Part 5

It was on the 8th of September, 1761, that His Majesty, George the Third, espoused Sophia Charlotte, daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz; and, on the twelfth of August, in the following year, she presented him with a son and heir, to his own great delight, and the universal joy of the British empire. Ineffable as is the contempt which is expressed at the present day, for the superstitious trust reposed in omens by the heathen ancients, yet nothing of any consequence occurs, without being attended by signs in which the Christian multitude discern either fortunate or disastrous predictions. It has thus been carefully recorded and handed down, that the birth of the royal infant happened on the anniversary of the Hanover accession, and that the same day was rendered trebly auspicious, by the arrival at London of wagons containing an immense quantity of treasure, the fruits of the capture of a Spanish galleon off Cape St. Vincent, by three English frigates. A few days after his appearance in this world, His Royal Highness was created Prince of Wales, by patent, and would have been completely crushed under the load of honours that devolved upon him, had their weight been of a kind to be physically felt; Duke of Cornwall, hereditary Steward of Scotland, Duke of Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, and Baron of Rothsay, were his other titles,--being those to which the eldest son of the British throne is born. There is no harm in this, perhaps, as things are constituted in England, but we have never been able to think of one of the titles to which the second son is heir, without feeling an inclination to smile;--the Duke of York is Bishop of Osnaburgh;--nothing more ridiculous than this, can be discovered even amid the nonsense that is inseparable from regal institutions;--born a bishop!

At the time of the Prince of Wales's birth, George the Third was at the height of popularity,--the reasons for which, Mr. Croly has detailed at some length. In depicting the character of this monarch, he certainly has not employed the pencil with which it was darkened, as our readers may recollect, by Mr. Coke of Norfolk, on a recent occasion, who thus brought upon his own head a torrent of abuse. It was shocking, was it said, to disturb the repose of one who had so long been slumbering in the tomb, in the same way as it had been pronounced monstrous to say aught in disparagement of His Majesty, when he had just been gathered to his forefathers; as if kings were like private individuals, the effects of whose acts either expire with themselves, or are of contracted influence. It is far, however, from our wish, to dispute the fidelity of Mr. Croly's portrait; and we are perfectly willing to believe, that "no European throne had been ascended for a hundred years before, by a sovereign more qualified by nature and circumstances, to win golden opinions from his people, than George the Third," though, we must be allowed to think, that circumstances did not qualify him to win "golden opinions" from us Americans. "Youth, striking appearance, a fondness not less for the gay and peaceful amusements of court life, than for those field sports, which make the popular indulgence of the English land-holder, a strong sense of the national value of scientific and literary pursuits, piety unquestionably sincere, and morals on which even satire never dared to throw a stain, were the claims of the king to the approbation of his people;" but all these claims were neutralized, by the appointment of Lord Bute, as his prime minister. The odium that resulted from this measure, was carefully fomented by the arts of demagogues, the most conspicuous of whom was Wilkes. It was ascribed to an unworthy passion entertained for the handsome nobleman by the princess dowager, and to arbitrary principles in the monarch; and, such was the effect produced upon the latter, by the opposition and virulence which he encountered, that he is said to have conceived the idea of abandoning England, and retiring to Hanover. At one time, his inclination to take this step was so great, that he communicated it to the Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who honestly told him, that, "though it might be easy to go to Hanover, it might be difficult to return to England."

In December, 1765, when not quite three years of age, the Prince of Wales received a deputation from the Society of Ancient Britons, on St. David's day, and, in answer to their address, said,--"he thanked them for this mark of duty to the king, and wished prosperity to the charity,"--an early development of that talent for public speaking, which he is said to have possessed! In the same year, he was invested with the order of the garter, along with the Earl of Albemarle, and the hereditary Prince of Brunswick.

When the Prince had attained an age at which it was deemed necessary for his education to commence, it was determined that it should be conducted on a private plan; and Lord Holdernesse, "a nobleman of considerable attainments, but chiefly recommended by dignity of manner and knowledge of the court," was appointed his governor, and Dr. Markham, subsequently archbishop of York, and Cyril Jackson, were named preceptor and sub-preceptor. This measure excited a violent outcry; it was said that the heir to the throne should receive a public education at one of the great schools; and this opinion Mr. Croly strenuously advocates. It did not, however, produce any effect, and the whole course of instruction which the Prince underwent was private, though the preceptorship was twice changed. The Duke of Montague, Hurd, Bishop of Litchfield, and the Rev. Mr. Arnold, formed the last preceptorial trio.

In January, 1781, when the Prince was but a little more than eighteen, he was declared of age, "on the old ground that the heir-apparent knows no minority;" and a separate establishment, on a small scale, having been assigned to him, he now became, in a measure, his own master. In 1783, when about to take his place in the legislature, arrangements were commenced for supplying him with an income, and at the instigation of the king, the parliament voted him an annual revenue of L50,000, besides an outfit of L100,000. The sum of L60,000 for the outfit had been originally proposed by the king, but it was increased in consequence of the demand of the cabinet, known by the name of the Coalition Cabinet, some of the members of which, especially Fox, insisted for a time upon making the grant L100,000 a year. This, however, the king resolutely refused to allow, "for the double reason of avoiding any unnecessary increase to the public burdens, and of discouraging those propensities which he probably conjectured in the Prince." He accordingly demanded "_but_" the sums we have mentioned. Can any one read the sentence just quoted from Mr. Croly, without a smile? The precious fruits of royalty!--they even reduce a man of sense to write what is ludicrous from its absurdity. It is, without doubt, an admirable method of avoiding any unnecessary increase of the public burdens, and discouraging the evil propensities of a young man, to deprive the people of five hundred thousand dollars at once, and half that sum every year, in order to bestow it upon the individual who has no other use for it than to gratify those propensities. But, we shall be told, the heir to a throne must support his dignity. In that phrase is comprised as unanswerable an argument against royal institutions, as can be desired. The people must be heavily burthened, to enable the person by whom they are to be governed, to indulge in all sorts of excesses, and thus disqualify himself for that duty, in order that he may support the dignity of his station! Thank Heaven we live in a land in which there is no such dignity to be supported,--where the time of the great officers of state is never occupied in wrangling about the extent of the facilities which shall be afforded the successor to the administration of affairs, of bringing disgrace upon himself, and the country,--where the people are infinitely better governed, at an infinitely less expense, both of money and honour!

"Now, fully," says Mr. Croly, "began his checkered career,"--which, properly interpreted, means, that now he fully plunged into that reckless course of profligacy and folly, which terminated only with his life, and which should render his name odious to all who are friends of decency and virtue. We were afraid when we saw the announcement of the work we are reviewing, that its author would allow himself to be blinded by the regal blaze which surrounded its subject, and would endeavour to palliate those violations by a king, of the most sacred ordinances of the religion of which he is a minister, which he would have branded with indelible infamy in a private individual. Our fears, unfortunately, have not proved groundless. "There are no faults that we discover with more proverbial rapidity, than the faults of others,--and none that generate a more vindictive spirit of virtue, and are softened down by fewer attempts at palliation, than the faults of princes in the grave. Yet, without justice, history is but a more solemn libel; and no justice can be done to the memory of any public personage, without considering the peculiar circumstances of his time." Such is the sophistry with which he enters upon the task of extenuation. The first part of the first period in the above extract, is certainly undeniable--"fit nescio quomodo," says Cicero, "ut magis in aliis cernamus si quid delinquitur, quam nobismet in ipsis;" but, though the second part may also be indisputable as a general position, it is not at all applicable to this case. The historian or biographer, who is discussing the character of a monarch long since "fixed in the tomb," will doubtless find it an easy matter to make

"His virtues fade, his vices bloom,"

should he be so inclined: no other considerations but those of conscience operate then to influence his pen. But the case is quite different when he is writing about a king scarcely yet cold in the grave, when a species of popular infatuation commands that grave to be strewn with flowers, when it is necessary, as it were, to sail with the stream or sink; and when the brother of the deceased monarch has just ascended the throne, and, for the sake of appearances, may deem himself called upon to consider every thing said concerning his predecessor as touching himself. How many motives combine here to warp the judgment and the conscience, and convert sober history into funeral panegyric! Thus, if Mr. Croly had undertaken the task of delineating the moral features of Richard the III., or of James the II.--we adduce James the II., because our author seems to regard Catholicity as so monstrous a crime that this prince would, we are sure, not be drawn by him in the most flattering colours--he would have found, to use his own words, that there are no faults which generate a more vindictive spirit of virtue, than those of princes in the grave; but in depicting George the IVth., he has proved the reverse of this to be the fact. It is amusing, although at the same time melancholy, to contrast the virtuous indignation with which he pours out his anathemas against those who committed the tremendous crime of advocating and effecting the emancipation of the Catholics, with the gentle terms in which he comments upon the wanderings of the Prince of Wales from the proper path, and the glosses with which he softens their obliquity. One might be induced to suppose that his creed holds religious liberality as the crime of deadly dye, and dissipation of the lowest kind as a vice merely venial in its character.

"Without justice," he continues "history is but a more solemn libel, and no justice can be done to the memory of any public personage, without considering the peculiar circumstances of his time." This remark is true with regard to those public personages whom he has so severely taken to task for their conduct respecting the Catholic question; had not his mind's eye been covered with a film, he would have perceived that the "peculiar circumstances of the time" fully warranted that change in the course pursued by Mr. Peel, the Duke of Wellington, and others, with reference to that important question, which has drawn from him such expressions of horror; but it is far from being equally admissible where he has applied it. That less tenderness should be extended towards the vices of princes than to those of subjects is, we think, undeniable, when the weightier (secular) reasons they have for keeping a strict control over their passions, are considered,--reasons which should completely counterbalance any greater temptations they may be obliged to undergo.

"A sovereign's great example forms a people; The public breast is noble or is vile, As he inspires it."

"The man whom Heaven appoints To govern others, should himself first learn To bend his passions to the sway of reason."

Surely these two considerations--the potent effect of his example, and the almost impossibility of governing others when not able to govern himself--without referring to that paramount one which operates for all men alike, ought to have been sufficient to counteract the tendency of "the peculiar circumstances of his time," to inflame the "propensities" of the Prince; or, at least, should be enough to prevent an extenuation on that ground, of his unrestrained indulgence of them, by the historian of his life. What those circumstances were, we will let Mr. Croly relate.

"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