thing would result from
it,' said the prince. 'Then,' replied Sheridan, 'it was not
for want of sighs: he sat beside her cooing like a
turtle-dove.'

"'He never cared about it,' said the prince; 'he saw long
ago that it was a _coup manque_.'"

"Fox disliked Dr. Parr; who, however, whether from personal
admiration, or from the habit which through life humiliated
his real titles to respect--that of fastening on the public
favourites of the time, persecuted him with praise. The
prince saw a newspaper panegyric on Fox, evidently from the
Dr.'s pen; and on being asked what he thought of it,
observed, that 'it reminded him of the famous epitaph on
Machiavel's tomb,'--

"'Tanto nomini nullum _Par_ elogium.'"

"If English punning," says Mr. Croly, "be a proscribed
species of wit; though it bears, in fact, much more the
character of the 'chartered libertine,' every where
reprobated, and every where received; yet classical puns
take rank in all lands and languages. Burke's pun on 'the
divine right of kings and toastmasters,'--the _jure
de-vino_--perhaps stands at the head of its class. But in an
argument with Jackson, the prince, jestingly, contended that
trial by jury was as old as the time of Julius Caesar; and
even that Caesar died by it. He quoted Suetonius: '_Jure_
caesus videtur.'"

In October, 1788, George the III. was afflicted with a mental disease, which totally incapacitated him for the duties of government. We do not wish to be unjustly harsh, but when we consider the irritability which, as may be inferred from the anecdote we have related of the King's intention to retire from England, must have formed a prominent trait in his character, and the displeasure he could not help manifesting in his communications to Parliament respecting the Prince's debts, it is impossible to reject the idea that the conduct of the latter was a main cause of his affliction.

He recovered, however, before the preliminary arrangements for the entrance of the Prince upon the regency had been completed. From this period up to the moment when the King became again a victim of the same dreadful malady, from whose grasp he never afterwards was freed, the Prince mixed no more with politics, but "abandoned himself," in the words of our author, "to pursuits still more obnoxious than those of public ambition." The course of his life was only varied by his disastrous marriage with the unfortunate Caroline, Princess of Brunswick. One of Mr. Croly's chapters is headed "the Prince's Marriage," the next, "the Royal Separation." We need not occupy much space with a subject which must be familiar to all of our readers, and of which the details are as disgusting as they are pitiful. Of all the foul stains upon the character of the royal profligate, it has stamped the foulest. Every principle of honour, of virtue, of humanity, was violated in the grossest manner.

That the Prince of Wales was morally guilty of the crime of bigamy in marrying the Princess Caroline, we have no hesitation in asserting. No one can doubt that Mrs. Fitzherbert had the claims of a wife upon him previously to his entering into this second engagement, however it may be attempted, as has been done by Mr. Croly, to deny such claims, upon the ground that the connexion was void by the laws of the land, although the ordinances of religion may have been complied with. If it can be supposed, that the Prince was determined, whilst binding himself at the altar of God by the most sacred vows, to take advantage of the laws of the land to cast aside the solemn obligations he thus assumed, as soon as it suited his convenience, in what a despicable situation is he placed! Deceit, perjury, sacrilege, would be terms too weak for the act. But Mr. Croly's own words are sufficient to prove that the lady was, and is, considered to have been connected with him by other ties than those of a mistress. He says, "she still enjoys at least the gains of the connexion, and up to the hoary age of seventy-five, calmly draws her salary of ten thousand pounds a year!" Would that salary be continued to a mistress? It is evident from the English papers that Mrs. Fitzherbert is treated with the greatest consideration by the present king and royal family, and that she is received by them on the most intimate footing; her name is recorded amongst those of the constant guests at the royal table and social assemblages of every kind. On what other ground can this circumstance be accounted for, than that she is regarded as a sister-in-law by the sovereign, and as a reputable relative by his family?

It is singular enough that Mr. Croly seems to consider a violation of the laws of God less reprehensible than a violation of the laws of man. Such at least is the unavoidable inference to be drawn from his remarks on this matter. He is quite indignant at the idea of his Royal Highness having married a woman of inferior rank, and a Roman Catholic (there is the horrid part of the affair,) by which he would have been guilty of a sin against the state, and evinces great anxiety to prove that the crime was one of a much lighter dye--merely an adulterous connexion, by which he transgressed one of the Divine Commandments. This Mr. Fox also attempted to do in Parliament, when it was hinted by a member that the _liaison_ was not of the character which usually subsists between individuals in the relative rank of the Prince and the lady, and the attempt was disgraceful enough even in a statesman--but in a minister of religion!--we leave it however to speak for itself.

In 1811, George the III. was a second time a lunatic, and the Prince ascended his throne, though only with the title of Regent, which he did not change for that of King until 1820, when the nominal monarch died, having survived his reason for nearly ten years. Ten years longer did the Fourth George sway the sceptre of the noblest empire in the world; and then he too mingled with the same dust as the meanest of his subjects. "C'est ainsi," in the words of Bossuet, "que la puissance divine, justement irritee centre notre orgueil, le pousse jusqu' au neant, et que, pour egaler a jamais les conditions, elle ne fait de nous tous qu' une meme cendre."

During the last years of his life, George the IVth was the prey of various maladies, with which a remarkably strong constitution enabled him to struggle until the spring of 1830. His corporeal sufferings may have been one cause of his almost entire seclusion at Windsor Castle, where he was like the Grand Lama of Thibet, unseeing and unseen, except by a chosen few, but it cannot be doubted that the knowledge of the unpopularity under which he certainly laboured, had some effect in producing the slight communication which took place between him and his subjects. So notorious was his aversion to making an appearance in London, that when he was first announced, last April, to be seriously indisposed, it was rumoured for a time that the sickness was fictitious--a mere pretence to avoid holding a levee which had been fixed for a certain day in that month, and which was in consequence deferred. But before the period had arrived to which it was postponed, there was no longer a doubt that the angel of death was brandishing his dart, and that there was little chance of averting the threatened stroke. The bulletins which the royal physicians daily promulgated, though couched in equivocal and unsatisfactory terms, shadowed out impending dissolution. The reason of their ambiguity was currently believed to be the circumstance, that the King insisted upon reading the newspapers in which they were published; whilst the medical attendants were anxious to withhold from him a knowledge of his true situation.

Besides being in the public prints, these bulletins appeared, in manuscript copies, in the windows of almost every shop, and were likewise shown every day at the Palace of St. James, by a lord and groom in waiting, richly dressed, to all of the loving subjects who preferred repairing thither for the satisfaction of their affectionate solicitude. It was rather amusing to watch the manner in which this satisfaction was obtained. The bulletins were thrust into the faces of all as they entered into the great hall where the exhibitors were stationed, with laudable earnestness and zeal, and most of the visiters looked with great interest--upon the paintings with which the apartment was adorned. The multitudes of persons, however, of both sexes, and often of high distinction, who filled the rooms that were thrown open, during the fashionable hours of the day, rendered it an entertaining scene. The most anxious faces were those of the owners of dry-good shops, by whom the recovery of the monarch was indeed an object devoutly desired, as they had already laid in their varieties of spring fashions, which the universal mourning that was to follow the demise of the crown, would convert almost into positive lumber.

At length, on the 26th of June, intelligence was received that the monarch of Great Britain had been conquered by a still more powerful king. What mourning without grief! what weeping without a tear! The papers immediately commenced a chorus of lamentation and eulogy, in which but one discordant voice was heard. This was the voice of the "Times"--the only leading journal which had independence and spirit enough to vindicate its character as a guardian of the public morals, by disdaining to prostitute its columns to the purposes of falsehood. One paper affirmed, among other fulsome and mendacious remarks, that the royal defunct must have taken his departure from this world with a clear conscience, as he had never injured an individual! After such an assertion

"Quis neget arduis
Pronos relabi posse rivos
Montibus, Tiberimque riverti?"

Did the shades of an injured wife and an injured father never rise before the imagination of the dying man? did the injury inflicted by a life of evil example never appal the recollection of the dying King? Yes, a life of evil example; we repeat the phrase. Look at his whole career, from the moment when it first became free from control, to its close. Does it not afford an almost uninterrupted series of the most scandalous violations of the rules which a king especially should hold sacred--the rules of religion, of morals? When young, he countenanced by his deportment the extravagance and profligacy of all the youth of the kingdom--when old, contemplate the avowed, the flagrant concubinage he sanctioned--see one adulteress openly succeeding another in his favour, and say whether his declining years furnished a more exemplary model for imitation than those of his boyhood. Worse than all, behold by whom, amongst others, his very death-bed, we may say, is surrounded--the mistress who had last sacrificed her virtue and honour, and the husband and the children of that woman, who were occupying places in the royal household, as the price of the wife and the mother's shame. It is well known that it was not until after the accession of the present sovereign, that Lady Conyngham, and the man from whom she derives the right of being so entitled, together with their offspring, received an intimation that their presence was no longer desirable at Windsor Castle, from which they departed, in consequence, amid the ridicule and scorn of the empire.

It was an interesting period for an American to be in London, that of the death of one king, and the accession of another; and, as such events are not of every-day occurrence, we esteemed ourselves particularly fortunate in being on the spot at the time. The various ceremonies consequent upon them,--the lying in state,--the obsequies,--the proclamation,--the prorogation of Parliament, and so forth, were well worth witnessing; but, by far the most interesting result they produced, was the general election which followed the dissolution of the legislature. We were enabled, through the kindness of a gentleman who was a candidate, to study the whole process of an election in a free borough, having accompanied him, at his invitation, to the scene of political strife, and remained there until the contest was brought to a close. By occupying a few pages with an account of it, we may, perhaps, communicate some degree of information and pleasure to a portion of our readers, without being guilty of too wide a digression.

The two first days subsequently to our arrival in the town, were spent in visiting those persons whose suffrages were not ascertained at the time when the candidates made their canvass, two or three weeks before, that is to say,--called personally upon every one who possessed a vote, and requested his support. In this, there is no mincing of the matter in the least,--the suffrage is openly asked, and as openly promised or refused; but it is only among the more respectable class, that this ceremonial is sufficient,--the others "thank their God they have a vote to sell." On the third day, the election commenced. Two temporary covered buildings had been erected near each other in the principal part of the town, in one of which were the hustings and the polls, and the other was employed for the sittings of a species of court, where the qualifications of suspected voters were tried. About nine in the morning, the candidates, three in number, proceeded to the former booth, if we may so term it, and, after the settlement of the necessary preliminaries, were proposed and seconded as representatives of the borough, in the order in which they stood on the hustings. These were partitioned into three divisions,--one belonging to each of the opposing gentlemen,--which were crowded with their respective friends. Directly below the hustings, which were considerably elevated, was a table, round which were seated the poll clerks, and others officially connected with the election. This was separated by a board running across the building, from the polls, which were also divided into three parts, or boxes, corresponding with the divisions of the hustings. All the proposers and seconders made speeches, as well as the candidates,--and nothing could surpass the amusing nature of the scene during the discourses of two of the haranguers, who were particularly obnoxious to a large portion of the assembled crowd. They were saluted with a vast variety of _gentle_ epithets, and almost every method of annoyance and interruption was put in practice. After the _speechification_ was concluded, the polling commenced. It was done by tallies. The committee of each candidate, marshalled in succession ten of their friends at a time, who appeared in the box belonging to their party, and, on being asked, one after another, for whom they voted, gave, viva voce, either a plumper for one, or split their vote amongst two of the candidates. This system was regularly prosecuted, until the diminished numbers of one of the parties, rendered it difficult to collect ten men in time, when as many as could be brought together, were sent in. On the last day of the election, not more than one vote was polled in an hour in one of the boxes.

The candidates were obliged to remain in their places on the hustings, day after day, from the opening until the closing of the polls, and thank aloud every one who gave them a vote. At the end of every day's polling, the three gentlemen made speeches, all pretty much of the same purport, expressing their thanks for the support they had received, and their perfect confidence of ultimate success. There were not more than six or seven hundred voters in the town; and yet, for eight days, was the contest carried on. On the ninth, one of the parties retired from the field, and the other two were declared duly elected; after which they were chaired. The reason of this protraction, was owing in part to the unavoidable slowness of viva voce voting, but chiefly to the number of votes objected to, by persons whose occupation it was to point out every flaw they could discover in the qualifications of those who appeared at the polls. One of those persons was in the employ of each candidate, and, as the struggle was close and somewhat acrimonious, objections were made on the slightest possible grounds, which were furnished in abundance, by the variety of circumstances that disqualified a man for voting in that borough. Whenever an objection was made, the objector stated the cause of it; and, having written it down on a piece of paper, handed it to the voter objected to, who repaired with it to the other booth. Here, having shown it to the assessor, or judge, who was invested with unlimited power to decide upon every question of qualification, he was tried in his turn. This was by far the more interesting and amusing of the two booths. The trial was conducted in regular form. The accused, so to call him, was placed at the bar of the court, where he was cross-questioned, and confronted with friendly and adverse witnesses; and then the lawyers in attendance, who had been respectively largely feed by the several candidates, pleaded for, or against his qualifications, according as he was a friend, or not, of their employer. When the arguments were finished, the assessor either rejected his vote, or sent him back to the polls with a certificate of qualification, which he exhibited, and had his suffrage recorded. In some instances, the trials were speedily despatched; but, generally, they occupied a considerable space of time, so that when the polls were finally closed, there were at least a hundred names on the books of the court, of persons who were yet to be arraigned.

It would require more space than is at our disposal, to enter into any detail of the odd speeches which were made, and the various scenes, laughable and serious, that occurred during the course of the election. For the same reason, we cannot dwell upon the observations which are naturally excited by the whole matter; but, we may remark, that we became fully satisfied, that frequent Parliaments, with the present election system, would be one of the greatest evils which could be inflicted on England. The seldomer, certainly, that such sluices of varied corruption are opened, the better. Here was a whole town for weeks in a state of the worst kind of commotion,--almost all the usual labours of the lower classes were suspended; unrestricted freedom of access to taverns and alehouses, at the expense of those who were courting their sweet voices, was afforded them; and some idea may be formed of the use that was made of it, from the fact that the bill brought to one of the candidates, by the keeper of an inn, for a single night's debauch, amounted to nearly a hundred pounds sterling. At the bar of the court where the qualifications were examined, abundant evidence was given, that this indirect species of bribery was not the only kind which was in operation. The intense eagerness manifested by the greater part of those to whose votes objections had been made, to obtain a decision of the assessor in their favour,--the quantity and grossness of the falsehoods they uttered, in order to effect that object, rendered palpable the existence of some very potent motive for desiring the possession of a suffrage. That these evils are to be attributed mainly to the viva voce mode of voting, we have little doubt, and, assuredly, the tree which produces such fruit, cannot be sound. But, we feel no desire to involve ourselves in a discussion concerning the best system of election, which has been debated _usque ad nauseam_, and we shall therefore return to our proper subject.