The Reminiscences, and the historical memoirs of the last century, afford "damning proofs" of the immorality which flows in the veins of the Guelphs. George I. had Count Konismark inhumanly murdered, and his body crammed under the floor of the Electoral Princess's dressing-room. He hated his son, merely because that prince showed a filial attachment to his mother, whom he cordially detested; on his Majesty's death, the Queen found in his cabinet a plot to seize her son and convey him to America; or, in plain English, to the bottom of the sea! George II.'s first mistress was Mrs. Howard (Lady Suffolk,) whom he forced from her husband. Howard went one night to the quadrangle of St. James's, and loudly demanded his frail spouse, before the guards and all the courtiers. At length, the king negociated with the obstreperous husband, and purchased his wife and silence with a pension of 1200l. a year!

The eventful reign of George III. was checkered by all the horrors of war abroad, and the imbecility of his administration at home; his continua! aim at arbitrary power through corrupt parliaments, his natural stupidity and obstinacy, have made his long reign one series of blunders and misfortunes; and his private life was totally barren of incidents which reflect honour on the heart and understanding. The most graceless profligacy and profusion were introduced into every department of state; and, to use the language of Ju

nius, even Charles II. would have blushed at that open encouragement, at those eager meretricious caresses, with which every species of private vice and public prostitution was received at St. James's. The conduct of his late Majesty to those brilliant ornaments of the church, Watson and Paley, showed to what extent he cherished tory principles, and hated whiggism in all its forms. When the subtle enemy of religion and virtue basked in the royal favour, these great men, who had defended Christianity against Gibbon and Paine, were treated with contempt and neglect by their sage and pious sovereign. The disgraceful persecution of Wilkes, argued not only an obstinate attachment to despotic measures, but a want of those qualities of worldly wisdom and practical skill in warding off danger, in which the mystery of king-craft chiefly consists. "The rays of royal indignation collected upon him (says Junius,) served only to illuminate, and not to consume."

Since I have been here, I have seen the members of that precious family, who now "lord it over" the English, nation, as Win. Jenkins says, "I have seen the sweet princes, the hillyfents, and pye-bald ass, and all the rest of the royal family!" The extravagance and disorders of the Prince of Wales, are too well known to require any elucidation. In 1787, an assurance was given by George III., that the prince, (who had obtained a large pecuniary grant to gratify the cravings and wild waste

of heedless profusion,) would be more moderate in the future, and that he would no longer trouble parliament for the payment of his debts. But, not long afterwards, it appeared that he had contracted a debt of not less than six hundred thousand pounds!

Before his present Majesty was made Regent, he sullied his character by his profligacy, and by those infamous post obit notes which were drawn by him, payable after his father's death; some of them were sold at auction, and others sent over to collect money in France and Holland-and, when the dupes of this disgraceful swindling insisted on the fulfilment of the conditions, they were either effectually silenced at home, or sent over to France to perish by the cannibals of the Reign of Terror! The career of the Duke of York, Bishop of Osnaburgh, has been marked by every dreadful excess, of which the anecdotes of Mrs. Clarke and Jordan are pretty illustrations. But his late conduct about the annuity, is the most contemptible transaction of his life. In a time of unexampled distress, 10,000l. were voted to him for superintending the establishment of his afflicted parent-and the very same evening, the unnatural wretch lost this annuity at a gaming table!! The remainder of the royal brotherhood (except the duke of Sussex,) do not possess a single ray of understanding, and not even the pretensions to common morality or decency.

"Il y a des mots," says Fontenelle, "qui hurlent de surprise et d'effroi de se trouver unis ensemble"such, for instance, are monarchy and liberty, nobility and equality. English writers are continually dinning one's ears about the freedom which " pours such a flood of splendour" over their country; but is not liberty perfectly inconsistent with a government which presents a detail of the most corrupt practices, of heedless profusion and of personal ambition, under the thin veil of public spirit? With a parliament of land-holders and stockholders, enacting laws to keep up the price of the commodities in which they deal, and crushing the people with three millions of taxes, to increase the security of the money-lenders?—a parliament in which all attempts to operate a reform are opposed with the most insulting pertinacity? Which lays the heaviest impositions on the poorest classes, and pours the public treasure into a reservoir irretentive and wasteful as the sieve of the Danaides? What must be the condition of that government, whose criminal code is more terrible than that of Draco, whose dungeons and workhouses

"When some of the fundamental maxims of a government are avowed fictions, it is difficult to know what to touch; when a tower is partly sustained by the ivy that has grown out of its ruins, the removal of a weed may loosen a key-stone, and shatter the whole fabric." N. A. REVIEW, 1821.

† More merciless than Draco, or than those Inquisitors who are never mentioned in this country without an abhorrent expression of real or affected humanity, the commercial legislators

are crowded with thousands of victims, whose transportations to Botany Bay are sufficient to populate a desert country, and whose Game Laws are so revolting to humanity, that, in order to enforce them, the most sanguinary measures are resorted to by the owners of the game?

LETTER XLV.

Ipsâ varietate tentamus efficere, ut alia aliis, quædam fortasse omnibus, placeant. PLINY.

IN London, there are no early risers, except those who have to seek the means of subsistence during the day. In the morning all is calm-the milk-women are seen gliding about the streets, with pails full of a white fluid, which they dignify by the name of milk; they ring at the doors with merciless pulls to hasten the servant girls, who think it " a custom more honoured in the breach than the observance;" at length they come down with drowsy eyes, to receive the family allowance. The first considerable stir is the drum and military music of the Guards, marching from their barracks to Hyde Park, preceded by a couple of tall negroes, striking high, gracefully and strong, the resounding cymbal. Afterwards the news

of England, are satisfied with nothing but the life of the offender who sins against the Bank, which is their Holy of Holies. ESPRIELLA'S Letters.