George The Third
We have to glance over sixty years in as many minutes. To read the merecatalogue of characters who figured during that long period, would occupyour allotted time, and we should have all text and no sermon. England hasto undergo the revolt of the American colonies; to submit to defeat andseparation; to shake under the volcano of the French Revolution; tograpple and fight for the life with her gigantic enemy Napoleon; to gaspand rally after that tremendous struggle. The old society, with itscourtly splendours, has to pass away; generations of statesmen to rise anddisappear; Pitt to follow Chatham to the tomb; the memory of Rodney andWolfe to be superseded by Nelson's and Wellington's glory; the old poetswho unite us to Queen Anne's time to sink into their graves; Johnson todie, and Scott and Byron to arise; Garrick to delight the world with hisdazzling dramatic genius, and Kean to leap on the stage and takepossession of the astonished theatre. Steam has to be invented; kings tobe beheaded, banished, deposed, restored. Napoleon to be but an episode,and George III is to be alive through all these varied changes, toaccompany his people through all these revolutions of thought, government,society; to survive out of the old world into ours.
When I first saw England, she was in mourning for the young PrincessCharlotte, the hope of the empire. I came from India as a child, and ourship touched at an island on the way home, where my black servant took mea long walk over rocks and hills until we reached a garden, where we saw aman walking. "That is he," said the black man: "that is Bonaparte! He eatsthree sheep every day, and all the little children he can lay hands on!"There were people in the British dominions besides that poor Calcuttaserving-man, with an equal horror of the Corsican ogre.
With the same childish attendant, I remember peeping through the colonnadeat Carlton House, and seeing the abode of the great Prince Regent. I cansee yet the Guards pacing before the gates of the place. The place? Whatplace? The palace exists no more than the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. It isbut a name now. Where be the sentries who used to salute as the Royalchariots drove in and out? The chariots, with the kings inside, havedriven to the realms of Pluto; the tall Guards have marched into darkness,and the echoes of their drums are rolling in Hades. Where the palace oncestood, a hundred little children are paddling up and down the steps to St.James's Park. A score of grave gentlemen are taking their tea at theAthenaeum Club; as many grizzly warriors are garrisoning the UnitedService Club opposite. Pall Mall is the great social Exchange of Londonnow--the mart of news, of politics, of scandal, of rumour--the Englishforum, so to speak, where men discuss the last dispatch from the Crimea,the last speech of Lord Derby, the next move of Lord John. And, now andthen, to a few antiquarians, whose thoughts are with the past rather thanwith the present, it is a memorial of old times and old people, and PallMall is our Palmyra. Look! About this spot, Tom of Ten Thousand was killedby Koenigsmarck's gang. In that great red house Gainsborough lived, andCulloden Cumberland, George III's uncle. Yonder is Sarah Marlborough'spalace, just as it stood when that termagant occupied it. At 25, WalterScott used to live; at the house, now No. 79, and occupied by the Societyfor the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, resided Mrs. EleanorGwynn, comedian.
How often has Queen Caroline's chair issued from under yonder arch! Allthe men of the Georges have passed up and down the street. It has seenWalpole's chariot and Chatham's sedan; and Fox, Gibbon, Sheridan, on theirway to Brookes's; and stately William Pitt stalking on the arm of Dundas;and Hanger and Tom Sheridan reeling out of Raggett's; and Byron limpinginto Wattier's; and Swift striding out of Bury Street; and Mr. Addison andDick Steele, both perhaps a little the better for liquor; and the Princeof Wales and the Duke of York clattering over the pavement; and Johnsoncounting the posts along the streets, after dawdling before Dodsley'swindow; and Horry Walpole hobbling into his carriage, with a gimcrack justbought out at Christie's; and George Selwyn sauntering into White's.
In the published letters to George Selwyn we get a mass of correspondenceby no means so brilliant and witty as Walpole's, or so bitter and brightas Hervey's, but as interesting, and even more descriptive of the time,because the letters are the work of many hands. You hear more voicesspeaking, as it were, and more natural than Horace's dandified treble, andSporus's malignant whisper. As one reads the Selwyn letters--as one looksat Reynolds's noble pictures illustrative of those magnificent times andvoluptuous people--one almost hears the voice of the dead past; thelaughter and the chorus; the toast called over the brimming cups; theshout at the racecourse or the gaming-table; the merry joke frankly spokento the laughing fine lady. How fine those ladies were, those ladies whoheard and spoke such coarse jokes; how grand those gentlemen!
I fancy that peculiar product of the past, the fine gentleman, has almostvanished off the face of the earth, and is disappearing like the beaver orthe Red Indian. We can't have fine gentlemen any more, because we can'thave the society in which they lived. The people will not obey: theparasites will not be as obsequious as formerly: children do not go downon their knees to beg their parents' blessing: chaplains do not say graceand retire before the pudding: servants do not say "your honour" and "yourworship" at every moment: tradesmen do not stand hat in hand as thegentleman passes: authors do not wait for hours in gentlemen's ante-roomswith a fulsome dedication, for which they hope to get five guineas fromhis lordship. In the days when there were fine gentlemen, Mr. SecretaryPitt's under-secretaries did not dare to sit down before him; but Mr.Pitt, in his turn, went down on his gouty knees to George II; and whenGeorge III spoke a few kind words to him, Lord Chatham burst into tears ofreverential joy and gratitude; so awful was the idea of the monarch, andso great the distinctions of rank. Fancy Lord John Russell or LordPalmerston on their knees whilst the sovereign was reading a dispatch, orbeginning to cry because Prince Albert said something civil!
At the accession of George III, the patricians were yet at the height oftheir good fortune. Society recognized their superiority, which theythemselves pretty calmly took for granted. They inherited not only titlesand estates, and seats in the House of Peers, but seats in the House ofCommons. There were a multitude of Government places, and not merelythese, but bribes of actual 500_l._ notes, which Members of the House tooknot much shame in assuming. Fox went into Parliament at 20: Pitt was justof age: his father not much older. It was the good time for Patricians.Small blame to them if they took and enjoyed, and over-enjoyed, the prizesof politics, the pleasures of social life.
In these letters to Selwyn, we are made acquainted with a whole society ofthese defunct fine gentlemen: and can watch with a curious interest alife, which the novel-writers of that time, I think, have scarce touchedupon. To Smollett, to Fielding even, a lord was a lord: a gorgeous beingwith a blue ribbon, a coroneted chair, and an immense star on his bosom,to whom commoners paid reverence. Richardson, a man of humbler birth thaneither of the above two, owned that he was ignorant regarding the mannersof the aristocracy, and besought Mrs. Donnellan, a lady who had lived inthe great world, to examine a volume of _Sir Charles Grandison_, and pointout any errors which she might see in this particular. Mrs. Donnellanfound so many faults, that Richardson changed colour; shut up the book;and muttered that it were best to throw it in the fire. Here, in Selwyn,we have the real original men and women of fashion of the early time ofGeorge III. We can follow them to the new club at Almack's: we can travelover Europe with them: we can accompany them not only to the publicplaces, but to their country-houses and private society. Here is a wholecompany of them; wits and prodigals; some persevering in their bad ways;some repentant, but relapsing; beautiful ladies, parasites, humblechaplains, led captains. Those fair creatures whom we love in Reynolds'sportraits, and who still look out on us from his canvases with their sweetcalm faces and gracious smiles--those fine gentlemen who did us the honourto govern us; who inherited their boroughs; took their ease in theirpatent places; and slipped Lord North's bribes so elegantly under theirruffles--we make acquaintance with a hundred of these fine folks, heartheir talk and laughter, read of
their loves, quarrels, intrigues, debts,duels, divorces; can fancy them alive if we read the book long enough. Wecan attend at Duke Hamilton's wedding, and behold him marry his bride withthe curtain-ring: we can peep into her poor sister's death-bed: we can seeCharles Fox cursing over the cards, or March bawling out the odds atNewmarket: we can imagine Burgoyne tripping off from St. James's Street toconquer the Americans, and slinking back into the club somewhatcrestfallen after his beating: we can see the young king dressing himselffor the Drawing-room and asking ten thousand questions regarding all thegentlemen: we can have high life or low, the struggle at the Opera tobehold the Violetta or the Zamperini--the Macaronis and fine ladies intheir chairs trooping to the masquerade or Madame Cornelys's--the crowd atDrury Lane to look at the body of Miss Ray, whom Parson Hackman has justpistolled--or we can peep into Newgate, where poor Mr. Rice the forger iswaiting his fate and his supper. "You need not be particular about thesauce for his fowl," says one turnkey to another: "for you know he is tobe hanged in the morning." "Yes," replies the second janitor, "but thechaplain sups with him, and he is a terrible fellow for melted butter."
Selwyn has a chaplain and parasite, one Dr. Warner, than whom Plautus, orBen Jonson, or Hogarth, never painted a better character. In letter afterletter he adds fresh strokes to the portrait of himself, and completes aportrait not a little curious to look at now that the man has passed away;all the foul pleasures and gambols in which he revelled, played out; allthe rouged faces into which he leered, worms and skulls; all the finegentlemen whose shoebuckles he kissed, laid in their coffins. This worthyclergyman takes care to tell us that he does not believe in his religion,though, thank Heaven, he is not so great a rogue as a lawyer. He goes onMr. Selwyn's errands, any errands, and is proud, he says, to be thatgentleman's proveditor. He waits upon the Duke of Queensberry--old Q.--andexchanges pretty stories with that aristocrat. He comes home "after a hardday's christening", as he says, and writes to his patron before sittingdown to whist and partridges for supper. He revels in the thoughts ofox-cheek and burgundy--he is a boisterous, uproarious parasite, licks hismaster's shoes with explosions of laughter and cunning smack and gusto,and likes the taste of that blacking as much as the best claret in oldQ.'s cellar. He has Rabelais and Horace at his greasy fingers' ends. He isinexpressibly mean, curiously jolly; kindly and good-natured in secret--atender-hearted knave, not a venomous lickspittle. Jesse says, that at hischapel in Long Acre, "he attained a considerable popularity by thepleasing, manly, and eloquent style of his delivery." Was infidelityendemic, and corruption in the air? Around a young king, himself of themost exemplary life and undoubted piety, lived a Court society asdissolute as our country ever knew. George II's bad morals bore theirfruit in George III's early years; as I believe that a knowledge of thatgood man's example, his moderation, his frugal simplicity, and God-fearinglife, tended infinitely to improve the morals of the country and purifythe whole nation.
After Warner, the most interesting of Selwyn's correspondents is the Earlof Carlisle, grandfather of the amiable nobleman at present Viceroy inIreland. The grandfather, too, was Irish Viceroy, having previously beentreasurer of the king's household; and, in 1778, the principalcommissioner for treating, consulting, and agreeing upon the means ofquieting the divisions subsisting in his Majesty's colonies, plantations,and possessions in North America. You may read his lordship's manifestosin the _Royal New York Gazette_. He returned to England, having by nomeans quieted the colonies; and speedily afterwards the _Royal New YorkGazette_ somehow ceased to be published.
This good, clever, kind, highly-bred Lord Carlisle was one of the Englishfine gentlemen who were wellnigh ruined by the awful debauchery andextravagance which prevailed in the great English society of those days.Its dissoluteness was awful: it had swarmed over Europe after the Peace;it had danced, and raced, and gambled in all the Courts. It had made itsbow at Versailles; it had run its horses on the plain of Sablons, nearParis, and created the Anglomania there: it had exported vast quantitiesof pictures and marbles from Rome and Florence: it had ruined itself bybuilding great galleries and palaces for the reception of the statues andpictures: it had brought over singing-women and dancing-women from all theoperas of Europe, on whom my lords lavished their thousands, whilst theyleft their honest wives and honest children languishing in the lonely,deserted splendours of the castle and park at home.
Besides the great London society of those days, there was anotherunacknowledged world, extravagant beyond measure, tearing about in thepursuit of pleasure; dancing, gambling, drinking, singing; meeting thereal society in the public places (at Ranelaghs, Vauxhalls, and Ridottos,about which our old novelists talk so constantly), and outvying the realleaders of fashion, in luxury, and splendour, and beauty. For instance,when the famous Miss Gunning visited Paris as Lady Coventry, where sheexpected that her beauty would meet with the applause which had followedher and her sister through England, it appears she was put to flight by anEnglish lady still more lovely in the eyes of the Parisians. A certainMrs. Pitt took a box at the opera opposite the countess; and was so muchhandsomer than her ladyship, that the parterre cried out that this was thereal English angel, whereupon Lady Coventry quitted Paris in a huff. Thepoor thing died presently of consumption, accelerated, it was said, by thered and white paint with which she plastered those luckless charms ofhers. (We must represent to ourselves all fashionable female Europe, atthat time, as plastered with white, and raddled with red.) She left twodaughters behind her, whom George Selwyn loved (he was curiously fond oflittle children), and who are described very drolly and pathetically inthese letters, in their little nursery, where passionate little LadyFanny, if she had not good cards, flung hers into Lady Mary's face; andwhere they sat conspiring how they should receive a new mother-in-law whomtheir papa presently brought home. They got on very well with theirmother-in-law, who was very kind to them; and they grew up, and they weremarried, and they were both divorced afterwards--poor little souls! Poorpainted mother, poor society, ghastly in its pleasures, its loves, itsrevelries!
As for my lord commissioner, we can afford to speak about him: because,though he was a wild and weak commissioner at one time, though he hurt hisestate, though he gambled and lost ten thousand pounds at a sitting--"fivetimes more," says the unlucky gentleman, "than I ever lost before;" thoughhe swore he never would touch a card again; and yet, strange to say, wentback to the table and lost still more: yet he repented of his errors,sobered down, and became a worthy peer and a good country gentleman, andreturned to the good wife and the good children whom he had always lovedwith the best part of his heart. He had married at one-and-twenty. Hefound himself, in the midst of a dissolute society, at the head of a greatfortune. Forced into luxury, and obliged to be a great lord and a greatidler, he yielded to some temptations, and paid for them a bitter penaltyof manly remorse; from some others he fled wisely, and ended by conqueringthem nobly. But he always had the good wife and children in his mind, andthey saved him. "I am very glad you did not come to me the morning I leftLondon," he writes to G. Selwyn, as he is embarking for America. "I canonly say, I never knew till that moment of parting, what grief was." Thereis no parting now, where they are. The faithful wife, the kind, generousgentleman, have left a noble race behind them: an inheritor of his nameand titles, who is beloved as widely as he is known; a man most kind,accomplished, gentle, friendly, and pure; and female descendants occupyinghigh stations and embellishing great names; some renowned for beauty, andall for spotless lives, and pious matronly virtues.
Another of Selwyn's correspondents is the Earl of March, afterwards Dukeof Queensberry, whose life lasted into this century; and who certainly asearl or duke, young man or greybeard, was not an ornament to any possiblesociety. The legends about old Q. are awful. In _Selwyn_, in _Wraxall_,and contemporary chronicles, the observer of human nature may follow him,drinking, gambling, intriguing to the end of his career; when thewrinkled, palsied, toothless old Don Juan died, as wicked and unrepentantas he had been at the hottest seaso
n of youth and passion. There is ahouse in Piccadilly, where they used to show a certain low window at whichold Q. sat to his very last days, ogling through his senile glasses thewomen as they passed by.
There must have been a great deal of good about this lazy, sleepy GeorgeSelwyn, which, no doubt, is set to his present credit. "Your friendship,"writes Carlisle to him, "is so different from anything I have ever metwith or seen in the world, that when I recollect the extraordinary proofsof your kindness, it seems to me like a dream." "I have lost my oldestfriend, and acquaintance, G. Selwyn," writes Walpole to Miss Berry: "Ireally loved him, not only for his infinite wit, but for a thousand goodqualities." I am glad, for my part, that such a lover of cakes and aleshould have had a thousand good qualities--that he should have beenfriendly, generous, warm-hearted, trustworthy. "I rise at six," writesCarlisle to him, from Spa (a great resort of fashionable people in ourancestors' days), "play at cricket till dinner, and dance in the evening,till I can scarcely crawl to bed at eleven. There is a life for you! Youget up at nine; play with Raton your dog till twelve, in yourdressing-gown; then creep down to White's; are five hours at table; sleeptill supper-time; and then make two wretches carry you in a sedan-chair,with three pints of claret in you, three miles for a shilling."Occasionally, instead of sleeping at White's, George went down and snoozedin the House of Commons by the side of Lord North. He representedGloucester for many years, and had a borough of his own, Ludgershall, forwhich, when he was too lazy to contest Gloucester, he sat himself. "I havegiven directions for the election of Ludgershall to be of Lord Melbourneand myself," he writes to the Premier, whose friend he was, and who washimself as sleepy, as witty, and as good-natured as George.
If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank andfashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal,we must make allowances for the rich men's failings, and recollect thatwe, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive forwork, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of alarge income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and agreat fortune, do but be splendid and idle? In these letters of LordCarlisle's from which I have been quoting, there is many a just complaintmade by the kind-hearted young nobleman of the state which he is obligedto keep; the magnificence in which he must live; the idleness to which hisposition as a peer of England bound him. Better for him had he been alawyer at his desk, or a clerk in his office;--a thousand times betterchance for happiness, education, employment, security from temptation. Afew years since the profession of arms was the only one which our noblescould follow. The Church, the Bar, medicine, literature, the arts,commerce, were below them. It is to the middle class we must look for thesafety of England: the working educated men, away from Lord North'sbribery in the senate; the good clergy not corrupted into parasites byhopes of preferment; the tradesmen rising into manly opulence; thepainters pursuing their gentle calling; the men of letters in their quietstudies; these are the men whom we love and like to read of in the lastage. How small the grandees and the men of pleasure look beside them! howcontemptible the story of the George III Court squabbles are beside therecorded talk of dear old Johnson! What is the grandest entertainment atWindsor, compared to a night at the club over its modest cups, with Percyand Langton, and Goldsmith, and poor Bozzy at the table? I declare Ithink, of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finestgentleman. And they were good, as well as witty and wise, those dear oldfriends of the past. Their minds were not debauched by excess, oreffeminate with luxury. They toiled their noble day's labour: they rested,and took their kindly pleasure: they cheered their holiday meetings withgenerous wit and hearty interchange of thought: they were no prudes, butno blush need follow their conversation: they were merry, but no riot cameout of their cups. Ah! I would have liked a night at the "Turk's Head",even though bad news had arrived from the colonies, and Doctor Johnson wasgrowling against the rebels; to have sat with him and Goldy; and to haveheard Burke, the finest talker in the world; and to have had Garrickflashing in with a story from his theatre!--I like, I say, to think of thatsociety; and not merely how pleasant and how wise, but how _good_ theywere. I think it was on going home one night from the club that EdmundBurke--his noble soul full of great thoughts, be sure, for they never lefthim; his heart full of gentleness--was accosted by a poor wandering woman,to whom he spoke words of kindness; and moved by the tears of thisMagdalen, perhaps having caused them by the good words he spoke to her, hetook her home to the house of his wife and children, and never left heruntil he had found the means of restoring her to honesty and labour. O youfine gentlemen! you Marches, and Selwyns, and Chesterfields, how small youlook by the side of these great men! Good-natured Carlisle plays atcricket all day, and dances in the evening "till he can scarcely crawl",gaily contrasting his superior virtue with George Selwyn's "carried to bedby two wretches at midnight with three pints of claret in him". Do youremember the verses--the sacred verses--which Johnson wrote on the death ofhis humble friend, Levett?
Well tried through many a varying year, See Levett to the grave descend; Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend.
In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh, Where hopeless anguish poured the groan, And lonely want retired to die.
No summons mocked by chill delay, No petty gain disdained by pride, The modest wants of every day The toil of every day supplied.
His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void: And sure the Eternal Master found His single talent well employed.
Whose name looks the brightest now, that of Queensberry the wealthy duke,or Selwyn the wit, or Levett the poor physician?
I hold old Johnson (and shall we not pardon James Boswell some errors forembalming him for us?) to be the great supporter of the British Monarchyand Church during the last age--better than whole benches of bishops,better than Pitts, Norths, and the great Burke himself. Johnson had theear of the nation: his immense authority reconciled it to loyalty, andshamed it out of irreligion. When George III talked with him, and thepeople heard the great author's good opinion of the sovereign, wholegenerations rallied to the king. Johnson was revered as a sort of oracle;and the oracle declared for Church and King. What a humanity the old manhad! He was a kindly partaker of all honest pleasures: a fierce foe to allsin, but a gentle enemy to all sinners. "What, boys, are you for afrolic?" he cries, when Topham Beauclerc comes and wakes him up atmidnight: "I'm with you," And away he goes, tumbles on his homely oldclothes, and trundles through Covent Garden with the young fellows. Whenhe used to frequent Garrick's theatre, and had "the liberty of thescenes", he says, "all the actresses knew me, and dropped me a curtsy asthey passed to the stage." That would make a pretty picture: it is apretty picture in my mind, of youth, folly, gaiety, tenderly surveyed bywisdom's merciful, pure eyes.
George III and his queen lived in a very unpretending but elegant-lookinghouse, on the site of the hideous pile under which his granddaughter atpresent reposes. The king's mother inhabited Carlton House, whichcontemporary prints represent with a perfect paradise of a garden, withtrim lawns, green arcades, and vistas of classic statues. She admiredthese in company with my Lord Bute, who had a fine classic taste, andsometimes counsel took and sometimes tea in the pleasant green arboursalong with that polite nobleman. Bute was hated with a rage of which therehave been few examples in English history. He was the butt for everybody'sabuse; for Wilkes's devilish mischief; for Churchill's slashing satire;for the hooting of the mob that roasted the boot, his emblem, in athousand bonfires; that hated him because he was a favourite and aScotchman, calling him "Mortimer", "Lothario", I know not what names, andaccusing his royal mistress of all sorts of crimes--the grave, lean,demure, elderly woman, who, I dare say, was quite as good as herneighbours. Chatham lent the aid of his great malice to influence thepopular sentiment against her. He assailed, in the House of Lords,
"thesecret influence, more mighty than the Throne itself, which betrayed andclogged every administration." The most furious pamphlets echoed the cry."Impeach the king's mother," was scribbled over every wall at the Courtend of the town, Walpole tells us. What had she done? What had Frederick,Prince of Wales, George's father, done, that he was so loathed by GeorgeII and never mentioned by George III? Let us not seek for stones to batterthat forgotten grave, but acquiesce in the contemporary epitaph over him:--
Here lies Fred, Who was alive, and is dead. Had it been his father, I had much rather. Had it been his brother, Still better than another. Had it been his sister, No one would have missed her. Had it been the whole generation, Still better for the nation. But since 'tis only Fred, Who was alive, and is dead, There's no more to be said.
The widow with eight children round her, prudently reconciled herself withthe king, and won the old man's confidence and goodwill. A shrewd, hard,domineering, narrow-minded woman, she educated her children according toher lights, and spoke of the eldest as a dull, good boy: she kept him veryclose: she held the tightest rein over him: she had curious prejudices andbigotries. His uncle, the burly Cumberland, taking down a sabre once, anddrawing it to amuse the child--the boy started back and turned pale. Theprince felt a generous shock: "What must they have told him about me?" heasked.
His mother's bigotry and hatred he inherited with the courageous obstinacyof his own race; but he was a firm believer where his fathers had beenfreethinkers, and a true and fond supporter of the Church, of which he wasthe titular defender. Like other dull men, the king was all his lifesuspicious of superior people. He did not like Fox; he did not likeReynolds; he did not like Nelson, Chatham, Burke; he was testy at the ideaof all innovations, and suspicious of all innovators. He lovedmediocrities; Benjamin West was his favourite painter; Beattie was hispoet. The king lamented, not without pathos, in his after-life, that hiseducation had been neglected. He was a dull lad brought up bynarrow-minded people. The cleverest tutors in the world could have donelittle probably to expand that small intellect, though they might haveimproved his tastes, and taught his perceptions some generosity.
But he admired as well as he could. There is little doubt that a letter,written by the little Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz,--a lettercontaining the most feeble commonplaces about the horrors of war, and themost trivial remarks on the blessings of peace, struck the young monarchgreatly, and decided him upon selecting the young princess as the sharerof his throne, I pass over the stories of his juvenile loves--of HannahLightfoot, the Quaker, to whom they say he was actually married (though Idon't know who has ever seen the register)--of lovely black-haired SarahLennox, about whose beauty Walpole has written in raptures, and who usedto lie in wait for the young prince, and make hay at him on the lawn ofHolland House. He sighed and he longed, but he rode away from her. Herpicture still hangs in Holland House, a magnificent masterpiece ofReynolds, a canvas worthy of Titian. She looks from the castle window,holding a bird in her hand, at black-eyed young Charles Fox, her nephew.The royal bird flew away from lovely Sarah. She had to figure asbridesmaid at her little Mecklenburg rival's wedding, and died in our owntime a quiet old lady, who had become the mother of the heroic Napiers.
They say the little princess who had written the fine letter about thehorrors of war--a beautiful letter without a single blot, for which she wasto be rewarded, like the heroine of the old spelling-book story--was atplay one day with some of her young companions in the gardens of Strelitz,and that the young ladies' conversation was, strange to say, abouthusbands. "Who will take such a poor little princess as me?" Charlottesaid to her friend, Ida von Bulow, and at that very moment the postman'shorn sounded, and Ida said, "Princess! there is the sweetheart." As shesaid, so it actually turned out. The postman brought letters from thesplendid young King of all England, who said, "Princess! because you havewritten such a beautiful letter, which does credit to your head and heart,come and be Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and the true wifeof your most obedient servant, George!" So she jumped for joy; and wentupstairs and packed all her little trunks; and set off straightway for herkingdom in a beautiful yacht, with a harpsichord on board for her to playupon, and around her a beautiful fleet, all covered with flags andstreamers, and the distinguished Madame Auerbach complimented her with anode, a translation of which may be read in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ tothe present day:--
Her gallant navy through the main, Now cleaves its liquid way. There to their queen a chosen train Of nymphs due reverence pay.
Europa, when conveyed by Jove To Crete's distinguished shore, Greater attention scarce could prove, Or be respected more.
They met, and they were married, and for years they led the happiest,simplest lives sure ever led by married couple. It is said the king wincedwhen he first saw his homely little bride; but, however that may be, hewas a true and faithful husband to her, as she was a faithful and lovingwife. They had the simplest pleasures--the very mildest and simplest--littlecountry dances, to which a dozen couple were invited, and where the honestking would stand up and dance for three hours at a time to one tune; afterwhich delicious excitement they would go to bed without any supper (theCourt people grumbling sadly at that absence of supper), and get up quiteearly the next morning, and perhaps the next night have another dance; orthe queen would play on the spinet--she played pretty well, Haydn said--orthe king would read to her a paper out of the _Spectator_, or perhaps oneof Ogden's sermons. O Arcadia! what a life it must have been! There usedto be Sunday drawing-rooms at Court; but the young king stopped these, ashe stopped all that godless gambling whereof we have made mention. Notthat George was averse to any innocent pleasures, or pleasures which hethought innocent. He was a patron of the arts, after his fashion; kind andgracious to the artists whom he favoured, and respectful to their calling.He wanted once to establish an Order of Minerva for literary andscientific characters; the knights were to take rank after the knights ofthe Bath, and to sport a straw-coloured ribbon and a star of sixteenpoints. But there was such a row amongst the _literati_ as to the personswho should be appointed, that the plan was given up, and Minerva and herstar never came down amongst us.
He objected to painting St. Paul's, as Popish practice; accordingly, themost clumsy heathen sculptures decorate that edifice at present. It isfortunate that the paintings, too, were spared, for painting and drawingwere wofully unsound at the close of the last century; and it is farbetter for our eyes to contemplate whitewash (when we turn them away fromthe clergyman) than to look at Opie's pitchy canvases, or Fuseli's lividmonsters.
And yet there is one day in the year--a day when old George loved with allhis heart to attend it--when I think St. Paul's presents the noblest sightin the whole world: when five thousand charity children, with cheeks likenosegays, and sweet, fresh voices, sing the hymn which makes every heartthrill with praise and happiness. I have seen a hundred grand sights inthe world--coronations, Parisian splendours, Crystal Palace openings,Pope's chapels with their processions of long-tailed cardinals andquavering choirs of fat soprani--but think in all Christendom there is nosuch sight as Charity Children's Day. _Non Angli, sed angeli_. As onelooks at that beautiful multitude of innocents: as the first note strikes:indeed one may almost fancy that cherubs are singing.
Of church music the king was always very fond, showing skill in it both asa critic and a performer. Many stories, mirthful and affecting, are toldof his behaviour at the concerts which he ordered. When he was blind andill he chose the music for the Ancient Concerts once, and the music andwords which he selected were from _Samson Agonistes_, and all hadreference to his blindness, his captivity, and his affliction. He wouldbeat time with his music-roll as they sang the anthem in the Chapel Royal.If the page below was talkative or inattentive, down would come themusic-roll on young scapegrace's powdered head. The theatre was always hisdelight. His bishops and clergy used to attend it, thinking it no shame
toappear where that good man was seen. He is said not to have cared forShakespeare or tragedy much; farces and pantomimes were his joy; andespecially when clown swallowed a carrot or a string of sausages, he wouldlaugh so outrageously that the lovely princess by his side would have tosay, "My gracious monarch, do compose yourself." But he continued tolaugh, and at the very smallest farces, as long as his poor wits were lefthim.
There is something to me exceedingly touching in that simple early life ofthe king's. As long as his mother lived--a dozen years after his marriagewith the little spinet-player--he was a great, shy, awkward boy, under thetutelage of that hard parent. She must have been a clever, domineering,cruel woman. She kept her household lonely and in gloom, mistrustingalmost all people who came about her children. Seeing the young Duke ofGloucester silent and unhappy once, she sharply asked him the cause of hissilence. "I am thinking," said the poor child. "Thinking, sir! and ofwhat?" "I am thinking if ever I have a son I will not make him so unhappyas you make me." The other sons were all wild, except George. Dutifullyevery evening George and Charlotte paid their visit to the king's motherat Carlton House. She had a throat complaint, of which she died; but tothe last persisted in driving about the streets to show she was alive. Thenight before her death the resolute woman talked with her son anddaughter-in-law as usual, went to bed, and was found dead there in themorning. "George, be a king!" were the words which she was for evercroaking in the ears of her son: and a king the simple, stubborn,affectionate, bigoted man tried to be.
He did his best; he worked according to his lights; what virtue he knew,he tried to practise; what knowledge he could master, he strove toacquire. He was for ever drawing maps, for example, and learned geographywith no small care and industry. He knew all about the family historiesand genealogies of his gentry, and pretty histories he must have known. Heknew the whole _Army __ List_; and all the facings, and the exact numberof the buttons, and all the tags and laces, and the cut of all the cockedhats, pigtails, and gaiters in his army. He knew the _personnel_ of theUniversities; what doctors were inclined to Socinianism, and who weresound Churchmen; he knew the etiquettes of his own and his grandfather'sCourts to a nicety, and the smallest particulars regarding the routine ofministers, secretaries, embassies, audiences; the humblest page in theante-room, or the meanest helper in the stables or kitchen. These parts ofthe royal business he was capable of learning, and he learned. But, as onethinks of an office, almost divine, performed by any mortal man--of anysingle being pretending to control the thoughts, to direct the faith, toorder the implicit obedience of brother millions, to compel them into warat his offence or quarrel; to command, "In this way you shall trade, inthis way you shall think; these neighbours shall be your allies whom youshall help, these others your enemies whom you shall slay at my orders; inthis way you shall worship God;"--who can wonder that, when such a man asGeorge took such an office on himself, punishment and humiliation shouldfall upon people and chief?
Yet there is something grand about his courage. The battle of the kingwith his aristocracy remains yet to be told by the historian who shallview the reign of George more justly than the trumpery panegyrists whowrote immediately after his decease. It was he, with the people to backhim, who made the war with America; it was he and the people who refusedjustice to the Roman Catholics; and on both questions he beat thepatricians. He bribed: he bullied: he darkly dissembled on occasion: heexercised a slippery perseverance, and a vindictive resolution, which onealmost admires as one thinks his character over. His courage was never tobe beat. It trampled North under foot: it bent the stiff neck of theyounger Pitt: even his illness never conquered that indomitable spirit. Assoon as his brain was clear, it resumed the scheme, only laid aside whenhis reason left him: as soon as his hands were out of thestrait-waistcoat, they took up the pen and the plan which had engaged himup to the moment of his malady. I believe it is by persons believingthemselves in the right that nine-tenths of the tyranny of this world hasbeen perpetrated. Arguing on that convenient premiss, the Dey of Algierswould cut off twenty heads of a morning; Father Dominic would burn a scoreof Jews in the presence of the most Catholic King, and the Archbishops ofToledo and Salamanca sing Amen. Protestants were roasted, Jesuits hung andquartered at Smithfield, and witches burned at Salem, and all by worthypeople, who believed they had the best authority for their actions.
And so, with respect to old George, even Americans, whom he hated and whoconquered him, may give him credit for having quite honest reasons foroppressing them. Appended to Lord Brougham's biographical sketch of LordNorth are some autograph notes of the king, which let us most curiouslyinto the state of his mind. "The times certainly require," says he, "theconcurrence of all who wish to prevent anarchy. I have no wish but theprosperity of my own dominions, therefore I must look upon all who wouldnot heartily assist me as bad men, as well as bad subjects." That is theway he reasoned. "I wish nothing but good, therefore every man who doesnot agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel." Remember that he believedhimself anointed by a Divine commission; remember that he was a man ofslow parts and imperfect education; that the same awful will of Heavenwhich placed a crown upon his head, which made him tender to his family,pure in his life, courageous and honest, made him dull of comprehension,obstinate of will, and at many times deprived him of reason. He was thefather of his people; his rebellious children must be flogged intoobedience. He was the defender of the Protestant faith; he would ratherlay that stout head upon the block than that Catholics should have a sharein the government of England. And you do not suppose that there are nothonest bigots enough in all countries to back kings in this kind ofstatesmanship? Without doubt the American war was popular in England. In1775 the address in favour of coercing the colonies was carried by 304 to105 in the Commons, by 104 to 29 in the House of Lords. Popular?--so wasthe Revocation of the Edict of Nantes popular in France: so was themassacre of St. Bartholomew: so was the Inquisition exceedingly popular inSpain.
Wars and revolutions are, however, the politician's province. The greatevents of this long reign, the statesmen and orators who illustrated it, Ido not pretend to make the subjects of an hour's light talk.(187) Let usreturn to our humbler duty of Court gossip. Yonder sits our little queen,surrounded by many stout sons and fair daughters whom she bore to herfaithful George. The history of the daughters, as little Miss Burney haspainted them to us, is delightful. They were handsome--she calls thembeautiful; they were most kind, loving, and ladylike; they were graciousto every person, high and low, who served them. They had many littleaccomplishments of their own. This one drew: that one played the piano:they all worked most prodigiously, and fitted up whole suites ofrooms--pretty, smiling Penelopes,--with their busy little needles. As wepicture to ourselves the society of eighty years ago, we must imaginehundreds of thousands of groups of women in great high caps, tight bodies,and full skirts, needling away, whilst one of the number, or perhaps afavoured gentleman in a pigtail, reads out a novel to the company. Peepinto the cottage at Olney, for example, and see there Mrs. Unwin and LadyHesketh, those high-bred ladies, those sweet, pious women, and WilliamCowper, that delicate wit, that trembling pietist, that refined gentleman,absolutely reading out _Jonathan Wild_ to the ladies! What a change in ourmanners, in our amusements, since then!
Lord North, Mr. Fox
Mr. Pitt, Mr. Burke
King George's household was a model of an English gentleman's household.It was early; it was kindly; it was charitable; it was frugal; it wasorderly; it must have been stupid to a degree which I shudder now tocontemplate. No wonder all the princes ran away from the lap of thatdreary domestic virtue. It always rose, rode, dined at stated intervals.Day after day was the same. At the same hour at night the king kissed hisdaughters' jolly cheeks; the princesses kissed their mother's hand; andMadame Thielke brought the royal nightcap. At the same hour the equerriesand
women in waiting had their little dinner, and cackled over their tea.The king had his backgammon or his evening concert; the equerries yawnedthemselves to death in the ante-room; or the king and his family walked onWindsor slopes, the king holding his darling little princess Amelia by thehand; and the people crowded round quite good-naturedly; and the Eton boysthrust their chubby cheeks under the crowd's elbows; and the concert over,the king never failed to take his enormous cocked-hat off, and salute hisband, and say, "Thank you, gentlemen."
A Little Rebel
A quieter household, a more prosaic life than this of Kew or Windsor,cannot be imagined. Rain or shine, the king rode every day for hours;poked his red face into hundreds of cottages round about, and showed thatshovel hat and Windsor uniform to farmers, to pig-boys, to old womenmaking apple dumplings; to all sorts of people, gentle and simple, aboutwhom countless stories are told. Nothing can be more undignified thanthese stories. When Haroun Alraschid visits a subject incog., the latteris sure to be very much the better for the caliph's magnificence. OldGeorge showed no such royal splendour. He used to give a guinea sometimes:sometimes feel in his pockets and find he had no money: often ask a man ahundred questions: about the number of his family, about his oats andbeans, about the rent he paid for his house, and ride on. On one occasionhe played the part of King Alfred, and turned a piece of meat with astring at a cottager's house. When the old woman came home, she found apaper with an enclosure of money, and a note written by the royal pencil:"Five guineas to buy a jack." It was not splendid, but it was kind andworthy of Farmer George. One day, when the king and queen were walkingtogether, they met a little boy--they were always fond of children, thegood folks--and patted the little white head. "Whose little boy are you?"asks the Windsor uniform. "I am the king's beefeater's little boy,"replied the child. On which the king said, "Then kneel down, and kiss thequeen's hand." But the innocent offspring of the beefeater declined thistreat. "No," said he, "I won't kneel, for if I do, I shall spoil my newbreeches." The thrifty king ought to have hugged him and knighted him onthe spot. George's admirers wrote pages and pages of such stories abouthim. One morning, before anybody else was up, the king walked aboutGloucester town; pushed over Molly the housemaid who was scrubbing thedoorsteps with her pail; ran upstairs and woke all the equerries in theirbedrooms; and then trotted down to the bridge, where, by this time, adozen of louts were assembled. "What! is this Gloucester New Bridge?"asked our gracious monarch; and the people answered him, "Yes, yourMajesty." "Why, then, my boys," said he, "let us have a huzzay!" Aftergiving them which intellectual gratification, he went home to breakfast.Our fathers read these simple tales with fond pleasure; laughed at thesevery small jokes; liked the old man who poked his nose into every cottage;who lived on plain wholesome roast and boiled; who despised your Frenchkickshaws; who was a true hearty old English gentleman. You may have seenGilray's famous print of him--in the old wig, in the stout old hideousWindsor uniform--as the King of Brobdingnag, peering at a little Gulliver,whom he holds up in his hand, whilst in the other he has an opera-glass,through which he surveys the pygmy? Our fathers chose to set up George asthe type of a great king; and the little Gulliver was the great Napoleon.We prided ourselves on our prejudices; we blustered and bragged withabsurd vainglory; we dealt to our enemy a monstrous injustice of contemptand scorn; we fought him with all weapons, mean as well as heroic. Therewas no lie we would not believe; no charge of crime which our furiousprejudice would not credit. I thought at one time of making a collectionof the lies which the French had written against us, and we had publishedagainst them during the war: it would be a strange memorial of popularfalsehood.
Their majesties were very sociable potentates: and the Court Chroniclertells of numerous visits which they paid to their subjects, gentle andsimple: with whom they dined; at whose great country-houses they stopped;or at whose poorer lodgings they affably partook of tea andbread-and-butter. Some of the great folks spent enormous sums inentertaining their sovereigns. As marks of special favour, the king andqueen sometimes stood as sponsors for the children of the nobility. Wefind Lady Salisbury was so honoured in the year 1786; and in the year1802, Lady Chesterfield. The _Court News_ relates how her ladyshipreceived their Majesties on a state bed "dressed with white satin and aprofusion of lace: the counterpane of white satin embroidered with gold,and the bed of crimson satin lined with white". The child was firstbrought by the nurse to the Marchioness of Bath, who presided as chiefnurse. Then the marchioness handed baby to the queen. Then the queenhanded the little darling to the Bishop of Norwich, the officiatingclergyman; and, the ceremony over, a cup of caudle was presented by theearl to his Majesty on one knee, on a large gold waiter, placed on acrimson velvet cushion. Misfortunes would occur in these interestinggenuflectory ceremonies of royal worship. Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe, avery fat, puffy man, in a most gorgeous Court suit, had to kneel,Cumberland says, and was so fat and so tight that he could not get upagain. "Kneel, sir, kneel!" cried my lord in waiting to a country mayorwho had to read an address, but who went on with his compliment standing."Kneel, sir, kneel!" cries my lord, in dreadful alarm. "I can't!" says themayor, turning round; "don't you see I have got a wooden leg?" In thecapital _Burney Diary and Letters_, the home and Court life of good oldKing George and good old Queen Charlotte are presented at portentouslength. The king rose every morning at six: and had two hours to himself.He thought it effeminate to have a carpet in his bedroom. Shortly beforeeight, the queen and the royal family were always ready for him, and theyproceeded to the king's chapel in the castle. There were no fires in thepassages: the chapel was scarcely alight; princesses, governesses,equerries grumbled and caught cold: but cold or hot, it was their duty togo: and, wet or dry, light or dark, the stout old George was always in hisplace to say Amen to the chaplain.
The queen's character is represented in _Burney_ at full length. She was asensible, most decorous woman; a very grand lady on state occasions,simple enough in ordinary life; well read as times went, and giving shrewdopinions about books; stingy, but not unjust; not generally unkind to herdependants, but invincible in her notions of etiquette, and quite angry ifher people suffered ill-health in her service. She gave Miss Burney ashabby pittance, and led the poor young woman a life which well-nighkilled her. She never thought but that she was doing Burney the greatestfavour, in taking her from freedom, fame, and competence, and killing heroff with languor in that dreary Court. It was not dreary to her. Had shebeen servant instead of mistress, her spirit would never have broken down:she never would have put a pin out of place, or been a moment from herduty. _She_ was not weak, and she could not pardon those who were. She wasperfectly correct in life, and she hated poor sinners with a rancour suchas virtue sometimes has. She must have had awful private trials of herown: not merely with her children, but with her husband, in those longdays about which nobody will ever know anything now; when he was not quiteinsane; when his incessant tongue was babbling folly, rage, persecution;and she had to smile and be respectful and attentive under thisintolerable ennui. The queen bore all her duties stoutly, as she expectedothers to bear them. At a state christening, the lady who held the infantwas tired and looked unwell, and the Princess of Wales asked permissionfor her to sit down. "Let her stand," said the queen, flicking the snuffoff her sleeve. _She_ would have stood, the resolute old woman, if she hadhad to hold the child till his beard was grown. "I am seventy years ofage," the queen said, facing a mob of ruffians who stopped her sedan: "Ihave been fifty years Queen of England, and I never was insulted before."Fearless, rigid, unforgiving little queen! I don't wonder that her sonsrevolted from her.
Of all the figures in that large family group which surrounds George andhis queen, the prettiest, I think, is the father's darling, the PrincessAmelia, pathetic for her beauty, her sweetness, her early death, and forthe extreme passionate tenderness with which her father loved her. Thiswas his favourite amongst all the children: of his so
ns, he loved the Dukeof York best. Burney tells a sad story of the poor old man at Weymouth,and how eager he was to have this darling son with him. The king's housewas not big enough to hold the prince; and his father had a portable houseerected close to his own, and at huge pains, so that his dear Frederickshould be near him. He clung on his arm all the time of his visit: talkedto no one else; had talked of no one else for some time before. Theprince, so long expected, stayed but a single night. He had business inLondon the next day, he said. The dullness of the old king's Courtstupefied York and the other big sons of George III. They scared equerriesand ladies, frightened the modest little circle, with their coarse spiritsand loud talk. Of little comfort, indeed, were the king's sons to theking.
But the pretty Amelia was his darling; and the little maiden, prattlingand smiling in the fond arms of that old father, is a sweet image to lookon. There is a family picture in _Burney_, which a man must be veryhard-hearted not to like. She describes an after-dinner walk of the royalfamily at Windsor:--"It was really a mighty pretty procession," she says."The little princess, just turned of three years old, in a robe-coatcovered with fine muslin, a dressed close cap, white gloves, and fan,walked on alone and first, highly delighted with the parade, and turningfrom side to side to see everybody as she passed; for all the terracersstand up against the walls, to make a clear passage for the royal familythe moment they come in sight. Then followed the king and queen, no lessdelighted with the joy of their little darling. The Princess Royal leaningon Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave, the Princess Augusta holding by the Duchessof Ancaster, the Princess Elizabeth led by Lady Charlotte Bertie,followed. Office here takes place of rank," says Burney,--to explain how itwas that Lady E. Waldegrave, as lady of the bed-chamber, walked before aduchess;--"General Bude, and the Duke of Montague, and Major Price asequerry, brought up the rear of the procession." One sees it; the bandplaying its old music, the sun shining on the happy, loyal crowd; andlighting the ancient battlements, the rich elms, and purple landscape, andbright greensward; the royal standard drooping from the great toweryonder; as old George passes, followed by his race, preceded by thecharming infant, who caresses the crowd with her innocent smiles.
"On sight of Mrs. Delany, the king instantly stopped to speak to her; thequeen, of course, and the little princess, and all the rest, stood still.They talked a good while with the sweet old lady, during which time theking once or twice addressed himself to me. I caught the queen's eye, andsaw in it a little surprise, but by no means any displeasure, to see me ofthe party. The little princess went up to Mrs. Delany, of whom she is veryfond, and behaved like a little angel to her. She then, with a look ofinquiry and recollection, came behind Mrs. Delany to look at me. 'I amafraid,' said I, in a whisper, and stooping down, 'your Royal Highnessdoes not remember me?' Her answer was an arch little smile, and a nearerapproach, with her lips pouted out to kiss me."
The princess wrote verses herself, and there are some pretty plaintivelines attributed to her, which are more touching than better poetry:--
Unthinking, idle, wild, and young, I laughed, and danced, and talked, and sung: And, proud of health, of freedom vain, Dreamed not of sorrow, care, or pain: Concluding, in those hours of glee, That all the world was made for me.
But when the hour of trial came, When sickness shook this trembling frame, When folly's gay pursuits were o'er, And I could sing and dance no more, It then occurred, how sad 'twould be Were this world only made for me.
The poor soul quitted it--and ere yet she was dead the agonized father wasin such a state, that the officers round about him were obliged to setwatchers over him, and from November, 1810, George III ceased to reign.All the world knows the story of his malady: all history presents nosadder figure than that of the old man, blind and deprived of reason,wandering through the rooms of his palace, addressing imaginaryParliaments, reviewing fancied troops, holding ghostly Courts. I have seenhis picture as it was taken at this time, hanging in the apartment of hisdaughter, the Landgravine of Hesse-Hombourg--amidst books and Windsorfurniture, and a hundred fond reminiscences of her English home. The poorold father is represented in a purple gown, his snowy beard falling overhis breast--the star of his famous Order still idly shining on it. He wasnot only sightless: he became utterly deaf. All light, all reason, allsound of human voices, all the pleasures of this world of God, were takenfrom 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, andaccompanying himself at the harpsichord. When he had finished, he kneltdown and prayed aloud for her, and then for his family, and then for thenation, concluding with a prayer for himself, that it might please God toavert his heavy calamity from him, but if not, to give him resignation tosubmit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again fled.
What preacher need moralize on this story; what words save the simplestare requisite to tell it? It is too terrible for tears. The thought ofsuch a misery smites me down in submission before the Ruler of kings andmen, the Monarch Supreme over empires and republics, the inscrutableDispenser of life, death, happiness, victory. "O brothers," I said tothose who heard me first in America--"O brothers! speaking the same dearmother tongue--O comrades! enemies no more, let us take a mournful handtogether as we stand by this royal corpse, and call a truce to battle! Lowhe lies to whom the proudest used to kneel once, and who was cast lowerthan the poorest: dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off histhrone; buffeted by rude hands; with his children in revolt; the darlingof his old age killed before him untimely; our Lear hangs over herbreathless lips and cries, 'Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little!' "
Vex not his ghost--oh! let him pass--he 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, amournful march! Fall, dark curtain, upon his pageant, his pride, hisgrief, his awful tragedy!
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