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 that

shovel hat and Windsor uniform to farmers, to pig-boys, to old women

making apple dumplings; to all sorts of people, gentle and simple, about

whom countless stories are told. Nothing can be more undignified than

these stories. When Haroun Alraschid visits a subject incog., the latter

is sure to be very much the better for the caliph’s magnificence. Old

George 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 a

hundred questions: about the number of his family, about his oats and

beans, about the rent he paid for his house, and ride on. On one occasion

he played the part of King Alfred, and turned a piece of meat with a

string at a cottager’s house. When the old woman came home, she found a

paper 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 and

worthy of Farmer George. One day, when the king and queen were walking

together, they met a little boy—they were always fond of children, the

good 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 the

queen’s hand.” But the innocent offspring of the beefeater declined this

treat. “No,” said he, “I won’t kneel, for if I do, I shall spoil my new

breeches.” The thrifty king ought to have hugged him and knighted him on

the spot. George’s admirers wrote pages and pages of such stories about

him. One morning, before anybody else was up, the king walked about

Gloucester town; pushed over Molly the housemaid who was scrubbing the

doorsteps with her pail; ran upstairs and woke all the equerries in their

bedrooms; and then trotted down to the bridge, where, by this time, a

dozen of louts were assembled. “What! is this Gloucester New Bridge?”

asked our gracious monarch; and the people answered him, “Yes, your

Majesty.” “Why, then, my boys,” said he, “let us have a huzzay!” After

giving them which intellectual gratification, he went home to breakfast.

Our fathers read these simple tales with fond pleasure; laughed at these

very small jokes; liked the old man who poked his nose into every cottage;

who lived on plain wholesome roast and boiled; who despised your French

kickshaws; who was a true hearty old English gentleman. You may have seen

Gilray’s famous print of him—in the old wig, in the stout old hideous

Windsor 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 as

the type of a great king; and the little Gulliver was the great Napoleon.

We prided ourselves on our prejudices; we blustered and bragged with

absurd vainglory; we dealt to our enemy a monstrous injustice of contempt

and scorn; we fought him with all weapons, mean as well as heroic. There

was no lie we would not believe; no charge of crime which our furious

prejudice would not credit. I thought at one time of making a collection

of the lies which the French had written against us, and we had published

against them during the war: it would be a strange memorial of popular

falsehood.

Their majesties were very sociable potentates: and the Court Chronicler

tells of numerous visits which they paid to their subjects, gentle and

simple: with whom they dined; at whose great country-houses they stopped;

or at whose poorer lodgings they affably partook of tea and

bread-and-butter. Some of the great folks spent enormous sums in

entertaining their sovereigns. As marks of special favour, the king and

queen sometimes stood as sponsors for the children of the nobility. We

find Lady Salisbury was so honoured in the year 1786; and in the year

1802, Lady Chesterfield. The _Court News_ relates how her ladyship

received their Majesties on a state bed “dressed with white satin and a

profusion of lace: the counterpane of white satin embroidered with gold,

and the bed of crimson satin lined with white”. The child was first

brought by the nurse to the Marchioness of Bath, who presided as chief

nurse. Then the marchioness handed baby to the queen. Then the queen

handed the little darling to the Bishop of Norwich, the officiating

clergyman; and, the ceremony over, a cup of caudle was presented by the

earl to his Majesty on one knee, on a large gold waiter, placed on a

crimson velvet cushion. Misfortunes would occur in these interesting

genuflectory ceremonies of royal worship. Bubb Dodington, Lord Melcombe, a

very 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 up

again. “Kneel, sir, kneel!” cried my lord in waiting to a country mayor

who 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 the

mayor, turning round; “don’t you see I have got a wooden leg?” In the

capital _Burney Diary and Letters_, the home and Court life of good old

King George and good old Queen Charlotte are presented at portentous

length. 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 before

eight, the queen and the royal family were always ready for him, and they

proceeded to the king’s chapel in the castle. There were no fires in the

passages: the chapel was scarcely alight; princesses, governesses,

equerries grumbled and caught cold: but cold or hot, it was their duty to

go: and, wet or dry, light or dark, the stout old George was always in his

place to say Amen to the chaplain.

The queen’s character is represented in _Burney_ at full length. She was a

sensible, most decorous woman; a very grand lady on state occasions,

simple enough in ordinary life; well read as times went, and giving shrewd

opinions about books; stingy, but not unjust; not generally unkind to her

dependants, but invincible in her notions of etiquette, and quite angry if

her people suffered ill-health in her service. She gave Miss Burney a

shabby pittance, and led the poor young woman a life which well-nigh

killed her. She never thought but that she was doing Burney the greatest

favour, in taking her from freedom, fame, and competence, and killing her

off with languor in that dreary Court. It was not dreary to her. Had she

been 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 her

duty. _She_ was not weak, and she could not pardon those who were. She was

perfectly correct in life, and she hated poor sinners with a rancour such

as virtue sometimes has. She must have had awful private trials of her

own: not merely with her children, but with her husband, in those long

days about which nobody will ever know anything now; when he was not quite

insane; when his incessant tongue was babbling folly, rage, persecution;

and she had to smile and be respectful and attentive under this

intolerable ennui. The queen bore all her duties stoutly, as she expected

others to bear them. At a state christening, the lady who held the infant

was tired and looked unwell, and the Princess of Wales asked permission

for her to sit down. “Let her stand,” said the queen, flicking the snuff

off her sleeve. _She_ would have stood, the resolute old woman, if she had

had to hold the child till his beard was grown. “I am seventy years of

age,” the queen said, facing a mob of ruffians who stopped her sedan: “I

have been fifty years Queen of England, and I never was insulted before.”

Fearless, rigid, unforgiving little queen! I don’t wonder that her sons

revolted from her.

Of all the figures in that large family group which surrounds George and

his queen, the prettiest, I think, is the father’s darling, the Princess

Amelia, pathetic for her beauty, her sweetness, her early death, and for

the extreme passionate tenderness with which her father loved her. This

was his favourite amongst all the children: of his sons, he loved the Duke

of 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 house

was not big enough to hold the prince; and his father had a portable house

erected close to his own, and at huge pains, so that his dear Frederick

should be near him. He clung on his arm all the time of his visit: talked

to no one else; had talked of no one else for some time before. The

prince, so long expected, stayed but a single night. He had business in

London the next day, he said. The dullness of the old king’s Court

stupefied York and the other big sons of George III. They scared equerries

and ladies, frightened the modest little circle, with their coarse spirits

and loud talk. Of little comfort, indeed, were the king’s sons to the

king.

But the pretty Amelia was his darling; and the little maiden, prattling

and smiling in the fond arms of that old father, is a sweet image to look

on. There is a family picture in _Burney_, which a man must be very

hard-hearted not to like. She describes an after-dinner walk of the royal

family at Windsor:—“It was really a mighty pretty procession,” she says.

“The little princess, just turned of three years old, in a robe-coat

covered with fine muslin, a dressed close cap, white gloves, and fan,

walked on alone and first, highly delighted with the parade, and turning

from side to side to see everybody as she passed; for all the terracers

stand up against the walls, to make a clear passage for the royal family

the moment they come in sight. Then followed the king and queen, no less

delighted with the joy of their little darling. The Princess Royal leaning

on Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave, the Princess Augusta holding by the Duchess

of Ancaster, the Princess Elizabeth led by Lady Charlotte Bertie,

followed. Office here takes place of rank,” says Burney,—to explain how it

was that Lady E. Waldegrave, as lady of the bed-chamber, walked before a

duchess;—“General Budé, and the Duke of Montague, and Major Price as

equerry, brought up the rear of the procession.” One sees it; the band

playing its old music, the sun shining on the happy, loyal crowd; and

lighting the ancient battlements, the rich elms, and purple landscape, and

bright greensward; the royal standard drooping from the great tower

yonder; as old George passes, followed by his race, preceded by the

charming infant, who caresses the crowd with her innocent smiles.

“On sight of Mrs. Delany, the king instantly stopped to speak to her; the

queen, 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 the

king once or twice addressed himself to me. I caught the queen’s eye, and

saw in it a little surprise, but by no means any displeasure, to see me of

the party. The little princess went up to Mrs. Delany, of whom she is very

fond, and behaved like a little angel to her. She then, with a look of

inquiry and recollection, came behind Mrs. Delany to look at me. ‘I am

afraid,’ said I, in a whisper, and stooping down, ‘your Royal Highness

does not remember me?’ Her answer was an arch little smile, and a nearer

approach, with her lips pouted out to kiss me.”

The princess wrote verses herself, and there are some pretty plaintive

lines 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 was

in such a state, that the officers round about him were obliged to set

watchers over him, and from November, 1810, George III ceased to reign.

All the world knows the story of his malady: all history presents no

sadder figure than that of the old man, blind and deprived of reason,

wandering through the rooms of his palace, addressing imaginary

Parliaments, reviewing fancied troops, holding ghostly Courts. I have seen

his picture as it was taken at this time, hanging in the apartment of his

daughter, the Landgravine of Hesse-Hombourg—amidst books and Windsor

furniture, and a hundred fond reminiscences of her English home. The poor

old father is represented in a purple gown, his snowy beard falling over

his breast—the star of his famous Order still idly shining on it. He was

not only sightless: he became utterly deaf. All light, all reason, all

sound of human voices, all the pleasures of this world of God, were taken

from 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, and

accompanying himself at the harpsichord. When he had finished, he knelt

down and prayed aloud for her, and then for his family, and then for the

nation, concluding with a prayer for himself, that it might please God to

avert his heavy calamity from him, but if not, to give him resignation to

submit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again fled.

What preacher need moralize on this story; what words save the simplest

are requisite to tell it? It is too terrible for tears. The thought of

such a misery smites me down in submission before the Ruler of kings and

men, the Monarch Supreme over empires and republics, the inscrutable

Dispenser of life, death, happiness, victory. “O brothers,” I said to

those who heard me first in America—“O brothers! speaking the same dear

mother tongue—O comrades! enemies no more, let us take a mournful hand

together as we stand by this royal corpse, and call a truce to battle! Low

he lies to whom the proudest used to kneel once, and who was cast lower

than the poorest: dead, whom millions prayed for in vain. Driven off his

throne; buffeted by rude hands; with his children in revolt; the darling

of his old age killed before him untimely; our Lear hangs over her

breathless 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, a

mournful march! Fall, dark curtain, upon his pageant, his pride, his

grief, his awful tragedy!

George The Fourth

In Twiss’s amusing _Life of Eldon_, we read how, on the death of the Duke

of York, the old chancellor became possessed of a lock of the defunct

prince’s hair; and so careful was he respecting the authenticity of the

relic, that Bessy Eldon his wife sat in the room with the young man from

Hamlet’s, who distributed the ringlet into separate lockets, which each of

the Eldon family afterwards wore. You know how, when George IV came to

Edinburgh, a better man than he went on board the royal yacht to welcome

the king to his kingdom of Scotland, seized a goblet from which his

majesty had just drunk, vowed it should remain for ever as an heirloom in

his family, clapped the precious glass in his pocket, and sat down on it

and broke it when he got home. Suppose the good sheriff’s prize unbroken

now at Abbotsford, should we not smile with something like pity as we

beheld it? Suppose one of those lockets of the No-Popery prince’s hair

offered for sale at Christie’s, _quot libras e duce summo invenies?_ how

many pounds would you find for the illustrious duke? Madame Tussaud has

got King George’s coronation robes; is there any man now alive who would

kiss the hem of that trumpery? He sleeps since thirty years: do not any of

you, who remember him, wonder that you once respected and huzza’d and

admired him?

To make a portrait of him at first seemed a matter of small difficulty.

There is his coat, his star, his wig, his countenance simpering under it:

with a slate and a piece of chalk, I could at this very desk perform a

recognizable likeness of him. And yet after reading of him in scores of

volumes, hunting him through old magazines and newspapers, having him here

at a ball, there at a public dinner, there at races and so forth, you find

you have nothing—nothing but a coat and wig and a mask smiling below

it—nothing but a great simulacrum. His sire and grandsires were men. One

knows what they were like: what they would do in given circumstances: that

on occasion they fought and demeaned themselves like tough good soldiers.

They had friends whom they liked according to their natures; enemies whom

they hated fiercely; passions, and actions, and individualities of their

own. The sailor king who came after George was a man: the Duke of York was

a man, big, burly, loud, jolly, cursing, courageous. But this George, what

was he? I look through all his life, and recognize but a bow and a grin. I

try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings, padding, stays, a

coat with frogs and a fur collar, a star and blue ribbon, a

pocket-handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt’s best nutty

brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth and a huge black stock,

under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats, and then nothing. I know of no

sentiment that he ever distinctly uttered. Documents are published under

his name, but people wrote them—private letters, but people spelt them. He

put a great “George P.” or “George R.” at the bottom of the page and

fancied he had written the paper: some bookseller’s clerk, some poor

author, some _man_ did the work; saw to the spelling, cleaned up the

slovenly sentences, and gave the lax maudlin slipslop a sort of

consistency. He must have had an individuality: the dancing-master whom he

emulated, nay, surpassed—the wig-maker who curled his toupee for him—the

tailor who cut his coats, had that. But, about George, one can get at

nothing actual. That outside, I am certain, is pad and tailor’s work;

there may be something behind, but what? We cannot get at the character;

no doubt never shall. Will men of the future have nothing better to do

than to unswathe and interpret that royal old mummy? I own I once used to

think it would be good sport to pursue him, fasten on him, and pull him

down. But now I am ashamed to mount and lay good dogs on, to summon a full

field, and then to hunt the poor game.

On the 12th August, 1762, the forty-seventh anniversary of the accession

of the House of Brunswick to the English throne, all the bells in London

pealed in gratulation, and announced that an heir to George III was born.

Five days afterwards the king was pleased to pass letters patent under the

great seal, creating H.R.H. the Prince of Great Britain, Electoral Prince

of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Duke of Cornwall and Rothsay, Earl of Carrick,

Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland, Prince

of Wales and Earl of Chester.

All the people at his birth thronged to see this lovely child; and behind

a gilt china-screen railing in St. James’s Palace, in a cradle surmounted

by the three princely ostrich feathers, the royal infant was laid to

delight the eyes of the lieges. Among the earliest instances of homage

paid to him, I read that “a curious Indian bow and arrows were sent to the

prince from his father’s faithful subjects in New York”. He was fond of

playing with these toys: an old statesman, orator, and wit of his

grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s time, never tired of his business,

still eager in his old age to be well at Court, used to play with the

little prince, and pretend to fall down dead when the prince shot at him

with his toy bow and arrows—and get up and fall down dead over and over

again—to the increased delight of the child. So that he was flattered from

his cradle upwards; and before his little feet could walk, statesmen and

courtiers were busy kissing them.

There is a pretty picture of the royal infant—a beautiful buxom

child—asleep in his mother’s lap; who turns round and holds a finger to

her lip, as if she would bid the courtiers around respect the baby’s

slumbers. From that day until his decease, sixty-eight years after, I

suppose there were more pictures taken of that personage than of any other

human being who ever was born and died—in every kind of uniform and every

possible Court dress—in long fair hair, with powder, with and without a

pigtail—in every conceivable cocked-hat—in dragoon uniform—in Windsor

uniform—in a field-marshal’s clothes—in a Scotch kilt and tartans, with

dirk and claymore (a stupendous figure)—in a frogged frock-coat with a fur

collar and tight breeches and silk stockings—in wigs of every colour,

fair, brown, and black—in his famous coronation robes finally, with which

performance he was so much in love that he distributed copies of the

picture to all the Courts and British embassies in Europe, and to

numberless clubs, town-halls, and private friends. I remember as a young

man how almost every dining-room had his portrait.

[Illustration]

There is plenty of biographical tattle about the prince’s boyhood. It is

told with what astonishing rapidity he learned all languages, ancient and

modern; how he rode beautifully, sang charmingly, and played elegantly on

the violoncello. That he was beautiful was patent to all eyes. He had a

high spirit: and once, when he had had a difference with his father, burst

into the royal closet and called out, “Wilkes and liberty for ever!” He

was so clever, that he confounded his very governors in learning; and one

of them, Lord Bruce, having made a false quantity in quoting Greek, the

admirable young prince instantly corrected him. Lord Bruce could not

remain a governor after this humiliation; resigned his office, and, to

soothe his feelings, was actually promoted to be an earl! It is the most

wonderful reason for promoting a man that ever I heard. Lord Bruce was

made an earl for a blunder in prosody; and Nelson was made a baron for the

victory of the Nile.

Lovers of long sums have added up the millions and millions which in the

course of his brilliant existence this single prince consumed. Besides his

income of 50,000_l._, 70,000_l._, 100,000_l._, 120,000_l._ a year, we read

of three applications to Parliament: debts to the amount of 160,000_l._,

of 650,000_l._; besides mysterious foreign loans, whereof he pocketed the

proceeds. What did he do for all this money? Why was he to have it? If he

had been a manufacturing town, or a populous rural district, or an army of

five thousand men, he would not have cost more. He, one solitary stout

man, who did not toil, nor spin, nor fight,—what had any mortal done that

he should be pampered so?

In 1784, when he was twenty-one years of age, Carlton Palace was given to

him, and furnished by the nation with as much luxury as could be devised.

His pockets were filled with money: he said it was not enough; he flung it

out of window: he spent 10,000_l._ a year for the coats on his back. The

nation gave him more money, and more, and more. The sum is past counting.

He was a prince, most lovely to look on, and christened Prince Florizel on

his first appearance in the world. That he was the handsomest prince in

the whole world was agreed by men, and alas! by many women.

I suppose he must have been very graceful. There are so many testimonies

to the charm of his manner, that we must allow him great elegance and

powers of fascination. He, and the King of France’s brother, the Count

d’Artois, a charming young prince who danced deliciously on the

tight-rope—a poor old tottering exiled king, who asked hospitality of King

George’s successor, and lived awhile in the palace of Mary Stuart—divided

in their youth the title of first gentleman of Europe. We in England of

course gave the prize to _our_ gentleman. Until George’s death the

propriety of that award was scarce questioned or the doubters voted rebels

and traitors. Only the other day I was reading in the reprint of the

delightful _Noctes_ of Christopher North. The health of THE KING is drunk

in large capitals by the loyal Scotsman. You would fancy him a hero, a

sage, a statesman, a pattern for kings and men. It was Walter Scott who

had that accident with the broken glass I spoke of anon. He was the king’s

Scottish champion, rallied all Scotland to him, made loyalty the fashion,

and laid about him fiercely with his claymore upon all the prince’s

enemies. The Brunswicks had no such defenders as those two Jacobite

commoners, old Sam Johnson the Lichfield chapman’s son, and Walter Scott,

the Edinburgh lawyer’s.

Nature and circumstance had done their utmost to prepare the prince for

being spoiled: the dreadful dullness of papa’s Court, its stupid

amusements, its dreary occupations, the maddening humdrum, the stifling

sobriety of its routine, would have made a scapegrace of a much less

lively prince. All the big princes bolted from that castle of ennui where

old King George sat, posting up his books and droning over his Handel; and

old Queen Charlotte over her snuff and her tambour-frame. Most of the

sturdy, gallant sons settled down after sowing their wild oats, and became

sober subjects of their father and brother—not ill liked by the nation,

which pardons youthful irregularities readily enough, for the sake of

pluck, and unaffectedness, and good humour.

The boy is father of the man. Our prince signalized his entrance into the

world by a feat worthy of his future life. He invented a new shoebuckle.

It was an inch long and five inches broad. “It covered almost the whole

instep, reaching down to the ground on either side of the foot.” A sweet

invention! lovely and useful as the prince on whose foot it sparkled. At

his first appearance at a Court ball, we read that “his coat was pink

silk, with white cuffs; his waistcoat white silk, embroidered with

various-coloured foil, and adorned with a profusion of French paste. And

his hat was ornamented with two rows of steel beads, five thousand in

number, with a button and loop of the same metal, and cocked in a new

military style”. What a Florizel! Do these details seem trivial? They are

the grave incidents of his life. His biographers say that when he

commenced housekeeping in that splendid new palace of his, the Prince of

Wales had some windy projects of encouraging literature, science, and the

arts; of having assemblies of literary characters; and societies for the

encouragement of geography, astronomy, and botany. Astronomy, geography,

and botany! Fiddlesticks! French ballet-dancers, French cooks,

horse-jockeys, buffoons, procurers, tailors, boxers, fencing-masters,

china, jewel, and gimcrack merchants—these were his real companions. At

first he made a pretence of having Burke and Pitt and Sheridan for his

friends. But how could such men be serious before such an empty scapegrace

as this lad? Fox might talk dice with him, and Sheridan wine; but what

else had these men of genius in common with their tawdry young host of

Carlton House? That ribble the leader of such men as Fox and Burke! That

man’s opinions about the constitution, the India Bill, justice to the

Catholics—about any question graver than the button for a waistcoat or the

sauce for a partridge—worth anything! The friendship between the prince

and the Whig chiefs was impossible. They were hypocrites in pretending to

respect him, and if he broke the hollow compact between them, who shall

blame him? His natural companions were dandies and parasites. He could

talk to a tailor or a cook; but, as the equal of great statesmen, to set

up a creature, lazy, weak, indolent, besotted, of monstrous vanity, and

levity incurable—it is absurd. They thought to use him, and did for

awhile; but they must have known how timid he was; how entirely heartless

and treacherous, and have expected his desertion. His next set of friends

were mere table companions, of whom he grew tired too; then we hear of him

with a very few select toadies, mere boys from school or the Guards, whose

sprightliness tickled the fancy of the worn-out voluptuary. What matters

what friends he had? He dropped all his friends; he never could have real

friends. An heir to the throne has flatterers, adventurers who hang about

him, ambitious men who use him; but friendship is denied him.

And women, I suppose, are as false and selfish in their dealings with such

a character as men. Shall we take the Leporello part, flourish a catalogue

of the conquests of this royal Don Juan, and tell the names of the

favourites to whom, one after the other, George Prince flung his

pocket-handkerchief? What purpose would it answer to say how Perdita was

pursued, won, deserted, and by whom succeeded? What good in knowing that

he did actually marry Mrs. FitzHerbert according to the rites of the Roman

Catholic Church; that her marriage settlements have been seen in London;

that the names of the witnesses to her marriage are known. This sort of

vice that we are now come to presents no new or fleeting trait of manners.

Debauchees, dissolute, heartless, fickle, cowardly, have been ever since

the world began. This one had more temptations than most, and so much may

be said in extenuation for him.

It was an unlucky thing for this doomed one, and tending to lead him yet

farther on the road to the deuce, that, besides being lovely, so that

women were fascinated by him; and heir apparent, so that all the world

flattered him; he should have a beautiful voice, which led him directly in

the way of drink: and thus all the pleasant devils were coaxing on poor

Florizel; desire, and idleness, and vanity, and drunkenness, all clashing

their merry cymbals and bidding him come on.

We first hear of his warbling sentimental ditties under the walls of Kew

Palace by the moonlight banks of Thames, with Lord Viscount Leporello

keeping watch lest the music should be disturbed.

Singing after dinner and supper was the universal fashion of the day. You

may fancy all England sounding with choruses, some ribald, some harmless,

but all occasioning the consumption of a prodigious deal of fermented

liquor.

The jolly Muse her wings to try no frolic flights need take,

But round the bowl would dip and fly, like swallows round a lake,

sang Morris in one of his gallant Anacreontics, to which the prince many a

time joined in chorus, and of which the burden is,—

And that I think’s a reason fair to drink and fill again.

This delightful boon companion of the prince’s found “a reason fair” to

forgo filling and drinking, saw the error of his ways, gave up the bowl

and chorus, and died retired and religious. The prince’s table no doubt

was a very tempting one. The wits came and did their utmost to amuse him.

It is wonderful how the spirits rise, the wit brightens, the wine has an

aroma, when a great man is at the head of the table. Scott, the loyal

cavalier, the king’s true liegeman, the very best _raconteur_ of his time,

poured out with an endless generosity his store of old-world learning,

kindness, and humour. Grattan contributed to it his wondrous eloquence,

fancy, feeling. Tom Moore perched upon it for awhile, and piped his most

exquisite little love-tunes on it, flying away in a twitter of indignation

afterwards, and attacking the prince with bill and claw. In such society,

no wonder the sitting was long, and the butler tired of drawing corks.

Remember what the usages of the time were, and that William Pitt, coming

to the House of Commons after having drunk a bottle of port wine at his

own house, would go into Bellamy’s with Dundas, and help finish a couple

more.

You peruse volumes after volumes about our prince, and find some

half-dozen stock stories—indeed not many more—common to all the histories.

He was good-natured; an indolent, voluptuous prince, not unkindly. One

story, the most favourable to him of all, perhaps, is that as Prince

Regent he was eager to hear all that could be said in behalf of prisoners

condemned to death, and anxious, if possible, to remit the capital

sentence. He was kind to his servants. There is a story common to all the

biographies, of Molly the housemaid, who, when his household was to be

broken up, owing to some reforms which he tried absurdly to practise, was

discovered crying as she dusted the chairs because she was to leave a

master who had a kind word for all his servants. Another tale is that of a

groom of the prince’s being discovered in corn and oat peculations, and

dismissed by the personage at the head of the stables; the prince had word

of John’s disgrace, remonstrated with him very kindly, generously

reinstated him, and bade him promise to sin no more—a promise which John

kept. Another story is very fondly told of the prince as a young man

hearing of an officer’s family in distress, and how he straightway

borrowed six or eight hundred pounds, put his long fair hair under his

hat, and so disguised carried the money to the starving family. He sent

money, too, to Sheridan on his death-bed, and would have sent more had not

death ended the career of that man of genius. Besides these, there are a

few pretty speeches, kind and graceful, to persons with whom he was

brought in contact. But he turned upon twenty friends. He was fond and

familiar with them one day, and he passed them on the next without

recognition. He used them, liked them, loved them perhaps in his way, and

then separated from them. On Monday he kissed and fondled poor Perdita,

and on Tuesday he met her and did not know her. On Wednesday he was very

affectionate with that wretched Brummell, and on Thursday forgot him;

cheated him even out of a snuff-box which he owed the poor dandy; saw him

years afterwards in his downfall and poverty, when the bankrupt Beau sent

him another snuff-box with some of the snuff he used to love, as a piteous

token of remembrance and submission, and the king took the snuff, and

ordered his horses and drove on, and had not the grace to notice his old

companion, favourite, rival, enemy, superior. In _Wraxall_ there is some

gossip about him. When the charming, beautiful, generous Duchess of

Devonshire died—the lovely lady whom he used to call his dearest duchess

once, and pretend to admire as all English society admired her—he said,

“Then we have lost the best-bred woman in England.” “Then we have lost the

kindest heart in England,” said noble Charles Fox. On another occasion,

when three noblemen were to receive the Garter, says _Wraxall_, “a great

personage observed that never did three men receive the order in so

characteristic a manner. The Duke of A. advanced to the sovereign with a

phlegmatic, cold, awkward air like a clown; Lord B. came forward fawning

and smiling like a courtier; Lord C. presented himself easy,

unembarrassed, like a gentleman!” These are the stories one has to recall

about the prince and king—kindness to a housemaid, generosity to a groom,

criticism on a bow. There _are_ no better stories about him: they are mean

and trivial, and they characterize him. The great war of empires and

giants goes on. Day by day victories are won and lost by the brave. Torn,

smoky flags and battered eagles are wrenched from the heroic enemy and

laid at his feet; and he sits there on his throne and smiles, and gives

the guerdon of valour to the conqueror. He! Elliston the actor, when the

_Coronation_ was performed, in which he took the principal part, used to

fancy himself the king, burst into tears, and hiccup a blessing on the

people. I believe it is certain about George IV, that he had heard so much

of the war, knighted so many people, and worn such a prodigious quantity

of marshal’s uniforms, cocked-hats, cock’s feathers, scarlet and bullion

in general, that he actually fancied he had been present in some

campaigns, and, under the name of General Brock, led a tremendous charge

of the German legion at Waterloo.

He is dead but thirty years, and one asks how a great society could have

tolerated him? Would we bear him now? In this quarter of a century, what a

silent revolution has been working! how it has separated us from old times

and manners! How it has changed men themselves! I can see old gentlemen

now among us, of perfect good breeding, of quiet lives, with venerable

grey heads, fondling their grandchildren; and look at them, and wonder at

what they were once. That gentleman of the grand old school, when he was

in the 10th Hussars, and dined at the prince’s table, would fall under it

night after night. Night after night, that gentleman sat at Brookes’s or

Raggett’s over the dice. If, in the petulance of play or drink, that

gentleman spoke a sharp word to his neighbour, he and the other would

infallibly go out and try to shoot each other the next morning. That

gentleman would drive his friend Richmond the black boxer down to Moulsey,

and hold his coat, and shout and swear, and hurrah with delight, whilst

the black man was beating Dutch Sam the Jew. That gentleman would take a

manly pleasure in pulling his own coat off, and thrashing a bargeman in a

street row. That gentleman has been in a watchhouse. That gentleman, so

exquisitely polite with ladies in a drawing-room, so loftily courteous, if

he talked now as he used among men in his youth, would swear so as to make

your hair stand on end. I met lately a very old German gentleman, who had

served in our army at the beginning of the century. Since then he has

lived on his own estate, but rarely meeting with an Englishman, whose

language—the language of fifty years ago that is—he possesses perfectly.

When this highly bred old man began to speak English to me, almost every

other word he uttered was an oath: as they used it (they swore dreadfully

in Flanders) with the Duke of York before Valenciennes, or at Carlton

House over the supper and cards. Read Byron’s letters. So accustomed is

the young man to oaths that he employs them even in writing to his

friends, and swears by the post. Read his account of the doings of young

men at Cambridge, of the ribald professors, one of whom “could pour out

Greek like a drunken helot”, and whose excesses surpassed even those of

the young men. Read Matthews’s description of the boyish lordling’s

housekeeping at Newstead, the skull-cup passed round, the monks’ dresses

from the masquerade warehouse, in which the young scapegraces used to sit

until daylight, chanting appropriate songs round their wine. “We come to

breakfast at two or three o’clock,” Matthews says. “There are gloves and

foils for those who like to amuse themselves, or we fire pistols at a mark

in the hall, or we worry the wolf.” A jolly life truly! The noble young

owner of the mansion writes about such affairs himself in letters to his

friend, Mr. John Jackson, pugilist, in London.

All the prince’s time tells a similar strange story of manners and

pleasure. In _Wraxall_ we find the prime minister himself, the redoubted

William Pitt, engaged in high jinks with personages of no less importance

than Lord Thurlow the lord chancellor, and Mr. Dundas the treasurer of the

navy. _Wraxall_ relates how these three statesmen, returning after dinner

from Addiscombe, found a turnpike open and galloped through it without

paying the toll. The turnpike man, fancying they were highwaymen, fired a

blunderbuss after them, but missed them; and the poet sang,—

How as Pitt wandered darkling o’er the plain,

His reason drown’d in Jenkinson’s champagne,

A rustic’s hand, but righteous fate withstood,

Had shed a premier’s for a robber’s blood.

Here we have the treasurer of the navy, the lord high chancellor, and the

prime minister, all engaged in a most undoubted lark. In Eldon’s

_Memoirs_, about the very same time, I read that the Bar loved wine, as

well as the woolsack. Not John Scott himself; he was a good boy always;

and though he loved port wine, loved his business and his duty and his

fees a great deal better.

He has a Northern Circuit story of those days, about a party at the house

of a certain Lawyer Fawcett, who gave a dinner every year to the counsel.

“On one occasion,” related Lord Eldon, “I heard Lee say, ‘I cannot leave

Fawcett’s wine. Mind, Davenport, you will go home immediately after

dinner, to read the brief in that cause that we have to conduct

to-morrow.’

“ ‘Not I,’ said Davenport. ‘Leave my dinner and my wine to read a brief!

No, no, Lee; that won’t do.’

“ ‘Then,’ said Lee, ‘what is to be done? who else is employed?’

“_Davenport._—‘Oh! young Scott.’

“Lee.—‘Oh! he must go. Mr. Scott, you must go home immediately, and make

yourself acquainted with that cause, before our consultation this

evening.’ ”

“This was very hard upon me; but I did go, and there was an attorney from

Cumberland, and one from Northumberland, and I do not know how many other

persons. Pretty late, in came Jack Lee, as drunk as he could be.

“ ‘I cannot consult to-night; I must go to bed,’ he exclaimed, and away he

went. Then came Sir Thomas Davenport.

“ ‘We cannot have a consultation to-night, Mr. Wordsworth’ (Wordsworth, I

think, was the name; it was a Cumberland name), shouted Davenport. ‘Don’t

you see how drunk Mr. Scott is? it is impossible to consult.’ Poor me! who

had scarce had any dinner, and lost all my wine—I was so drunk that I

could not consult! Well, a verdict was given against us, and it was all

owing to Lawyer Fawcett’s dinner. We moved for a new trial; and I must

say, for the honour of the Bar, that those two gentlemen, Jack Lee and Sir

Thomas Davenport, paid all the expenses between them of the first trial.

It is the only instance I ever knew, but they did. We moved for a new

trial (on the ground, I suppose, of the counsel not being in their

senses), and it was granted. When it came on, the following year, the

judge rose and said,—

“ ‘Gentlemen, did any of you dine with Lawyer Fawcett yesterday? for, if

you did, I will not hear this cause till next year.’

“There was great laughter. We gained the cause that time.”

On another occasion, at Lancaster, where poor Bozzy must needs be going

the Northern Circuit, “we found him,” says Mr. Scott, “lying upon the

pavement inebriated. We subscribed a guinea at supper for him, and a

half-crown for his clerk”—(no doubt there was a large Bar, and that

Scott’s joke did not cost him much),—“and sent him, when he waked next

morning, a brief, with instructions to move for what we denominated the

writ of _quare adhaesit pavimento?_ with observations duly calculated to

induce him to think that it required great learning to explain the

necessity of granting it, to the judge before whom he was to move.”

Boswell sent all round the town to attorneys for books, that might enable

him to distinguish himself—but in vain. He moved, however, for the writ,

making the best use he could of the observations in the brief. The judge

was perfectly astonished, and the audience amazed. The judge said, “I

never heard of such a writ—what can it be that adheres _pavimento_? Are

any of you gentlemen at the Bar able to explain this?”

The Bar laughed. At last one of them said,—

“My lord, Mr. Boswell last night _adhaesit pavimento_. There was no moving

him for some time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming

about himself and the pavement.”

The canny old gentleman relishes these jokes. When the Bishop of Lincoln

was moving from the deanery of St. Paul’s, he says he asked a learned

friend of his, by name Will Hay, how he should move some especially fine

claret, about which he was anxious.

“Pray, my lord bishop,” says Hay, “how much of the wine have you?”

The bishop said six dozen.

“If that is all,” Hay answered, “you have but to ask me six times to

dinner, and I will carry it all away myself.”

There were giants in those days; but this joke about wine is not so

fearful as one perpetrated by Orator Thelwall, in the heat of the French

Revolution, ten years later, over a frothing pot of porter. He blew the

head off, and said, “This is the way I would serve all kings.”

Now we come to yet higher personages, and find their doings recorded in

the blushing pages of timid little Miss Burney’s _Memoirs_. She represents

a prince of the blood in quite a royal condition. The loudness, the

bigness, boisterousness, creaking boots and rattling oaths, of the young

princes, appeared to have frightened the prim household of Windsor, and

set all the tea-cups twittering on the tray. On the night of a ball and

birthday, when one of the pretty, kind princesses was to come out, it was

agreed that her brother, Prince William Henry, should dance the opening

minuet with her, and he came to visit the household at their dinner.

“At dinner, Mrs. Schwellenberg presided, attired magnificently; Miss

Goldsworthy, Mrs. Stanforth, Messrs. Du Luc and Stanhope, dined with us;

and while we were still eating fruit, the Duke of Clarence entered.

“He was just risen from the king’s table, and waiting for his equipage to

go home and prepare for the ball. To give you an idea of the energy of his

royal highness’s language, I ought to set apart an objection to writing,

or rather intimating, certain forcible words, and beg leave to show you in

genuine colours a royal sailor.

“We all rose, of course, upon his entrance, and the two gentlemen placed

themselves behind their chairs, while the footmen left the room. But he

ordered us all to sit down, and called the men back to hand about some

wine. He was in exceeding high spirits, and in the utmost good humour. He

placed himself at the head of the table, next Mrs. Schwellenberg, and

looked remarkably well, gay, and full of sport and mischief; yet clever

withal, as well as comical.

“ ‘Well, this is the first day I have ever dined with the king at St.

James’s on his birthday. Pray, have you all drunk his majesty’s health?’

“ ‘No, your royal highness; your royal highness might make dem do dat,’

said Mrs. Schwellenberg.

“ ‘Oh, by ——, I will! Here, you’ (to the footman). ‘bring champagne; I’ll

drink the king’s health again, if I die for it. Yes, I have done it pretty

well already; so has the king, I promise you! I believe his majesty was

never taken such good care of before; we have kept his spirits up, I

promise you; we have enabled him to go through his fatigues; and I should

have done more still, but for the ball and Mary;—I have promised to dance

with Mary. I must keep sober for Mary.’ ”

Indefatigable Miss Burney continues for a dozen pages reporting H.R.H.’s

conversation, and indicating, with a humour not unworthy of the clever

little author of _Evelina_, the increasing state of excitement of the

young sailor prince, who drank more and more champagne, stopped old Mrs.

Schwellenberg’s remonstrances by giving the old lady a kiss, and telling

her to hold her potato-trap, and who did not “keep sober for Mary”. Mary

had to find another partner that night, for the royal William Henry could

not keep his legs.

Will you have a picture of the amusements of another royal prince? It is

the Duke of York, the blundering general, the beloved commander-in-chief

of the army, the brother with whom George IV had had many a midnight

carouse, and who continued his habits of pleasure almost till death seized

his stout body.

In Pückler Muskau’s _Letters_, that German prince describes a bout with

H.R.H., who in his best time was such a powerful toper that “six bottles

of claret after dinner scarce made a perceptible change in his

countenance”.

“I remember,” says Pückler, “that one evening,—indeed, it was past

midnight,—he took some of his guests, among whom were the Austrian

ambassador, Count Meervelt, Count Beroldingen, and myself, into his

beautiful armoury. We tried to swing several Turkish sabres, but none of

us had a very firm grasp; whence it happened that the duke and Meervelt

both scratched themselves with a sort of straight Indian sword so as to

draw blood. Meervelt then wished to try if the sword cut as well as a

Damascus, and attempted to cut through one of the wax candles that stood

on the table. The experiment answered so ill, that both the candles,

candlesticks and all, fell to the ground and were extinguished. While we

were groping in the dark and trying to find the door, the duke’s aide de

camp stammered out in great agitation, ‘By G——, sir, I remember the sword

is poisoned.!’

“You may conceive the agreeable feelings of the wounded at this

intelligence! Happily, on further examination, it appeared that claret,

and not poison, was at the bottom of the colonel’s exclamation.”

And now I have one more story of the bacchanalian sort, in which Clarence

and York, and the very highest personage of the realm, the great Prince

Regent, all play parts. The feast took place at the Pavilion at Brighton,

and was described to me by a gentleman who was present at the scene. In

Gilray’s caricatures, and amongst Fox’s jolly associates, there figures a

great nobleman, the Duke of Norfolk, called Jockey of Norfolk in his time,

and celebrated for his table exploits. He had quarrelled with the prince,

like the rest of the Whigs; but a sort of reconciliation had taken place;

and now, being a very old man, the prince invited him to dine and sleep at

the Pavilion, and the old duke drove over from his castle of Arundel with

his famous equipage of grey horses, still remembered in Sussex.

The Prince of Wales had concocted with his royal brothers a notable scheme

for making the old man drunk. Every person at table was enjoined to drink

wine with the duke—a challenge which the old toper did not refuse. He soon

began to see that there was a conspiracy against him; he drank glass for

glass; he overthrew many of the brave. At last the First Gentleman of

Europe proposed bumpers of brandy. One of the royal brothers filled a

great glass for the duke. He stood up and tossed off the drink. “Now,”

says he, “I will have my carriage, and go home.” The prince urged upon him

his previous promise to sleep under the roof where he had been so

generously entertained. “No,” he said, he had had enough of such

hospitality. A trap had been set for him; he would leave the place at once

and never enter its doors more.

The carriage was called, and came; but, in the half-hour’s interval, the

liquor had proved too potent for the old man; his host’s generous purpose

was answered, and the duke’s old grey head lay stupefied on the table.

Nevertheless, when his post-chaise was announced, he staggered to it as

well as he could, and stumbling in, bade the postilions drive to Arundel.

They drove him for half an hour round and round the Pavilion lawn; the

poor old man fancied he was going home. When he awoke that morning he was

in bed at the prince’s hideous house at Brighton. You may see the place

now for sixpence: they have fiddlers there every day; and sometimes

buffoons and mountebanks hire the Riding House and do their tricks and

tumbling there. The trees are still there, and the gravel walks round

which the poor old sinner was trotted. I can fancy the flushed faces of

the royal princes as they support themselves at the portico pillars, and

look on at old Norfolk’s disgrace; but I can’t fancy how the man who

perpetrated it continued to be called a gentleman.

From drinking, the pleased Muse now turns to gambling, of which in his

youth our prince was a great practitioner. He was a famous pigeon for the

play-men; they lived upon him. Egalité Orleans, it was believed, punished

him severely. A noble lord, whom we shall call the Marquis of Steyne, is

said to have mulcted him in immense sums. He frequented the clubs, where

play was then almost universal; and, as it was known his debts of honour

were sacred, whilst he was gambling Jews waited outside to purchase his

notes of hand. His transactions on the turf were unlucky as well as

discreditable: though I believe he, and his jockey, and his horse Escape,

were all innocent in that affair which created so much scandal.

Arthur’s, Almack’s, Bootle’s, and White’s were the chief clubs of the

young men of fashion. There was play at all, and decayed noblemen and

broken-down senators fleeced the unwary there. In Selwyn’s _Letters_ we

find Carlisle, Devonshire, Coventry, Queensberry, all undergoing the

probation. Charles Fox, a dreadful gambler, was cheated in very late

times—lost 200,000_l._ at play. Gibbon tells of his playing for twenty-two

hours at a sitting, and losing 500_l._ an hour. That indomitable punter

said that the greatest pleasure in life, after winning, was losing. What

hours, what nights, what health did he waste over the devil’s books! I was

going to say what peace of mind; but he took his losses very

philosophically. After an awful night’s play, and the enjoyment of the

greatest pleasure but _one_ in life, he was found on a sofa tranquilly

reading an Eclogue of Virgil.

Play survived long after the wild prince and Fox had given up the

dice-box. The dandies continued it. Byron, Brummell—how many names could I

mention of men of the world who have suffered by it! In 1837 occurred a

famous trial which pretty nigh put an end to gambling in England. A peer

of the realm was found cheating at whist, and repeatedly seen to practise

the trick called _sauter la coupe_. His friends at the clubs saw him

cheat, and went on playing with him. One greenhorn, who had discovered his

foul play, asked an old hand what he should do. “Do!” said the Mammon of

Unrighteousness, “_back him, you fool_.” The best efforts were made to

screen him. People wrote him anonymous letters and warned him; but he

would cheat, and they were obliged to find him out. Since that day, when

my lord’s shame was made public, the gaming-table has lost all its

splendour. Shabby Jews and blacklegs prowl about racecourses and tavern

parlours, and now and then inveigle silly yokels with greasy packs of

cards in railroad ears; but Play is a deposed goddess, her worshippers

bankrupt, and her table in rags.

So is another famous British institution gone to decay—the Ring: the noble

practice of British boxing, which in my youth was still almost

flourishing.

The prince, in his early days, was a great patron of this national sport,

as his grand-uncle Culloden Cumberland had been before him; but, being

present at a fight at Brighton, where one of the combatants was killed,

the prince pensioned the boxer’s widow, and declared he never would attend

another battle. “But, nevertheless,”—I read in the noble language of

Pierce Egan (whose smaller work on Pugilism I have the honour to

possess),—“he thought it a manly and decided English feature, which ought

not to be destroyed. His majesty had a drawing of the sporting characters

in the Fives Court placed in his boudoir, to remind him of his former

attachment and support of true courage; and when any fight of note

occurred after he was king, accounts of it were read to him by his

desire.” That gives one a fine image of a king taking his recreation;—at

ease in a royal dressing-gown;—too majestic to read himself, ordering the

prime minister to read him accounts of battles: how Cribb punched

Molyneux’s eye, or Jack Randall thrashed the Game Chicken.

Where my prince _did_ actually distinguish himself was in driving. He

drove once in four hours and a half from Brighton to Carlton

House—fifty-six miles. All the young men of that day were fond of that

sport. But the fashion of rapid driving deserted England; and, I believe,

trotted over to America. Where are the amusements of our youth? I hear of

no gambling now but amongst obscure ruffians; of no boxing but amongst the

lowest rabble. One solitary four-in-hand still drove round the parks in

London last year; but that charioteer must soon disappear. He was very

old; he was attired after the fashion of the year 1825. He must drive to

the banks of Styx ere long,—where the ferry-boat waits to carry him over

to the defunct revellers, who boxed and gambled and drank and drove with

King George.

The bravery of the Brunswicks, that all the family must have it, that

George possessed it, are points which all English writers have agreed to

admit; and yet I cannot see how George IV should have been endowed with

this quality. Swaddled in feather-beds all his life, lazy, obese,

perpetually eating and drinking, his education was quite unlike that of

his tough old progenitors. His grandsires had confronted hardship and war,

and ridden up and fired their pistols undaunted into the face of death.

His father had conquered luxury, and overcome indolence. Here was one who

never resisted any temptation; never had a desire but he coddled and

pampered it; if ever he had any nerve, frittered it away among cooks, and

tailors, and barbers, and furniture-mongers, and opera dancers. What

muscle would not grow flaccid in such a life—a life that was never strung

up to any action—an endless Capua without any campaign—all fiddling, and

flowers, and feasting, and flattery, and folly? When George III was

pressed by the Catholic question and the India Bill, he said he would

retire to Hanover rather than yield upon either point; and he would have

done what he said. But, before yielding, he was determined to fight his

ministers and Parliament; and he did, and he beat them. The time came when

George IV was pressed too upon the Catholic claims: the cautious Peel had

slipped over to that side; the grim old Wellington had joined it; and Peel

tells us, in his _Memoirs_, what was the conduct of the king. He at first

refused to submit; whereupon Peel and the duke offered their resignations,

which their gracious master accepted. He did these two gentlemen the

honour, Peel says, to kiss them both when they went away. (Fancy old

Arthur’s grim countenance and eagle beak as the monarch kisses it!) When

they were gone he sent after them, surrendered, and wrote to them a letter

begging them to remain in office, and allowing them to have their way.

Then his Majesty had a meeting with Eldon, which is related at curious

length in the latter’s _Memoirs_. He told Eldon what was not true about

his interview with the new Catholic converts; utterly misled the old

ex-chancellor; cried, whimpered, fell on his neck, and kissed him too. We

know old Eldon’s own tears were pumped very freely. Did these two

fountains gush together? I can’t fancy a behaviour more unmanly, imbecile,

pitiable. This a Defender of the Faith! This a chief in the crisis of a

great nation! This an inheritor of the courage of the Georges! Many of my

hearers no doubt have journeyed to the pretty old town of Brunswick, in

company with that most worthy, prudent, and polite gentleman, the Earl of

Malmesbury, and fetched away Princess Caroline for her longing husband,

the Prince of Wales, Old Queen Charlotte would have had her eldest son

marry a niece of her own, that famous Louisa of Strelitz, afterwards Queen

of Prussia, and who shares with Marie Antoinette in the last age the sad

pre-eminence of beauty and misfortune. But George III had a niece at

Brunswick: she was a richer princess than her Serene Highness of

Strelitz:—in fine, the Princess Caroline was selected to marry the heir to

the English throne. We follow my Lord Malmesbury in quest of her; we are

introduced to her illustrious father and royal mother; we witness the

balls and fêtes of the old Court; we are presented to the princess

herself, with her fair hair, her blue eyes, and her impertinent

shoulders—a lively, bouncing, romping princess, who takes the advice of

her courtly English mentor most generously and kindly. We can be present

at her very toilette, if we like, regarding which, and for very good

reasons, the British courtier implores her to be particular. What a

strange Court! What a queer privacy of morals and manners do we look into!

Shall we regard it as preachers and moralists, and cry, Woe, against the

open vice and selfishness and corruption; or look at it as we do at the

king in the pantomime, with his pantomime wife, and pantomime courtiers,

whose big heads he knocks together, whom he pokes with his pantomime

sceptre, whom he orders to prison under the guard of his pantomime

beefeaters, as he sits down to dine on his pantomime pudding? It is grave,

it is sad, it is theme most curious for moral and political speculation;

it is monstrous, grotesque, laughable, with its prodigious littlenesses,

etiquettes, ceremonials, sham moralities; it is as serious as a sermon,

and as absurd and outrageous as Punch’s puppet-show.

Malmesbury tells us of the private life of the duke, Princess Caroline’s

father, who was to die, like his warlike son, in arms against the French;

presents us to his courtiers, his favourite; his duchess, George III’s

sister, a grim old princess, who took the British envoy aside, and told

him wicked old stories of wicked old dead people and times; who came to

England afterwards when her nephew was regent, and lived in a shabby

furnished lodging, old, and dingy, and deserted, and grotesque, but

somehow royal. And we go with him to the duke to demand the princess’s

hand in form, and we hear the Brunswick guns fire their adieux of salute,

as H.R.H. the Princess of Wales departs in the frost and snow; and we

visit the domains of the Prince Bishop of Osnaburg—the Duke of York of our

early time; and we dodge about from the French revolutionists, whose

ragged legions are pouring over Holland and Germany, and gaily trampling

down the old world to the tune of _Ça ira_; and we take shipping at Slade,

and we land at Greenwich, where the princess’s ladies and the prince’s

ladies are in waiting to receive her royal highness.

[Illustration]

What a history follows! Arrived in London, the bridegroom hastened eagerly

to receive his bride. When she was first presented to him, Lord Malmesbury

says she very properly attempted to kneel. He raised her gracefully

enough, embraced her, and turning round to me, said,—

“Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy.”

I said, “Sir, had you not better have a glass of water?”

Upon which, much out of humour, he said, with an oath, “No; I will go to

the queen.”

What could be expected from a wedding which had such a beginning—from such

a bridegroom and such a bride? I am not going to carry you through the

scandal of that story, or follow the poor princess through all her

vagaries; her balls and her dances, her travels to Jerusalem and Naples,

her jigs, and her junketings, and her tears. As I read her trial in

history, I vote she is not guilty. I don’t say it is an impartial verdict;

but as one reads her story the heart bleeds for the kindly, generous,

outraged creature. If wrong there be, let it lie at his door who wickedly

thrust her from it. Spite of her follies, the great, hearty people of

England loved, and protected, and pitied her. “God bless you! we will

bring your husband back to you,” said a mechanic one day, as she told Lady

Charlotte Bury with tears streaming down her cheeks. They could not bring

that husband back; they could not cleanse that selfish heart. Was hers the

only one he had wounded? Steeped in selfishness, impotent for faithful

attachment and manly enduring love,—had it not survived remorse, was it

not accustomed to desertion?

Malmesbury gives us the beginning of the marriage story;—how the prince

reeled into chapel to be married; how he hiccupped out his vows of

fidelity—you know how he kept them; how he pursued the woman whom he had

married; to what a state he brought her; with what blows he struck her;

with what malignity he pursued her; what his treatment of his daughter

was; and what his own life. _He_ the first gentleman of Europe! There is

no stronger satire on the proud English society of that day, than that

they admired George.

No, thank God, we can tell of better gentlemen; and whilst our eyes turn

away, shocked, from this monstrous image of pride, vanity, weakness, they

may see in that England over which the last George pretended to reign,

some who merit indeed the title of gentlemen, some who make our hearts

beat when we hear their names, and whose memory we fondly salute when that

of yonder imperial manikin is tumbled into oblivion. I will take men of my

own profession of letters. I will take Walter Scott, who loved the king,

and who was his sword and buckler, and championed him like that brave

Highlander in his own story, who fights round his craven chief. What a

good gentleman! What a friendly soul, what a generous hand, what an

amiable life was that of the noble Sir Walter! I will take another man of

letters, whose life I admire even more,—an English worthy, doing his duty

for fifty noble years of labour, day by day storing up learning, day by

day working for scant wages, most charitable out of his small means,

bravely faithful to the calling which he had chosen, refusing to turn from

his path for popular praise or princes’ favour;—I mean _Robert Southey_.

We have left his old political landmarks miles and miles behind; we

protest against his dogmatism; nay, we begin to forget it and his

politics: but I hope his life will not be forgotten, for it is sublime in

its simplicity, its energy, its honour, its affection. In the combat

between Time and Thalaba, I suspect the former destroyer has conquered.

Kehama’s curse frightens very few readers now; but Southey’s private

letters are worth piles of epics, and are sure to last among us, as long

as kind hearts like to sympathize with goodness and purity, and love and

upright life. “If your feelings are like mine,” he writes to his wife, “I

will not go to Lisbon without you, or I will stay at home, and not part

from you. For though not unhappy when away, still without you I am not

happy. For your sake, as well as my own and little Edith’s, I will not

consent to any separation; the growth of a year’s love between her and me,

if it please God she should live, is a thing too delightful in itself, and

too valuable in its consequences, to be given up for any light

inconvenience on your part or mine.... On these things we will talk at

leisure; only, dear, dear Edith, _we must not part!_”

This was a poor literary gentleman. The First Gentleman in Europe had a

wife and daughter too. Did he love them so? Was he faithful to them? Did

he sacrifice ease for them, or show them the sacred examples of religion

and honour? Heaven gave the Great English Prodigal no such good fortune.

Peel proposed to make a baronet of Southey; and to this advancement the

king agreed. The poet nobly rejected the offered promotion.

“I have,” he wrote, “a pension of 200_l._ a year, conferred upon me by the

good offices of my old friend C. Wynn, and I have the laureateship. The

salary of the latter was immediately appropriated, as far as it went, to a

life insurance for 3,000_l._, which, with an earlier insurance, is the

sole provision I have made for my family. All beyond must be derived from

my own industry. Writing for a livelihood, a livelihood is all that I have

gained; for, having also something better in view, and never, therefore,

having courted popularity, nor written for the mere sake of gain, it has

not been possible for me to lay by anything. Last year, for the first time

in my life, I was provided with a year’s expenditure beforehand. This

exposition may show how unbecoming and unwise it would be to accept the

rank which, so greatly to my honour, you have solicited for me.”

How noble his poverty is, compared to the wealth of his master! His

acceptance even of a pension was made the object of his opponents’ satire:

but think of the merit and modesty of this state pensioner; and that other

enormous drawer of public money, who receives 100,000_l._ a year, and

comes to Parliament with a request for 650,000_l._ more!

Another true knight of those days was Cuthbert Collingwood; and I think,

since Heaven made gentlemen, there is no record of a better one than that.

Of brighter deeds, I grant you, we may read performed by others; but where

of a nobler, kinder, more beautiful life of duty, of a gentler, truer

heart? Beyond dazzle of success and blaze of genius, I fancy shining a

hundred and a hundred times higher, the sublime purity of Collingwood’s

gentle glory. His heroism stirs British hearts when we recall it. His

love, and goodness, and piety make one thrill with happy emotion. As one

reads of him and his great comrade going into the victory with which their

names are immortally connected, how the old English word comes up, and

that old English feeling of what I should like to call Christian honour!

What gentlemen they were, what great hearts they had! “We can, my dear

Coll,” writes Nelson to him, “have no little jealousies; we have only one

great object in view,—that of meeting the enemy, and getting a glorious

peace for our country.” At Trafalgar, when the _Royal Sovereign_ was

pressing alone into the midst of the combined fleets, Lord Nelson said to

Captain Blackwood: “See how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his ship

into action! How I envy him!” The very same throb and impulse of heroic

generosity was beating in Collingwood’s honest bosom. As he led into the

fight, he said: “What would Nelson give to be here!”

After the action of the 1st of June, he writes:—“We cruised for a few

days, like disappointed people looking for what they could not find,

_until the morning of little Sarah’s birthday_, between eight and nine

o’clock, when the French fleet, of twenty-five sail of the line, was

discovered to windward. We chased them, and they bore down within about

five miles of us. The night was spent in watching and preparation for the

succeeding day; and many a blessing did I send forth to my Sarah, lest I

should never bless her more. At dawn, we made our approach on the enemy,

then drew up, dressed our ranks, and it was about eight when the admiral

made the signal for each ship to engage her opponent, and bring her to

close action; and then down we went under a crowd of sail, and in a manner

that would have animated the coldest heart, and struck terror into the

most intrepid enemy. The ship we were to engage was two ahead of the

French admiral, so we had to go through his fire and that of two ships

next to him, and received all their broadsides two or three times, before

we fired a gun. It was then near ten o’clock. I observed to the admiral,

that about that time our wives were going to church, but that I thought

the peal we should ring about the Frenchman’s ears would outdo their

parish bells.”

There are no words to tell what the heart feels in reading the simple

phrases of such a hero. Here is victory and courage, but love sublimer and

superior. Here is a Christian soldier spending the night before battle in

watching and preparing for the succeeding day, thinking of his dearest

home, and sending many blessings forth to his Sarah, “lest he should never

bless her more.” Who would not say Amen to his supplication? It was a

benediction to his country—the prayer of that intrepid loving heart.

We have spoken of a good soldier and good men of letters as specimens of

English gentlemen of the age just past: may we not also—many of my elder

hearers, I am sure, have read, and fondly remember his delightful

story—speak of a good divine, and mention Reginald Heber as one of the

best of English gentlemen? The charming poet, the happy possessor of all

sorts of gifts and accomplishments, birth, wit, fame, high character,

competence—he was the beloved parish priest in his own home of Hoderel,

“counselling his people in their troubles, advising them in their

difficulties, comforting them in distress, kneeling often at their

sick-beds at the hazard of his own life; exhorting, encouraging where

there was need; where there was strife the peacemaker; where there was

want the free giver.”

When the Indian bishopric was offered to him he refused at first; but

after communing with himself (and committing his case to the quarter

whither such pious men are wont to carry their doubts), he withdrew his

refusal, and prepared himself for his mission and to leave his beloved

parish. “Little children, love one another, and forgive one another,” were

the last sacred words he said to his weeping people. He parted with them,

knowing, perhaps, he should see them no more. Like those other good men of

whom we have just spoken, love and duty were his life’s aim. Happy he,

happy they who were so gloriously faithful to both! He writes to his wife

those charming lines on his journey:—

If thou, my love, wert by my side, my babies at my knee,

How gladly would our pinnace glide o’er Gunga’s mimic sea!

I miss thee at the dawning grey, when, on our deck reclined,

In careless ease my limbs I lay and woo the cooler wind.

I miss thee when by Gunga’s stream my twilight steps I guide;

But most beneath the lamp’s pale beam I miss thee by my side.

I spread my books, my pencil try, the lingering noon to cheer;

But miss thy kind approving eye, thy meek attentive ear.

But when of morn and eve the star beholds me on my knee,

I feel, though thou art distant far, thy prayers ascend for me.

Then on! then on! where duty leads my course be onward still,—

O’er broad Hindostan’s sultry meads, o’er bleak Almorah’s hill.

That course nor Delhi’s kingly gates, nor wild Malwah detain,

For sweet the bliss us both awaits by yonder western main.

Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say, across the dark blue

sea:

But ne’er were hearts so blithe and gay as there shall meet in

thee!

Is it not Collingwood and Sarah, and Southey and Edith? His affection is

part of his life. What were life without it? Without love, I can fancy no

gentleman.

How touching is a remark Heber makes in his _Travels through India_, that

on inquiring of the natives at a town, which of the governors of India

stood highest in the opinion of the people, he found that, though Lord

Wellesley and Warren Hastings were honoured as the two greatest men who

had ever ruled this part of the world, the people spoke with chief

affection of Judge Cleaveland, who had died, aged twenty-nine, in 1784.

The people have built a monument over him, and still hold a religious

feast in his memory. So does his own country still tend with a heart’s

regard the memory of the gentle Heber.

And Cleaveland died in 1784, and is still loved by the heathen, is he?

Why, that year 1784 was remarkable in the life of our friend the First

Gentleman of Europe. Do you not know that he was twenty-one in that year,

and opened Carlton House with a grand ball to the nobility and gentry, and

doubtless wore that lovely pink coat which we have described. I was eager

to read about the ball, and looked to the old magazines for information.

The entertainment took place on the 10th February. In the _European

Magazine_ of March, 1784, I came straightway upon it:—

“The alterations at Carlton House being finished, we lay before our

readers a description of the state apartments as they appeared on the 10th

instant, when H.R.H. gave a grand ball to the principal nobility and

gentry.... The entrance to the state room fills the mind with an

inexpressible idea of greatness and splendour.

“The state chair is of a gold frame, covered with crimson damask; on each

corner of the feet is a lion’s head, expressive of fortitude and strength;

the feet of the chair have serpents twining round them, to denote wisdom.

Facing the throne, appears the helmet of Minerva; and over the windows,

glory is represented by St. George with a superb gloria.

“But the saloon may be styled the _chef-d’œuvre_, and in every ornament

discovers great invention. It is hung with a figured lemon satin. The

window-curtains, sofas, and chairs are of the same colour. The ceiling is

ornamented with emblematical paintings, representing the Graces and Muses,

together with Jupiter, Mercury, Apollo, and Paris. Two ormolu chandeliers

are placed here. It is impossible by expression to do justice to the

extraordinary workmanship, as well as design, of the ornaments. They each

consist of a palm, branching out in five directions for the reception of

lights. A beautiful figure of a rural nymph is represented entwining the

stems of the tree with wreaths of flowers. In the centre of the room is a

rich chandelier. To see this apartment _dans son plus beau jour_, it

should be viewed in the glass over the chimney-piece. The range of

apartments from the saloon to the ballroom, when the doors are open,

formed one of the grandest spectacles that ever was beheld.”

In the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, for the very same month and year—March,

1784—is an account of another festival, in which another great gentleman

of English extraction is represented as taking a principal share:—

“According to order, H.E. the Commander-in-Chief was admitted to a public

audience of Congress; and, being seated, the president, after a pause,

informed him that the United States assembled were ready to receive his

communications. Whereupon he arose, and spoke as follows:—

“ ‘Mr. President,—The great events on which my resignation depended having

at length taken place, I present myself before Congress to surrender into

their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of

retiring from the service of my country.

“ ‘Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, I resign

the appointment I accepted with diffidence; which, however, was superseded

by a confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme

power of the nation, and the patronage of Heaven. I close this last act of

my official life, by commending the interests of our dearest country to

the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of

them to His holy keeping. Having finished the work assigned me, I retire

from the great theatre of action; and, bidding an affectionate farewell to

this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my

commission and take my leave of the employments of my public life.’ To

which the President replied:—

“ ‘Sir, having defended the standard of liberty in the New World, having

taught a lesson useful to those who inflict and those who feel oppression,

you retire with the blessings of your fellow citizens; though the glory of

your virtues will not terminate with your military command, but will

descend to remotest ages.’ ”

Which was the most splendid spectacle ever witnessed:—the opening feast of

Prince George in London, or the resignation of Washington? Which is the

noble character for after-ages to admire;—yon fribble dancing in lace and

spangles, or yonder hero who sheathes his sword after a life of spotless

honour, a purity unreproached, a courage indomitable, and a consummate

victory? Which of these is the true gentleman? What is it to be a

gentleman? Is it to have lofty aims, to lead a pure life, to keep your

honour virgin; to have the esteem of your fellow citizens, and the love of

your fireside; to bear good fortune meekly; to suffer evil with constancy;

and through evil or good to maintain truth always? Show me the happy man

whose life exhibits these qualities, and him we will salute as gentleman,

whatever his rank may be; show me the prince who possesses them, and he

may be sure of our love and loyalty. The heart of Britain still beats

kindly for George III,—not because he was wise and just, but because he

was pure in life, honest in intent, and because according to his lights he

worshipped Heaven. I think we acknowledge in the inheritrix of his

sceptre, a wiser rule, and a life as honourable and pure; and I am sure

the future painter of our manners will pay a willing allegiance to that

good life, and be loyal to the memory of that unsullied virtue.

FOOTNOTES

1 The influence of Scott on Thackeray is undoubted and freely

confessed. But I cannot fall in with “certain persons of

distinction” in making _Esmond_ very specially indebted to

_Woodstock_. _Woodstock_ is a very great book in itself and amazing

when one knows its circumstances: but it is, even for Scott, very

specially and exclusively _objective_. _Esmond_ is subjective also

in the highest degree.

2 This form, which he used elsewhere than in the _Biographia

Literaria_, is better than _esemplastic_ which he employed there.

3 The justice or accuracy of his individual presentments and even of

his general view of the time is quite another matter. We may touch

on part of it presently. But the real point is that the whole is of

a piece at least _in potentia_: that it gives a world that might

have existed.

4 The lectures on the _Humourists_ were, of course, delivered before

_Esmond_ was published; but, in another sense, they are only

aftercrops or by-products. The notes, sometimes very interesting,

are James Hannay’s.

5 As might perhaps have been expected from its original appearance,

not piecemeal but in the regular three-volume form, _Esmond_ was not

very much altered by its author in later issues. There was, indeed,

a “revised” edition in 1858, in which a considerable number of minor

changes, nearly all for the better, were made. These have been

carefully considered, but in practically every case there was really

nothing to do but to follow them silently. For it would be absurd,

in the present edition, to chronicle solemnly the rectification of

mere misprints like “H_o_xton” for “H_e_xton”, or the change from

“was never” to “never was”. In some points of orthography

“Chelse_a_” and “Chelse_y_”, for instance, Thackeray never reached

full consistency, and he has sometimes been caught in the

intricacies of the Castlewood relations and nomenclature, &c. So,

too, Walcote, which is near _Wells_ at first, moves to the

neighbourhood of _Winchester_ later; and there are other

characteristic oversights. But, on the whole, there is little need

of comment, and none of variants, save in a very few instances,

where the “revised” edition seems to have been altered for the

worse.

On the other hand, in recent editions of Thackeray, published by his

representatives, considerable alterations to _The English

Humourists_, &c., in text and notes have been introduced, dates

being changed in accordance with later researches, quotations (in

which Thackeray was pretty lax) adjusted to their originals, and so

forth. As the chief authorities consulted in making these

alterations were the late Sir Leslie Stephen, Mr. Austin Dobson, and

Mr. Sidney Lee, there need not be much question as to their

accuracy: and it perhaps shows undue hardihood in the present editor

not to adopt them. But it seems to him that Thackeray’s books are

not so much text-books of history, literary and other, where

accuracy is the first point, as literature, where it is not. Such

corrections could be most properly introduced in the notes of a

fuller commentated edition: less so, it may seem, in an almost

unannotated text. In particular, Thackeray’s _mis_quotations (they

are not seldom distinct improvements) sometimes directly form the

basis of his own remarks, which become less apposite if the

citations are corrected.

As the text of this volume has few original illustrations some

miscellaneous sketches are added to it.

6 Lionel Tipton, created Baron Bergamot, ann. 1686, Gentleman Usher of

the Back Stairs, and afterwards appointed Warden of the Butteries

and Groom of the King’s Posset (on the decease of George, second

Viscount Castlewood), accompanied his Majesty to St. Germains, where

he died without issue. No Groom of the Posset was appointed by the

Prince of Orange, nor hath there been such an officer in any

succeeding reign.

7 To have this rank of marquis restored in the family had always been

my lady viscountess’s ambition; and her old maiden aunt, Barbara

Topham, the goldsmith’s daughter, dying about this time, and leaving

all her property to Lady Castlewood, I have heard that her ladyship

sent almost the whole of the money to King James, a proceeding which

so irritated my Lord Castlewood that he actually went to the parish

church, and was only appeased by the marquis’s title which his

exiled majesty sent to him in return for the 15,000_l._ his faithful

subject lent him.

8 Ὄ πόποι, οἷον δή νυ θεοὺς βροτοὶ αἰτιόωνται, ἐξ ἡμέων γάρ φασι κάκ᾽

ἔμμεναι; οἱ δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ σφῇσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὑπὲρ μόρον ἄλγε᾽

ἔχουσιν.

9 My mistress before I went this campaign sent me John Lockwood out of

Walcote, who hath ever since remained with me.—H. E.

10 This passage in the memoirs of Esmond is written on a leaf inserted

into the MS. book, and dated 1744, probably after he had heard of

the duchess’s death.

11 Our grandfather’s hatred of the Duke of Marlborough appears all

through his account of these campaigns. He always persisted that the

duke was the greatest traitor and soldier history ever told of: and

declared that he took bribes on all hands during the war. My lord

marquis (for so we may call him here, though he never went by any

other name than Colonel Esmond) was in the habit of telling many

stories which he did not set down in his memoirs, and which he had

from his friend the Jesuit, who was not always correctly informed,

and who persisted that Marlborough was looking for a bribe of two

millions of crowns before the campaign of Ramillies.

And our grandmother used to tell us children, that on his first

presentation to my lord duke, the duke turned his back upon my

grandfather; and said to the duchess, who told my lady dowager at

Chelsea, who afterwards told Colonel Esmond—“Tom Esmond’s bastard

has been to my levee: he has the hang-dog look of his rogue of a

father”—an expression which my grandfather never forgave. He was as

constant in his dislikes as in his attachments; and exceedingly

partial to Webb, whose side he took against the more celebrated

general. We have General Webb’s portrait now at Castlewood, Va.

12 ’Tis not thus _woman loves_: Col. E. hath owned to this folly for a

_score of women_ besides.—R.

13 And, indeed, so was his to them, a thousand, thousand times more

charming, for where was his equal?—R.

14 See Appendix, p. 464.

15 What indeed? Ps. xci. 2. 3, 7.—R. E.

16 The managers were the bishop, who cannot be hurt by having his name

mentioned, a very active and loyal Nonconformist divine, a lady in

the highest favour at Court, with whom Beatrix Esmond had

communication, and two noblemen of the greatest rank, and a Member

of the House of Commons, who was implicated in more transactions

than one in behalf of the Stuart family.

17 There can be very little doubt that the doctor, mentioned by my dear

father, was the famous Dr. Arbuthnot.—R. E. W.

18 My dear father saith quite truly, that his manner towards our sex

was uniformly courteous. From my infancy upwards, he treated me with

an extreme gentleness, as though I was a little lady. I can scarce

remember (though I tried him often) ever hearing a rough word from

him, nor was he less grave and kind in his manner to the humblest

negresses on his estate. He was familiar with no one except my

mother, and it was delightful to witness up to the very last days

the confidence between them. He was obeyed eagerly by all under him;

and my mother and all her household lived in a constant emulation to

please him, and quite a terror lest in any way they should offend

him. He was the humblest man, with all this; the least exacting, the

most easily contented; and Mr. Benson, our minister at Castlewood,

who attended him at the last, ever said—“I know not what Colonel

Esmond’s doctrine was, but his life and death were those of a devout

Christian.”—R. E. W.

19 This remark shows how unjustly and contemptuously even the best of

men will sometimes judge of our sex. Lady Esmond had no intention of

triumphing over her daughter; but from a sense of duty alone pointed

out her deplorable wrong.—R. E.

20 In London we addressed the prince as royal highness invariably;

though the women persisted in giving him the title of king.

21 The anecdote is frequently told of our performer, Rich.

22 He was from a younger branch of the Swifts of Yorkshire. His

grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Swift, Vicar of Goodrich, in

Herefordshire, suffered for his loyalty in Charles I’s time. That

gentleman married Elizabeth Dryden, a member of the family of the

poet. Sir Walter Scott gives, with his characteristic minuteness in

such points, the exact relationship between these famous men. Swift

was “the son of Dryden’s second cousin”. Swift, too, was the enemy

of Dryden’s reputation. Witness the _Battle of the Books_:—“The

difference was greatest among the horse” says he of the moderns,

“where every private trooper pretended to the command, from Tasso

and Milton to Dryden and Withers.” And in _Poetry, a Rhapsody_, he

advises the poetaster to—

Read all the Prefaces of Dryden,

For these our critics much confide in,

Though merely writ, at first, for filling,

To raise the volume’s price a shilling.

“Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet,” was the phrase of Dryden

to his kinsman, which remained alive in a memory tenacious of such

matters.

23 “Miss Hetty” she was called in the family—where her face, and her

dress, and Sir William’s treatment of her, all made the real fact

about her birth plain enough. Sir William left her a thousand

pounds.

24 Sometimes, during his mental affliction, he continued walking about

the house for many consecutive hours; sometimes he remained in a

kind of torpor. At times, he would seem to struggle to bring into

distinct consciousness, and shape into expression, the intellect

that lay smothering under gloomy obstruction in him. A pier-glass

falling by accident, nearly fell on him. He said, he wished it had!

He once repeated, slowly, several times, “I am what I am.” The last

thing he wrote was an epigram on the building of a magazine for arms

and stores, which was pointed out to him as he went abroad during

his mental disease:—

Behold a proof of Irish sense:

Here Irish wit is seen;

When nothing’s left that’s worth defence,

They build a magazine!

25 Besides these famous books of Scott’s and Johnson’s, there is a

copious _Life_ by Thomas Sheridan (Dr. Johnson’s “Sherry”), father

of Richard Brinsley, and son of that good-natured, clever, Irish

Doctor, Thomas Sheridan, Swift’s intimate, who lost his chaplaincy

by so unluckily choosing for a text on the king’s birthday,

“Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!” Not to mention less

important works, there is also the _Remarks on the Life and Writings

of Dr. Jonathan Swift_, by that polite and dignified writer, the

Earl of Orrery. His lordship is said to have striven for literary

renown, chiefly that he might make up for the slight passed on him

by his father, who left his library away from him. It is to be

feared that the ink he used to wash out that stain only made it look

bigger. He had, however, known Swift, and corresponded with people

who knew him. His work (which appeared in 1751) provoked a good deal

of controversy, calling out, among other brochures, the interesting

_Observations on Lord Orrery’s Remarks_, &c., of Dr. Delany.

26 Dr. Wilde’s book was written on the occasion of the remains of Swift

and Stella being brought to the light of day—a thing which happened

in 1835, when certain works going on in St. Patrick’s Cathedral,

Dublin, afforded an opportunity of their being examined. One hears

with surprise of these skulls “going the rounds” of houses, and

being made the objects of _dilettante_ curiosity. The larynx of

Swift was actually carried off! Phrenologists had a low opinion of

his intellect, from the observations they took.

Dr. Wilde traces the symptoms of ill-health in Swift, as detailed in

his writings from time to time. He observes, likewise, that the

skull gave evidence of “diseased action” of the brain during

life—such as would be produced by an increasing tendency to

“cerebral congestion”.

27 “He [Dr. Johnson] seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice

against Swift; for I once took the liberty to ask him if Swift had

personally offended him, and he told me he had not.”—BOSWELL’S _Tour

to the Hebrides_.

28 Few men, to be sure, dared this experiment, but yet their success

was encouraging. One gentleman made a point of asking the Dean,

whether his uncle Godwin had not given him his education. Swift, who

hated _that_ subject cordially, and, indeed, cared little for his

kindred, said, sternly, “Yes; he gave me the education of a dog.”

“Then, sir,” cried the other, striking his fist on the table, “you

have not the gratitude of a dog!”

Other occasions there were when a bold face gave the Dean pause,

even after his Irish almost-royal position was established. But he

brought himself into greater danger on a certain occasion, and the

amusing circumstances may be once more repeated here. He had

unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin lawyer, Mr. Serjeant

Bettesworth—

So, at the bar, the booby Bettesworth,

Though half a crown out-pays his sweat’s worth,

Who knows in law nor text nor margent,

Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant!

The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented

himself at the deanery. The Dean asked his name. “Sir, I am Serjeant

Bett-es-worth.”

“_In what regiment, pray?_” asked Swift.

A guard of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean at this

time.

29 “But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my sentiments

from you. I am much inclined to believe that the temper of my friend

Swift might occasion his English friends to wish him happily and

properly promoted at a distance. His spirit, for I would give it the

proper name, was ever untractable. The motions of his genius were

often irregular. He assumed more the air of a patron than of a

friend. He affected rather to dictate than advise.”—ORRERY.

30 “An anecdote which, though only told by Mrs. Pilkington, is well

attested, bears, that the last time he was in London he went to dine

with the Earl of Burlington, who was but newly married. The earl, it

is supposed, being willing to have a little diversion, did not

introduce him to his lady nor mention his name. After dinner said

the Dean, ‘Lady Burlington, I hear you can sing; sing me a song.’

The lady looked on this unceremonious manner of asking a favour with

distaste, and positively refused. He said, ‘She should sing, or he

would make her. Why, madam, I suppose you take me for one of your

poor English hedge-parsons; sing when I bid you.’ As the earl did

nothing but laugh at this freedom, the lady was so vexed that she

burst into tears and retired. His first compliment to her when he

saw her again was, ‘Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured

now as when I saw you last?’ To which she answered with great good

humour, ‘No, Mr. Dean; I’ll sing for you if you please.’ From which

time he conceived a great esteem for her.”—SCOTT’S _Life_. “He had

not the least tincture of vanity in his conversation. He was,

perhaps, as he said himself, too proud to be vain. When he was

polite, it was in a manner entirely his own. In his friendships he

was constant and undisguised. He was the same in his

enmities.”—ORRERY.

31 “I make no figure but at Court, where I affect to turn from a lord

to the meanest of my acquaintances.”—_Journal to Stella._

“I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me their

books and poems, the vilest I ever saw; but I have given their names

to my man, never to let them see me.”—_Journal to Stella._

The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a courtier:—

“Did I ever tell you that the lord treasurer hears ill with the left

ear just as I do?... I dare not tell him that I am so, sir; _for

fear he should think that I counterfeited to make my

court!_”—_Journal to Stella._

32 The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and the

other; and the Whig attacks made the ministry Swift served very

sore. Bolingbroke laid hold of several of the Opposition

pamphleteers, and bewails their “factitiousness” in the following

letter:—

“BOLINGBROKE TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

“Whitehall, July 23rd, 1712.

“It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country are

too weak to punish effectually those factitious scribblers, who

presume to blacken the brightest characters, and to give even

scurrilous language to those who are in the first degrees of honour.

This, my lord, among others, is a symptom of the decayed condition

of our Government, and serves to show how fatally we mistake

licentiousness for liberty. All I could do was to take up Hart, the

printer, to send him to Newgate, and to bind him over upon bail to

be prosecuted; this I have done; and if I can arrive at legal proof

against the author Ridpath, he shall have the same treatment.”

Swift was not behind his illustrious friend in this virtuous

indignation. In the history of the four last years of the queen, the

Dean speaks in the most edifying manner of the licentiousness of the

press and the abusive language of the other party:

“It must be acknowledged that the bad practices of printers have

been such as to deserve the severest animadversion from the

public.... The adverse party, full of rage and leisure since their

fall, and unanimous in their cause, employ a set of writers by

subscription, who are well versed in all the topics of defamation,

and have a style and genius levelled to the generality of their

readers.... However, the mischiefs of the press were too exorbitant

to be cured by such a remedy as a tax upon small papers, and a bill

for a much more effectual regulation of it was brought into the

House of Commons, but so late in the session that there was no time

to pass it, for there always appeared an unwillingness to cramp

overmuch the liberty of the press.”

But to a clause in the proposed bill, that the names of authors

should be set to every printed book, pamphlet, or paper, his

reverence objects altogether, for, says he, “beside the objection to

this clause from the practice of pious men, who, in publishing

excellent writings for the service of religion, have chosen, _out of

an humble Christian spirit, to conceal their names_, it is certain

that all persons of true genius or knowledge have an invincible

modesty and suspicion of themselves upon first sending their

thoughts into the world.”

This “invincible modesty” was no doubt the sole reason which induced

the Dean to keep the secret of the _Drapier’s Letters_ and a hundred

humble Christian works of which he was the author. As for the

Opposition, the Doctor was for dealing severely with them: he writes

to Stella:—

Journal. Letter XIX

“London, March 25th, 1710-11.

“... We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing him

pickled in a trough this fortnight for twopence a piece; and the

fellow that showed would point to his body and say, ‘See, gentlemen,

this is the wound that was given him by his grace the Duke of

Ormond;’ and, ‘This is the wound,’ &c.; and then the show was over,

and another set of rabble came in. ’Tis hard that our laws would not

suffer us to hang his body in chains, because he was not tried; and

in the eye of the law every man is innocent till then.”

Journal. Letter XXVII

“London, July 25th, 1711.

“I was this afternoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped

to hinder a man of his pardon, who is condemned for a rape. The

under-secretary was willing to save him; but I told the secretary he

could not pardon him without a favourable report from the judge;

besides he was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue, and deserved

hanging for something else, and so he shall swing.”

33 It was his constant practice to keep his birthday as a day of

mourning.

34 “These devils of Grub Street rogues, that write the _Flying Post_

and _Medley_ in one paper, will not be quiet. They are always

mauling Lord Treasurer, Lord Bolingbroke, and me. We have the dog

under prosecution, but Bolingbroke is not active enough; but I hope

to swinge him. He is a Scotch rogue, one Ridpath. They get out upon

bail, and write on. We take them again, and get fresh bail; so it

goes round.”—_Journal to Stella._

35 Swift was by no means inclined to forget such considerations; and

his English birth makes its mark, strikingly enough, every now and

then in his writings. Thus in a letter to Pope (SCOTT’S _Swift_,

vol. xix, p. 97), he says:—

“We have had your volume of letters.... Some of those who highly

value you, and a few who knew you personally, are grieved to find

you make no distinction between the English gentry of this kingdom,

and the savage old Irish (who are only the vulgar, and some

gentlemen who live in the Irish parts of the kingdom); but the

English colonies, who are three parts in four, are much more

civilized than many counties in England, and speak better English,

and are much better bred.”

And again, in the fourth Drapier’s Letter, we have the following:—

“A short paper, printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports Mr.

Wood to say ‘that he wonders at the impudence and insolence of the

Irish, in refusing his coin.’ When, by the way, it is the true

English people of Ireland who refuse it, although we take it for

granted that the Irish will do so too whenever they are

asked.”—SCOTT’S _Swift_, vol. iv, p. 143.

He goes further, in a good-humoured satirical paper, _On Barbarous

Denominations in Ireland_, where (after abusing, as he was wont, the

Scotch cadence, as well as expression), he advances to the “_Irish

brogue_”, and speaking of the “censure” which it brings down, says:—

“And what is yet worse, it is too well known that the bad

consequence of this opinion affects those among us who are not the

least liable to such reproaches farther than the misfortune of being

born in Ireland, although of English parents, and whose education

has been chiefly in that kingdom.”—Ibid. vol. vii, p. 149.

But, indeed, if we are to make _anything_ of Race at all, we must

call that man an Englishman whose father comes from an old Yorkshire

family, and his mother from an old Leicestershire one!

36 “The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with that of

his writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one day at a

sheriff’s feast, who amongst other toasts called out to him, ‘Mr.

Dean. The trade of Ireland!’ he answered quick: ‘Sir, I drink no

memories!’

“Happening to be in company with a petulant young man who prided

himself on saying pert things ... and who cried out, ‘You must know,

Mr. Dean, that I set up for a wit?’ ‘Do you so?’ says the Dean.

‘Take my advice, and sit down again!’

“At another time, being in company, where a lady whisking her long

train [long trains were then in fashion] swept down a fine fiddle

and broke it; Swift cried out—

Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae!”

—DR. DELANY, _Observations upon Lord Orrery’s __“__Remarks, &c. of

Swift__”_. London, 1754.

37 “Don’t you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir William Temple

would look cold and out of humour for three or four days, and I used

to suspect a hundred reasons? I have plucked up my spirits since

then, faith; he spoiled a fine gentleman.”—_Journal to Stella._

38 “The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, and

fortunate in their expression, when they placed a man’s happiness in

the tranquillity of his mind and indolence of body; for while we are

composed of both, I doubt both must have a share in the good or ill

we feel. As men of several languages say the same things in very

different words, so in several ages, countries, constitutions of

laws and religion, the same thing seems to be meant by very

different expressions; what is called by the Stoics apathy, or

dispassion; by the sceptics, indisturbance; by the Molinists,

quietism; by common men, peace of conscience,—seems all to mean but

great tranquillity of mind.... For this reason Epicurus passed his

life wholly in his garden: there he studied, there he exercised,

there he taught his philosophy; and, indeed, no other sort of abode

seems to contribute so much to both the tranquillity of mind and

indolence of body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of

the air, the pleasantness of smell, the verdure of plants, the

cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise of working or walking,

but, above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, seem

equally to favour and improve both contemplation and health, the

enjoyment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease

both of the body and mind.... Where Paradise was has been much

debated, and little agreed; but what sort of place is meant by it

may perhaps easier be conjectured. It seems to have been a Persian

word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors mention it as what was

much in use and delight among the kings of those eastern countries.

Strabo describing Jericho: ‘Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtae sunt

etiam ahae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio

stadiorum centum, totus irriguus: ibi est Regis Balsami

paradisus.’ ”—_Essay on Gardens._

In the same famous essay Temple speaks of a friend, whose conduct

and prudence he characteristically admires.

“I thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in

Staffordshire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend no

higher, though his soil be good enough, than to the perfection of

plums; and in these (by bestowing south walls upon them) he has very

well succeeded, which he could never have done in attempts upon

peaches and grapes; and _a good plum is certainly better than an ill

peach_.”

39 SWIFT’S THOUGHTS ON HANGING.

(_Directions to Servants._)

“To grow old in the office of a footman is the highest of all

indignities; therefore, when you find years coming on without hopes

of place at Court, a command in the army, a succession to the

stewardship, an employment in the revenue (which two last you cannot

obtain without reading and writing), or running away with your

master’s niece or daughter, I directly advise you to go upon the

road, which is the only post of honour left you: there you will meet

many of your old comrades, and live a short life and a merry one,

and making a figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some

instructions.

“The last advice I give you relates to your behaviour when you are

going to be hanged; which, either for robbing your master, for

housebreaking, or going upon the highway, or in a drunken quarrel by

killing the first man you meet, may very probably be your lot, and

is owing to one of these three qualities: either a love of good

fellowship, a generosity of mind, or too much vivacity of spirits.

Your good behaviour on this article will concern your whole

community; deny the fact with all solemnity of imprecations: a

hundred of your brethren, if they can be admitted, will attend about

the bar, and be ready upon demand to give you a character before the

Court; let nothing prevail on you to confess, but the promise of a

pardon for discovering your comrades: but I suppose all this to be

in vain; for if you escape now, your fate will be the same another

day. Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate: some

of your kind wenches will provide you with a holland shirt and white

cap, crowned with a crimson or black ribbon: take leave cheerfully

of all your friends in Newgate: mount the cart with courage; fall on

your knees; lift up your eyes; hold a book in your hands, although

you cannot read a word; deny the fact at the gallows; kiss and

forgive the hangman; and so farewell; you shall be buried in pomp at

the charge of the fraternity: the surgeon shall not touch a limb of

you; and your fame shall continue until a successor of equal renown

succeeds in your place....”

40 “He continued in Sir William Temple’s house till the death of that

great man.”—_Anecdotes of the Family of Swift_, by the DEAN.

“It has since pleased God to take this great and good person to

himself.”—Preface to _Temple’s Works_.

On all _public_ occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the same

tone. But the reader will better understand how acutely he

remembered the indignities he suffered in his household, from the

subjoined extracts from the _Journal to Stella_:—

“I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d—— ailed

him on Sunday: I made him a very proper speech; told him I observed

he was much out of temper, that I did not expect he would tell me

the cause, but would be glad to see he was in better; and one thing

I warned him of—never to appear cold to me, for I would not be

treated like a schoolboy; that I had felt too much of that in my

life already” [_meaning Sir William Temple_] &c. &c.—_Journal to

Stella._

“I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William

Temple because he might have been Secretary of State at fifty; and

here is a young fellow hardly thirty in that employment.”—_Ibid._

“The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often

thought what a splutter Sir William Temple makes about being

Secretary of State.”—_Ibid._

“Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is now

quite well. I was playing at _one-and-thirty_ with him and his

family the other night. He gave us all twelvepence a piece to begin

with; it put me in mind of Sir William Temple.”—_Ibid._

“I thought I saw Jack Temple [_nephew to Sir William_] and his wife

pass by me to-day in their coach; but I took no notice of them. I am

glad I have wholly shaken off that family.”—_S. to S. Sept., 1710._

41 “Swift must be allowed,” says Dr. Johnson, “for a time, to have

dictated the political opinions of the English nation.”

A conversation on the Dean’s pamphlets excited one of the Doctor’s

liveliest sallies. “One, in particular, praised his _Conduct of the

Allies_.—Johnson: ‘Sir, his _Conduct of the Allies_ is a performance

of very little ability.... Why, sir, Tom Davies might have written

the _Conduct of the Allies_!’ ”—BOSWELL’S _Life of Johnson_.

42 “Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the first time,

it was his custom to try their tempers and disposition by some

abrupt question that bore the appearance of rudeness. If this were

well taken, and answered with good humour, he afterwards made amends

by his civilities. But if he saw any marks of resentment, from

alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he dropped all further

intercourse with the party. This will be illustrated by an anecdote

of that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. After supper, the Dean

having decanted a bottle of wine, poured what remained into a glass,

and seeing it was muddy, presented it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it.

‘For,’ said he, ‘I always keep some poor parson to drink the foul

wine for me.’ Mr. Pilkington, entering into his humour, thanked him,

and told him ‘he did not know the difference, but was glad to get a

glass at any rate.’ ‘Why then,’ said the Dean, ‘you shan’t, for I’ll

drink it myself. Why, —— take you, you are wiser than a paltry

curate whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago; for upon my

making the same speech to him, he said, he did not understand such

usage, and so walked off without his dinner. By the same token, I

told the gentleman who recommended him to me, that the fellow was a

blockhead, and I had done with him.’ ”—SHERIDAN’S _Life of Swift_.

43 FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF CASHELL.

“Cashell, May 31st, 1735

“DEAR SIR,—

“I have been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, that I am

resolved to have no more, especially where I am likely to be

overmatched; and as I have some reason to hope what is past will be

forgotten, I confess I did endeavour in my last to put the best

colour I could think of upon a very bad cause. My friends judge

right of my idleness; but, in reality, it has hitherto proceeded

from a hurry and confusion, arising from a thousand unlucky

unforeseen accidents rather than mere sloth. I have but one

troublesome affair now upon my hands, which, by the help of the

prime serjeant, I hope soon to get rid of; and then you shall see me

a true Irish bishop. Sir James Ware has made a very useful

collection of the memorable actions of my predecessors. He tells me,

they were born in such a town of England or Ireland; were

consecrated such a year; and, if not translated, were buried in the

Cathedral church, either on the north or south side. Whence I

conclude, that a good bishop has nothing more to do than to eat,

drink, grow fat, rich, and die; which laudable example I propose for

the remainder of my life to follow; for to tell you the truth, I

have for these four or five years past met with so much treachery,

baseness, and ingratitude among mankind, that I can hardly think it

incumbent on any man to endeavour to do good to so perverse a

generation.

“I am truly concerned at the account you give me of your health.

Without doubt a southern ramble will prove the best remedy you can

take to recover your flesh; and I do not know, except in one stage,

where you can choose a road so suited to your circumstances, as from

Dublin hither. You have to Kilkenny a turnpike and good inns, at

every ten or twelve miles’ end. From Kilkenny hither is twenty long

miles, bad road, and no inns at all: but I have an expedient for

you. At the foot of a very high hill, just midway, there lives in a

neat thatched cabin, a parson, who is not poor; his wife is allowed

to be the best little woman in the world. Her chickens are the

fattest, and her ale the best in all the country. Besides, the

parson has a little cellar of his own, of which he keeps the key,

where he always has a hogshead of the best wine that can be got, in

bottles well corked, upon their side; and he cleans, and pulls out

the cork better, I think, than Robin. Here I design to meet you with

a coach; if you be tired, you shall stay all night; if not, after

dinner we will set out about four, and be at Cashell by nine; and by

going through fields and by-ways, which the parson will show us, we

shall escape all the rocky and stony roads that lie between this

place and that, which are certainly very bad. I hope you will be so

kind as to let me know a post or two before you set out, the very

day you will be at Kilkenny, that I may have all things prepared for

you. It may be, if you ask him, Cope will come: he will do nothing

for me. Therefore, depending upon your positive promise, I shall add

no more arguments to persuade you, and am, with the greatest truth,

your most faithful and obedient servant,

“THEO. CASHELL.”

44 “Mr. Swift lived with him [Sir William Temple] some time, but

resolving to settle himself in some way of living, was inclined to

take orders. However, although his fortune was very small, he had a

scruple of entering into the Church merely for support.”—_Anecdotes

of the Family of Swift_, by the DEAN.

45 “Dr. Swift had a natural severity of face, which even his smiles

could never soften, or his utmost gaiety render placid and serene;

but when that sternness of visage was increased by rage, it is

scarce possible to imagine looks or features that carried in them

more terror and austerity.”—ORRERY.

46 “London, April 10th, 1713.

“Lady Masham’s eldest boy is very ill: I doubt he will not live; and

she stays at Kensington to nurse him, which vexes us all. She is so

excessively fond, it makes me mad. She should never leave the queen,

but leave everything, to stick to what is so much the interest of

the public, as well as her own....”—_Journal._

47 “My health is somewhat mended, but at best I have an ill head and an

aching heart.”—_In May, 1719._

48 Perhaps the most melancholy satire in the whole of the dreadful

book, is the description of the very old people in the Voyage to

Laputa. At Lugnag, Gulliver hears of some persons who never die,

called the Struldbrugs, and expressing a wish to become acquainted

with men who must have so much learning and experience, his

colloquist describes the Struldbrugs to him.

“He said, They commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty years

old, after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected,

increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from

their own confession: for otherwise there not being above two or

three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a

general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is

reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only

all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more,

which arose from the prospect of never dying. They were not only

opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but

incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which

never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires

are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their

envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort

and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find

themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever

they see a funeral, they lament, and repent that others are gone to

a harbour of rest, to which they themselves never can hope to

arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned

and observed in their youth and middle age, and even that is very

imperfect. And for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer

to depend on common tradition than upon their best recollections.

The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to

dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity

and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in

others.

“If a Struldbrug happened to marry one of his own kind, the marriage

is dissolved of course, by the courtesy of the kingdom, as soon as

the younger of the two comes to be fourscore. For the law thinks it

to be a reasonable indulgence that those who are condemned, without

any fault of their own, to a perpetual continuance in the world,

should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife.

“As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are

looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their

estates, only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and

the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that

period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or

profit, they cannot purchase lands or take leases, neither are they

allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not

even for the decision of meers and bounds.