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GEORGE THE FOURTH.

of the Eldon family afterwards wore.

N 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

You know how, when

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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 recognisable 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 a 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 recognise 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, underwaistcoats, more underwaistcoats, 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 Saint 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-hatin dragoon uniform-in Windsor uniform-in a field-marshal's

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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, townhalls, and private friends. I remember as a young man how almost every dining-room had his portrait.

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.

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