witnessed, when manners, among the higher ranks, tended towards general dissoluteness, that every thing within the precincts of the court should be kept thus perfectly pure. The King's dutiful affection for a partner possess ed rather of solid than engaging qualities, and his strict attention to the education of a numerous progeny, were equally exemplary. At eight in the morning he regularly attended divine service in the royal chapel, when the solemnity of his deportment, and the fervour of his responses, were particularly observed. Yet amid these strong impressions of religion, joined to particular attachment to the Church of England, he was always a friend to toleration. He cordially concurred in the numerous mitigations which took place during his reign of the penal statutes against dissenters, without excepting Roman Catholics. He extended a full pardon to a priest of this persuasion who had been condemned, on an obsolete law, for the saying of mass. His ultimate resist ance to the full extension of political privileges of this body, is allowed on all hands to have been founded on the most conscientious scruple.

marginal notes, marked by reflection and strong sense. Those who were in the habit of conversing with him on business, declared, that his manner then bore no marks of that frivolity which sometimes prevailed in his ordinary discourse. He spoke with dignity and fluency; and shewed himself completely master of every subject which came under consideration.

The King's understanding has been a subject of doubt and criticism. It is now generally allowed to have been respectable. He thoroughly under stood public business, and paid constant and unremitting attention to it. At Windsor, his usual residence, papers and communications relative to matters of state, were transmitted to him by Ministers early in the morn ing. He rose at six, and usually dis patched the greater part of them before breakfast. When any thing occurred in the course of the day, an express was sent out, to which he paid immediate attention. Nothing submitted to him was passed over in a hasty or indifferent manner. Every paper examined by him contained

George III. has not been distintinguished either as literary, or a patron of literature. In letters from his mother, the Princess Dowager, preserved in the Diary of Bubb Doddington, he is said to be an honest boy, but not apparently to learn much from his tutors. He grew up, accordingly, with little knowledge of Latin, and less of Greek; though he spoke with fluency several modern languages. Notwithstanding the distinguished exceptions of Johnson and Beattie, the eminent authors who illustrated his reign, depended chiefly for patronage on public favour. Yet there were several important respects in which the King shewed his value for knowledge. He collected, singly, the most extensive library that perhaps ever was accumulated by any one individual. Several gentlemen were continually employed, both at home and abroad, in procuring_for him the most valuable works. One of these informed the present writer, that he had instructions to procure only useful books, and editions of sterling value, to the exclusion of those which had only rarity to recommend them. The King's favourite studies were theology, history, and voyages and travels. These accordingly were the branches in which the library was richest. The collection of maps and charts was also particularly extensive. We have been assured, on the above authority, that there was not a better geographer in his dominions than the King himself. He is said, however,

to have been fond of learning the contents of books rather by the information of persons employed to read them for the purpose, than by reading them himself. A still more useful zeal was displayed in promoting the diffusion of knowledge among the lowest class of his subjects. The speech is recorded of him, that he hoped the day might come, in which every poor child in his dominions might be able to read its Bible. He took under his immediate patronage the plan of facilitating instruction invented by Lancaster; and it is remarkable, that he always continued this patronage, even after the Church of England had transferred theirs exclusively to the system of Bell. The liberal patronage of their Majesties was also extended to the establishment of Sunday Schools, for the religious education of the poor.

Among the useful objects to which the attention of the King was earnestly directed, agriculture was prominent. Indeed the occupations of a practical farmer were pursued by him as a favourite amusement, without any regard to the ridicule at tempted to be thrown by certain wits on this humble recreation. Anxious to instil the same taste into his offspring, he assigned to each of the young princes a spot of ground, which they sowed and reaped with their own hands. His Majesty justly understood the functions of a royal farmer, in endeavouring, by example and experiment, to improve the processes by which the art was conducted. He prided himself particularly on his stock, and in improving the quality of British wool by the importation of the finest Merino breeds. There are preserved three letters, sent by the King to the Annals of Agriculture, under the signature of Ralph Robinson. They relate to the methods employed by Mr Duckett,

an

improving farmer in his neighbourhood, and are written in a plain, perspicuous, not very inelegant style. Such an example could not but go far in effacing the ignoble ideas which half a century ago were barbarously attached to this most useful pursuit ; and in rendering the taste, as it has since become, general among great proprietors.-Another useful pursuit was still more effectively promoted by royal influence. The voyages of discovery, particularly those of Cook, which gave a lustre to the reign of his Majesty, originated chiefly in the personal interest taken by himself in these spirited undertakings.

It has already been observed, that the King's strict principle, and his aversion to dissolute pleasures, were not attended with any forbidding austerity. He possessed even a lively taste for most liberal and elegant amusements. He took particular pleasure in music; and occasionally performed himself on the piano-forte. Handel was his favourite composer; and German music was generally preferred to the Italian. The sister art of painting was largely indebted to his patronage for the flourishing state to which it has now reached. Reynolds and West, its two greatest ornaments, both experienced his favour; and it was to the ample employment afforded to the latter in the royal palaces, that he was enabled to rise to the highest place in his art. Their Majesties were also fond of dramatic entertainments, and frequently honoured the two national theatres with their presence.

The King, in several particulars, displayed a magnanimity which seems to belong only to a great mind. His personal courage was fully proved on occasion of two frantic attempts made upon his life. The first was by Margaret Nicholson, who attempted to stab him as he alighted from his car

riage at St James's; the other by Hatfield, who fired a pistol at his head from the pit of Drury-Lane Theatre. The composure displayed on this last occasion was very remarkable. He not only witnessed the representation with perfect tranquillity, but took his accustomed doze of a few minutes between the play and the farce. In the outrageous attack made by the mob on his way to Parliament in 1795, the King appeared the most unmoved of all his train; and he delivered his opening speech with, if possible, more than usual distinctness and correctness. Striking magnanimity was also displayed in his feelings and conduct towards the remnants of the unfortunate house of Stuart. The particulars are too well known to need repetition. No monarch was ever exposed, in an equal degree, to the shafts of personal satire. The invective of Wilkes, and the ridicule of Wolcot, continued for years unremittingly directed against his person. To all these attacks the King remained proof to a degree which reflects uncommon credit upon him. He could even despise the last, though the most trying of all to the usual frailty of human nature. His Majesty prohibited all prosecution of Wolcot, although the indecorous nature of many of his sallies would have afforded probably a successful ground for it.

It is recorded, in one of his morning walks through Windsor, he happened to enter a bookseller's shop, and began to read. The master, who was not so early, hastened in, and was in no small dismay when he found his Majesty employed upon Paine's Rights of Man; and, particularly, that he had opened the book at the place where he himself was described as unfit to perform the office of a parish constable. The King, however, in

tently read on; and the bookseller remained in agony, till his visitor, coming to a pause, laid down the book, and began to enter into conversation with his accustomed good humour; nor were the bookseller's fears of any future visitation in consequence, ever realized.

George III. was in his youth accounted handsome. He was in stature above the middle size-his countenance florid-his eyes blue-his hair so light as to approach the colour of white-his manner, frank, open, and gracious, pleased the English, who had been accustomed to German reserve and stateliness in his two immediate predecessors. With those who surrounded or were introduced to him, he entered readily into familiar conversation. He had even the art of persuading them, that they were the exclusive objects of his attention. At the same time, his manners are represented as somewhat deficient in grace and dignity. He spoke hurriedly, putting numerous questions, often twice or thrice repeated, and without always waiting for an answer. In his hours of relaxation, he delighted in a species of broad humour, and indulged in boisterous laughter at his own jokes, which were not always marked by the most poignant wit. Hence was derived to superficial spectators an unfavourable impression of his understanding; the injustice of which was perceived by those who saw him in his serious moments, and his hours of business. A great exaggeration, however, was probably made on both sides, when he was described as having the ablest mind and the awkwardest manner in the British dominions. On the whole, we may confidently pronounce, that the British sceptre has been swayed by only a few greater Kings; by none more dis

tinguished for conscientiousness in public, and purity in private life. The long and deep shade which covered the close of his career, and those great events, of the lapse of which he was so deeply unconscious, softened all feelings of party and personal disappointment, and gave him, in the eyes of the nation, almost a sacred charac

ter.

The death of the King was immediately followed by the accession of George IV., which took place with all the usual formalities, and amid expressions of general satisfaction. The details, consisting of mere matters of ceremony, are given in the Chronicle.

The death of the King had been only a short time preceded by that of his fourth son, the Duke of Kent. This event was the subject of very deep regret. The Prince had redeemed some youthful faults, and acquired universal esteem, by the most extraordinary and unremitting exertions in support of all those beneficent plans and institutions with which the age teems. To those, latterly, almost his whole time appears to have been devoted. The general correctness of his domestic life, and the virtues and connexions of his august spouse, heightened the public esteem and regret.

THE emotion caused by the death of George III., and the commencement of a new reign, had scarcely subsided, when other, and very different events, forced themselves on public attention. The discontent, which had so long been deeply and secretly fermenting, exploded with such violence, as to diffuse for some time a very serious alarm. The general distress of the labouring classes presented, as usual, a state of things highly favourable to the designs of the disaffected; while the disappointed and the sufferers in former abortive attempts, becoming always more fierce and embittered, threw aside at last that remnant of moderation to which they considered their former failures as imputable, and determined to proceed at once to the most violent extremities.

London, which contains always a population ready for every criminal and desperate enterprize, afforded the first theatre of action. Thistlewood, who, by legal distinctions, rather than by any proof of innocence, had escaped the effects of a former tumult, emboldened by impunity, and at the

VOL. XII. Part I.

same time rendered desperate by the state of his private affairs, formed a scheme the most daring and atrocious which had been witnessed by England since the era of the Gunpowder Plot. From amid the obscure recesses of the metropolis he collected a small band, of individuals, not of the very lowest rank, but whose ruined circumstances caused them to "regard the world as not their friend, nor the world's law," and rendered them fit instruments for such a deed of darkness. To them he disclosed this new scheme-more daring than had ever entered the mind of the most infuriate enemies of social order. It was founded on the following circumstances :

The Ministers of the Crown are accustomed, from time to time, to cement their union by that grand English rallying point-a dinner; to which the members of that high confidential body, entitled the Cabinet, are alone admitted. It was proposed to seize one of these occasions. An armed band might be organized, which, though unfit to cope with any regular or duly assembled force, could surprise a few unarmed and

B