-no monarch, not Henri Quatre, not Maria Theresa, not even our own Elizabeth, were ever more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people that they ruled. How strong

and real became the sympathy felt for his health, and the confidence reposed in his integrity! How many millions were looking up to him with a feeling scarcely short of filial! Who that beheld, even in childhood, can forget (it is one of my own childhood's earliest and not least welcome recollections) the warm and enthusiastic burst of loyal affection with which the whole nation, without distinction of party, hailed the jubilee,-the fiftieth anniversary of the accession of him whom every tongue, in homely but heartfelt language, then proclaimed as "the good old King!"

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That His Majesty's predilection for the Earl of Bute was an error, I have already acknowledged. It is undoubtedly the part of a wise Sovereign on his accession to dismiss any partiality not founded on the public service. Yet still it should be borne in mind that this partiality of George the Third had its root in considerable virtues. Affection and duty to his parent,-esteem for those whom she mainly trusted,—regard for the servants who had faithfully adhered to his father and himself in their days of Court disfavour,-return for professions of unbounded attachment, the kindness of long-continued intimacy, the generous warmth of friendship and of youth, such feelings might have bound even a greater King than George the Third to even a much worse favourite than Bute.

From the first moment of the new reign the ascendency of Bute had been foreseen and foretold. Only a few days afterwards a hand-bill was affixed to the Royal Exchange, with these words: "No petticoat government, "-no Scotch favourite,-no Lord George Sackville! Of the second of these surmises confirmation was not, indeed, slow in coming. On the next morning but one after his accession the King directed that his brother, Edward Duke of York, and his Groom of the Stole, Lord Bute, should be sworn of the Privy Council; and Bute appears henceforward to have been consulted on all the principal affairs. The quick-eyed tribe of Courtiers. at once perceived that this was the channel through

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which the Royal favours would most probably flow, and to which their own applications would most wisely be addressed.

But while the King thus indulged his predilection towards the friend of his early years, he received all his grandfather's Ministers with cordial kindness, and pressed them to continue in his service. Pitt declared his willingness to remain on the same footing as before. Newcastle, now sixty-six years of age, made at first a show of resignation, with a view, no doubt, of enhancing his importance, but as he took care to consult only such followers and expectants as had an interest in his stay, he did not fail to receive earnest entreaties in support of his real inclinations, and magnanimously consented to resume the Treasury. Nay, so keen was he at this very time in his race for Court favour against his colleagues, that he sent most abject messages to Bute, hoping to see him in some high employment, and declaring his own readiness to serve not only with but under him.* Such meanness might well suffice to disarm the Favourite's envy, and to turn it against Pitt.

During Newcastle's ascendency in the former reign it may be recollected that friendship was felt, or at least professed,-between Pitt and Bute. But this friendship had cooled in the case of Lord George Sackville, whom Pitt had refused to shield in the manner Bute desired, and this friendship was now severed by the variations of political affairs, "variations" which, as Chesterfield says on another occasion, "know no friends, relations, or acquaintances." It was now become the question, — according to a lady's jest at the time, what the King should burn in his chamber, whether Scotch-coal, Newcastle-coal, or pit-coal.

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On the 31st of October the King highly gratified the more serious portion of his people by a Proclamation

* See the minutes of a private conference between Dodington and Lord Bute in Dodington's Diary, December 27. 1760. A letter from H. Walpole to G. Montagu (October 31. 1760), and another from Sir J. Yorke to Mr. Mitchell (Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 83.), throw some further light on these transactions, -the latter perhaps rather a beautifying or Claude Lorraine light.

† Lord Chesterfield's Characters, "the Duke of Newcastle."

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"for the encouragement of piety and virtue, and for pre"venting and punishing of vice, profaneness, and immorality." Such Proclamations are worth little more than the paper they are written on when not consonant to the personal conduct of the Sovereign, but in this case the document was happily upheld by half a century of undeviating Royal example. It was also observed, with satisfaction, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, proud of so promising a pupil, and having no longer a Lady Yarmouth to encounter, had become frequent in attendance at the Court.

Two other measures of the King at this time, being much misunderstood, were often complained of. The Prayer of the Liturgy, in which the Duke of Cumberland and Princess Amelia had heretofore been specially named, was now altered, so as only to include them in the general terms, —" and all the Royal Family." Let it be observed, that such special mention in the public worship must be regulated by proximity to the person of the Sovereign, and that the King's uncle and aunt could only,— if named at all, be placed after his numerous brothers and sisters. So far then from this omission being, as was afterwards alleged, a studied insult to the Duke of Cumberland, it is quoted by a writer of the time as a "delicacy of attention.". "The King," says Horace Walpole, "would not permit any body but the Princess (Dowager) to be named in the prayers, because the "Duke of Cumberland must have been put back for the "Duke of York."*

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The second measure to which I have referred was the gift of the Rangership of Richmond Park to Lord Bute, in the place of Princess Amelia. It was boldly asserted, that the gratification of the Favourite and the mortification of the Princess, were equal motives for the change; but in truth Her Royal Highness held the appointment for life, and could not have been divested of it without her full consent. Some time back she had attempted, in an arbitrary manner, to close a public right of way through

* To Sir H. Mann, November 1. 1760. The second series of these letters, which was published in 1843, and which extends from 1760 to 1776, though less important than the first, is of considerable interest and value.

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the domain. A jury, when appealed to, had decided against her pretensions; the residence where she had made herself unpopular soon became distasteful to her; and she cheerfully resigned it, on receiving an ample equivalent.* - In both these cases, therefore, the clamour against Bute appears destitute of any solid foundation.

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Meanwhile His late Majesty's will had been opened. He had bequeathed a cabinet containing 10,000l. to Lady Yarmouth, and named his three surviving children, the Duke of Cumberland, the Princess Amelia, and the Princess of Hesse as joint heirs to his floating balance. But his savings, which at one time must have been immense, had of late, as we have seen, gone to the defence of his Electorate. -On the 11th of November his obsequies took place at Westminster Abbey, and with Regal splendour. Of this mournful scene Horace Walpole, who was present, has left us a striking account. "The pro"cession through a line of footguards, every seventh man bearing a torch, the horse-guards lining the outside, "their officers, with drawn sabres and crape sashes, on horseback, the drums muffled, the fifes, bells tolling, "and minute guns,- all this was very solemn; but the "charm was the entrance of the Abbey, where we were "received by the Dean and Chapter in rich robes, the "choir and almsmen bearing torches; the whole Abbey being so illuminated that we saw it to greater advantage than by day, -the tombs, long aisles, and fretted "roof, all appearing distinctly.... The Bishop read "sadly, and blundered in the prayers. . . . The real se"rious part was the figure of the Duke of Cumberland,

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heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances. "... Attending the funeral of a father could not be "pleasant; his leg extremely bad, yet forced to stand 66 upon it near two hours; his face bloated and distorted "with his late paralytic stroke, which has affected, too, "one of his eyes, and placed over the mouth of the vault "into which, in all probability, he must himself so soon "descend; -think how unpleasant a situation! He bore "it all with a firm and unaffected countenance. This

See a note to Mr. Adolphus's History of England from the Accession of George III., vol. i. p. 22. ed. 1840.

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grave scene was fully contrasted by the burlesque Duke "of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying the moment "he came into the chapel, and flung himself back in a "stall, the Archbishop hovering over him with a smelling bottle; but in two minutes his curiosity got the "better of his hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel with "his glass to spy who was or was not there,-spying with one hand and mopping his eyes with the other. . . . "It was very theatric to look down into the vault where "the coffin lay attended by mourners with lights.'

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The Parliament, which had been prorogued for a few days on account of the demise of the Crown, was on the 18th of November opened by the King. Never, it was remarked, had there been greater crowds at such a ceremony, nor louder acclamations. The Royal Speech had been drawn up by Lord Hardwicke, and revised by Pitt†; but when complete His Majesty is said to have added with his own hand a paragraph as follows: "Born and "educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton; "and the peculiar happiness of my life will ever consist "in promoting the welfare of a people whose loyalty and warm attachment to me I consider as the greatest and most permanent security of my throne."-Such cordial language met with no less cordial responses from both Houses. "What a lustre,” exclaim the Lords, "does it "cast upon the name of Briton, when you, Sir, are pleased to esteem it among your glories!". "We acknowledge," say the Commons, "with the liveliest sen"timents of duty, gratitude, and exultation of mind, "these most affecting and animating words.". Nevertheless, these words did not wholly escape animadversion out of doors; some captious critics contended that they implied, and were intended to imply, a censure against the late reign.

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I have heard it related, but on no very clear or certain authority, that the King had in the first place written the word "Englishman," and that Lord Bute altered it to "Briton."

This lively

*To George Montagu, Esq., November 13. 1760. description may be compared with the dry official statement in the Annual Register for 1760, part i. p. 179.

† Chatham Correspondence, voi. ii. p. 82.