Hogarth struck out a style of his own, painting satirical scenes, sometimes humorous, sometimes gloomy and tragic; and his pictures, drawn from the life of all classes, are records of the costume and the manners of his age. In 1768, four years after Hogarth's death, was founded the Royal Academy, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great portrait-painter of England, was the first president. Reynolds is accounted the founder of the English school of painting. Other noted artists of the time are Richard Wilson, a painter of landscape, and Thomas Gainsborough, of landscape and portraits. Among the many pictures of Benjamin West, who was born in Pennsylvania, then a British colony, and who became the favourite artist of George III., one of the most celebrated is the Death of General Wolfe, in which, instead of representing the figures in ancient Greek or Roman costume, as was then the fashion with painters, he had the good sense to depict them in dresses such as they actually wore. The successor, though not the equal, of Reynolds in portraiture was Sir Thomas Lawrence, who, from the early part of the nineteenth century until his death in 1830, possessed the public favour. Sir David Wilkie, a Scotsman, drew admirable scenes of village and farmhouse life; and the great landscape painter Joseph Mallord William Turner was in the middle of his career at the end of the reign of George III. Thomas Bewick, a Northumbrian, is famous for his beautiful woodcuts of beasts, birds, and rural scenes.

CHAPTER XLII.

GEORGE IV.

George IV.; Cato Street Conspiracy (1)—Queen Caroline (2)—foreign affairs; battle of Navarino (3)—“Catholic Emancipation” (4)— death of George IV.; Metropolitan Police force; Burmese War (5).

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1. George IV., 1820-1830.-Within a month of the accession of the Prince Regent as George IV., discovery was made of a plot, which is known as the Cato Street" or "Thistlewood Conspiracy," for assassinating the King's ministers at a Cabinet dinner. On this charge the ringleader, Thistlewood, was hanged, together with four accomplices.

2. Queen Caroline.-In 1795, when still Prince of Wales, George, yielding to his father's demand, and tempted by the prospect of payment of his debts, had married his cousin, Caroline Princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, an indiscreet and coarse-mannered woman, from whom he soon separated. Not long after his accession, a bill of pains and penalties was brought in by the ministry to degrade and divorce her on charges of misconduct. After an examination of witnesses before the House of Lords, the bill was finally abandoned, to the delight of the populace, who were all on the Queen's side. But the King was determined to resist her claim to be crowned as his consort, and in this he was supported by the Privy Council. The Queen, being resolved to be present at the coronation, appeared early on the morning of the ceremony before the doors of Westminster Abbey, but was everywhere refused admission. Not long after this humiliation she was taken ill, and died August 7, 1821.

3. Foreign Affairs.-The foreign policy of Great Britain during this period, particularly when guided by George Canning, diverged from that of her allies, Austria, Russia,

and Prussia. These, having joined together in the "Holy Alliance," as they called it, made themselves the opponents of revolution, and of reform won by revolution, throughout Europe; while England refused to assent to the principle of interference in the internal affairs of other states. The last official act of Canning as prime minister was to settle a treaty between Great Britain, France, and Russia, with the view of putting a stop to the cruel warfare carried on by the Turks in Greece, which had risen against their yoke. The hope that the object of the treaty would be attained without fighting was not realized, for the allied fleet and that of the Turks and Egyptians came unexpectedly to a battle in the port of Navarino (October 20, 1827), when the Turkish fleet was in great part destroyed.

4. Catholic Emancipation.-The chief measure of this reign was the Catholic Emancipation Act. Till the reign of George III. the Papists had remained subject to penal laws of such severity that the great lawyer Blackstone could find no better defence for them than that they were seldom put in force. But by later statutes many of these restrictions and penalties had been removed from those Romanists who would take a certain prescribed oath, and at last all grades in the army and navy were virtually opened to them. From both Houses of Parliament, and from certain offices, franchises, and civil rights, they were still shut out by the oath of supremacy, and by the declarations required of members of Parliament and holders of such offices against transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass. On the Union with Ireland, Pitt thought himself bound to remove these disabilities; but King George III. made it a point of conscience to refuse to entertain such a measure. Canning was always in favour of the emancipation, but after his death in 1827 the hopes of the Romanists were cast down by the accession to office of

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a ministry opposed to their claims. About the same time, the Catholic Association" in Ireland showed its power by the election of the popular Roman Catholic politician Daniel O'Connell to a seat in Parliament. It was now felt necessary by the ministry to bring in a bill for admitting Romanists to Parliament, to all civil and military offices and places of trust or profit under the Crown (except those of Regent, Lord Chancellor in England and Ireland, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and a few others), and to corporate offices, upon their taking an oath to support the existing institutions of the State, and not to injure those of the Church. The Duke of Wellington, who was at that time prime minister, avowed in the House of Lords that he had brought forward this measure in order to avert civil The bill received the royal assent on the 13th April, 1829. In the previous year a concession had been made to the Protestant Dissenters by repealing so much of the Corporation and Test Acts as required persons taking office to communicate according to the rites of the Church of England.

war.

5. Death of George IV.-The King, who passed the latter years of his life in seclusion, died at Windsor Castle, June 26, 1830. During his reign the laws relating to the trial and punishment of offences were consolidated and amended, the penalties being made less severe, but more certain; and the Metropolitan Police force, which greatly increased the security of London, was established in 1829 by Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) Peel, who was at that time Secretary of State. For about two years, from 1824 to 1826, the English in India were at war with their neighbours the Burmese, each side having gradually extended their possessions till they met those of the other. The war ended successfully for the British, who gained some territory thereby. George IV. was succeeded by his brother William Henry, Duke of Clarence.

CHAPTER XLIII.

WILLIAM IV.

William IV.; the Reform Bill; new party names (1)—Abolition of Slavery (2)-death of King William; Hanover separated from Great Britain; reforms; East India Company (3)—burning of the Houses of Parliament (4)—railways; Stephenson (5).

1. William IV., 1830-1837. The Reform Bill.-William Duke of Clarence, who had passed his early life in the navy, came to the throne in troublous times. Soon after his accession, rick-burning and machine-breaking spread alarm through the Southern agricultural counties; and the great question of Parliamentary Reform was pressing for immediate consideration. The system of parliamentary representation had long stood in need of reform. New towns had sprung up, but they were unrepresented; ancient but decayed boroughs, containing perhaps seven, six, or even one elector, still returned members. The property in such boroughs was, in the majority of instances, in the hands of some one large owner, by whom the elections were controlled, and whose influence and nomination were notoriously bought and sold; electoral rights were various, and in most towns a small corporation, open to control and corruption, exclusively possessed them. The necessity of improving upon this state of things had been seen by many politicians, among them the two Pitts, the younger of whom had three times brought forward plans of reform. But it was not until 1816 that, mainly owing to the cheap publications of William Cobbett, Reform became a popular cry, and clubs sprang up in which