ent from any thing I have ever met with or seen in the world, that when I recollect the extraordinary proofs of your kindness, it seems to me like a dream." "I have lost my oldest friend and acquaintance, G. Selwyn," writes Walpole to Miss Berry: "I really loved him, not only for his infinite wit, but for a thousand good qualities.' I am glad, for my part, that such a lover of cakes and ale should have had a thousand good qualities that he should have been friendly, generous, warm-hearted, trustworthy. "I rise at six," writes Carlisle to him, from Spa (a great resort of fashionable people in our ancestors' 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! You get up at nine; play with Raton your dog till twelve, in your dressing-gown; then creep down to White's;' are five hours at table; sleep till suppertime; 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 snoozed in the House of Commons by the side of Lord North. He represented Gloucester for many years, and had a borough of his own, Ludgershall, for which, when he was too lazy to contest Gloucester, he sat himself. "I have given directions for the election of Ludgershall to be of Lord Melbourne and myself," he writes to the Premier, whose friend he was, and who was himself as sleepy, as witty, and as good-natured as George. If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men's failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle! In these letters of Lord Carlisle's from which I have been quoting, there is many a just complaint made by the kind-hearted young nobleman of the state which he is obliged to keep; the magnificence in which he must live; the idleness to which his position as a peer of England bound him. Better for him had he been a lawyer at his desk, or a clerk in his office; - a thousand times better chance for happiness, education, employment, security from temptation. A few years since the profession of arms was the only one which our nobles could follow. The church, the bar, medicine, literature, the arts, commerce, were below them. It is to the middle class we must look for the safety of England: the working educated men, away from Lord North's bribery in the senate; the good clergy not corrupted into parasites by hopes of preferment; the tradesmen rising into manly opulence; the painters pursuing their gentle calling: the men of letters in their quiet studies; these are the men whom we love and like to read of in the last age. How small the grandees and the men of pleasure look beside them! how contemptible the story of the George III. court-squabbles are beside the recorded talk of dear old Johnson! What is the grandest entertainment at Windsor, compared to a night at the club over its modest cups, with Percy and Langton, and Goldsmith, and poor Bozzy at the table? I declare I think, of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman. And they were good, as well as witty and wise, those dear old friends of the past. Their minds were not debauched by excess, or effeminate with luxury. They toiled their noble day's labor: they rested, and took their kindly pleasure: they cheered their holiday meetings with generous wit and hearty interchange of thought: they were no prudes, but no blush need follow their conversation: they were merry, but " 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 for embalming him for us?) to be the great supporter of the British monarchy and church during the last age no riot came out of their cups. Ah! I would have liked a night at the "Turk's Head," even though bad news had arrived from the colo-. nies, and Dr. Johnson was growling against the rebels; to have sat with him and Goldy; and to have heard Burke, the finest talker in the world; and to have had Garrick flashing in with a story from his theatre !-I like, I say, to think of that society; and not merely how pleasant and how wise, but how good they were. I think it better than whole benches of was on going home one night from bishops, better than Pitts, Norths, the club that Edmund Burke-his and the great Burke himself. Johnnoble soul full of great thoughts, be son had the ear of the nation; his sure, for they never left him; his immense authority reconciled it to heart full of gentleness was accosted loyalty, and shamed it out of irby a poor wandering woman, to whom religion. When George III. talked he spoke words of kindness; and with him, and the people heard the moved by the tears of this' Magdalen, great author's good opinion of the perhaps having caused them by the sovereign, whole generations rallied good words he spoke to her, he took to the King. Johnson was revered her home to the house of his wife and as a sort of oracle; and the oracle children, and never left her until he declared for church and king. What had found the means of restoring her a humanity the old man had! He to honesty and labor. O you fine gen- was a kindly partaker of all honest tlemen! you Marches, and Selwyns, pleasures: a fierce foe to all sin, but and Chesterfields, how small you a gentle enemy to all sinners. look by the side of these great men!" What, boys, are you for a frolic? Good-natured Carlisle plays at cricket he cries, when Topham Beauclerc all day, and dances in the evening "till he can scarcely crawl," gayly contrasting his superior virtue with George Selwyn's, "carried to bed by two wretches at midnight with three pints of claret in him." Do you remember the verses the sacred verses-which Johnson wrote on the death of his 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, And lonely want retired to die. "No summons mocked by chill delay, comes and wakes him up at midnight: "I'm with you." And away he goes, tumbles on his homely old clothes, and trundles through Covent Garden with the young fellows. When he used to frequent Garrick's theatre, and had "the liberty of the scenes," he says, "All the actresses knew me, and dropped me a courtesy as they passed to the stage." That would make a pretty picture: it is a pretty picture in my mind, of youth, folly, gayety, tenderly surveyed by wisdom's merciful, pure eyes. George III. and his Queen lived in a very unpretending but elegantlooking house, on the site of the hideous pile under which his granddaughter at present reposes. The King's mother inhabited Carlton House, which contemporary prints represent with a perfect paradise of a garden, with trim lawns, green arcades, and vistas of classic statues. She admired these in company with my Lord Bute, who had a fine classic taste, and sometimes counsel took and sometimes tea in the pleasant green arbors along with that polite nobleman. Bute was hated with a rage of which there have been few examples in English history. He was the butt for everybody's abuse; for Wilkes's devilish mischief; for Churchill's slashing satire; for the hooting of the mob that roasted the boot, his emblem, in a thousand bonfires; that hated him because he was a favorite and a Scotchman, calling him "Mortimer,' 66 Lothario," I know not what names, and accusing his royal mistress of all sorts of crimes the grave, lean, demure elderly woman, who, I dare say, was quite as good as her neighbors. Chatham lent the aid of his great malice to influence the popular sentiment against her. He assailed, in the House of Lords, "the secret influence, more mighty than the throne itself, which betrayed and clogged every administration.' The most furious pamphlets echoed the cry. "Impeach the King's mother," was scribbled over every wall at the Court end 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 George II. and never mentioned by George III.? Let us not seek for stones to batter that forgotten grave, but acquiesce in the contemporary epitaph over him : "Here lies Fred, Who was alive, and is dead. I had much rather. Had it been his brother, The widow with eight children round her, prudently reconciled herself with the King, and won the old man's confidence and good-will. A shrewd, hard, domineering, narrowminded woman, she educated her children according to her lights, and spoke of the eldest as a dull, good boy she kept him very close: she held the tightest rein over him: she had curious prejudices and bigotries. His uncle, the burly Cumberland, taking down a sabre once, and drawing it to amuse the child the boy started back and turned pale. The Prince felt a generous shock: "What must they have told him about me? he asked. He His mother's bigotry and hatred he inherited with the courageous obstinacy of his own race; but he was a firm believer where his fathers had been free-thinkers, and a true and fond supporter of the Church, of which he was the titular defender. Like other dull men, the King was all his life suspicious of superior people. did not like Fox; he did not like Reynolds; he did not like Nelson, Chatham, Burke; he was testy at the idea of all innovations, and suspicious of all innovators. He loved mediocrities; Benjamin West was his favorite painter; Beattie was his poet. The King lamented, not without pathos, in his after life, that his education had been neglected. He was a dull lad brought up by narrowminded people. The cleverest tutors in the world could have done little probably to expand that small intellect, though they might have improved 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 letter containing the most feeble commonplaces about the horrors of war, and the most trivial remarks on the blessings of peace, struck the young monarch greatly, and decided him upon selecting the young Prin cess as the sharer of his throne. I dom in a beautiful yacht, with a pass over the stories of his juvenile harpsichord on board for her to play loves of Hannah Lightfoot, the upon, and around her a beautiful Quaker, to whom they say he was fleet, all covered with flags and actually married (though I don't know streamers : and the distinguished who has ever seen the register) of Madame Auerbach complimented her lovely black-haired Sarah Lennox, with an ode, a translation of which about whose beauty Walpole has may be read in "The Gentleman's written in raptures, and who used to Magazine" to the present day :lie in wait for the young Prince, and "Her gallant navy through the main make hay at him on the lawn of Now cleaves its liquid way. Holland House. He sighed and he There to their queen a chosen train longed, but he rode away from her. Of nymphs due reverence pay. Her picture still hangs in Holland House, a magnificent master-piece by Reynolds, a canvas worthy of Titian. She looks from the castle window, holding a bird in her hand, at blackeyed young Charles Fox, her nephew. The royal bird flew away from lovely Sarah. She had to figure as bridesmaid at her little Mecklenburg rival's wedding, and died in our own time a quiet old lady, who had become the mother of the heroic Napiers. Europa, when conveyed by Jove 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 winced when he first saw his homely little bride; but, howeyer that may be, he was a true and faithful husband to her, as she was a faithful and loving wife. They had the simplest pleas ures - the very mildest and simplest - They say the little Princess who had written the fine letter about the horrors of war - a beautiful letter little country dances, to which a without a single blot, for which she dozen couple were invited, and where was to be rewarded, like the heroine the honest King would stand up and of the old spelling-book story was dance for three hours at a time to at play one day with some of her one tune; after which delicious exyoung companions in the gardens of citement they would go to bed without Strelitz, and that the young ladies' any supper (the Court people grumconversation was, strange to say, bling sadly at that absence of supper), about husbands. "Who will take and get up quite early the next mornsuch a poor little princess as me? ing, and perhaps the next night have Charlotte said to her friend, Ida von another dance; or the Queen would Bulow, and at that very moment the play on the spinet — she played pretpostman's horn sounded, and Ida ty well, Haydn said - or the King said, "Princess! there is the sweet- would read to her a paper out of "The heart." As she said, so it actually Spectator," or perhaps one of Ogden's turned out. The postman brought sermons. O Arcadia! what a life it letters from the splendid young King must have been! There used to be of all England, who said, " Princess! Sunday drawing-rooms at Court; but because you have written such a the young King stopped these, as he beautiful letter, which does credit to stopped all that godless gambling your head and heart, come and be whereof we have made mention. Not Queen of Great Britain, France, and that George was averse to any innoIreland, and the true wife of your cent pleasures, or pleasures which he most obedient servant, George! So thought innocent. He was a patron she jumped for joy; and went up of the arts, after his fashion; kind stairs and packed all her little trunks; and gracious to the artists whom he and set off straightway for her king- favored, and respectful to their call ing. He wanted once to establish an | Order of Minerva for literary and scientific characters; the knights were to take rank after the knights of the Bath, and to sport a straw-colored ribbon and a star of sixteen points. But there was such a row amongst the literati as to the persons who should be appointed, that the plan was given up, and Minerva and her star never came down amongst us. He objected to painting St. Paul's, as Popish practice; accordingly, the most clumsy heathen sculptures decorate that edifice at present. It is fortunate that the paintings, too, were spared, for painting and drawing were wofully unsound at the close of the last century; and it is far better for our eyes to contemplate whitewash (when we turn them away from the clergyman) than to look at Opie's pitchy canvases, or Fuseli's livid monsters. And yet there is one day in the year - a day when old George loved with all his heart to attend it when I think St. Paul's presents the noblest sight in the whole world: when five thousand charity children, with cheeks like nosegays, and sweet, fresh voices, sing the hymn which makes every heart thrill with praise and happiness. I have seen a hundred grand sights in the world-coronations, Parisian splendors, Crystal Palace openings, Pope's chapels with their processions of long-tailed cardinals and quavering choirs of fat soprani - but think in all Christendom there is no such sight as Charity Children's day. Non Angli, sed angeli. As one looks at that beautiful multitude of innocents: as the first note strikes: indeed one may almost fancy that cherubs are singing. Öf church music the King was always very fond, showing skill in it both as a critic and a performer. Many stories, mirthful and affecting, are told of his behavior at the concerts which he ordered. When he was blind and ill he chose the music for the Ancient Concerts once, and the music and words which he selected were from "Samson Agonistes," and all had reference to his blindness, his captivity, and his affliction. He would beat 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 the music-roll on young scapegrace's powdered head. The theatre was always his delight. His bishops and clergy used to attend it, thinking it no shame to appear where that good man was seen. He is said not to have cared for Shakspeare or tragedy much; farces and pantomimes were his joy; and especially when clown swallowed a carrot or a string of sausages, he would laugh so outrageously that the lovely Princess by his side would have to say, "My gracious monarch, do compose yourself." But he continued to laugh, and at the very smallest farces, as long as his poor wits were left him. There is something to me exceedingly touching in that simple early life of the King's. As long as his mother lived - -a dozen years after his marriage with the little spinetplayer- he was a great, shy, awkward boy, under the tutelage of that hard parent. She must have been a clever, domineering, cruel woman. She kept her household lonely and in gloom, mistrusting almost all people who came about her children. Seeing the young Duke of Gloucester silent and unhappy once, she sharply asked him the cause of his silence. "I am thinking," said the poor child. 'Thinking, sir! and of what?" "I am thinking if ever I have a son I will not make him so unhappy as you make me." The other sons were all wild, except George. Dutifully every evening George and Charlotte paid their visit to the King's mother at Carlton House. She had a throat-complaint, of which she died; but to the last persisted in driving about the streets to show she was alive. The night before her death the resolute woman talked with |