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It is a people that do err in their hearts, for they have not known MY ways."

was I grieved with this generation, and said: | competent to do any official act. Here was Mr. Addington, Prime Minister de jure. Here was Mr. Pitt, Prime Minister de facto. It was only by the entire cordiality at this time between the two statesmen that confusion was avoided. They held several familiar conferences on the painful, but, as it seemed, unavoidable and close-impending question of a Regency.*

On the Monday the king was for many hours without speaking, and, it would seem, unconscious of what passed around him. Towards the evening he came to himself, and then said, "I am better now, but I will remain true to the Church." Thus at every intermission of his malady his mind at once reverted to the first cause of his distress. By an order of the Privy Council, public prayers were offered up for his majesty's recovery, and the three Doctors Willis were summoned to his aid.

On the 2d of March there was a crisis in the king's disorder. His majesty was so ill that his life was almost despaired of; but having sunk into sleep, which continued for some hours, he awoke much refreshed, and from that time steadily mended. "On the whole," says Mr. Rose in his journal of the 3d, "the alteration for the better appeared to be most extraordinary. The king was thought so well that the queen and the princesses took an airing in their carriages. This account was brought to Mr. Pitt, while in bed, before eight o'clock, by Mr. AddingMr. Addington came again ton.

On Tuesday, the 24th, however, Lord Loughborough, as still holding the Great Seal, thought himself justified by the public exigency, in going to Buckingham Palace and obtaining the king's signature to a Commission for giving the Royal Assent to an Act of Parliament. That Act was for the repeal of the Brown Bread Bill, which, as I have elsewhere shown, was passed in haste to Mr. Pitt late in the day, when I was with at the close of the preceding year, and which him, and said the accounts from the queen's had been found very mischievous in prac-house continued as favorable as possible." tice. There is no doubt that all parties now During the next two days the king's concurred in desiring its repeal, and that a health continued, though slowly, to improve. delay of that repeal would have been injuri- Nevertheless, on the 5th Pitt felt it necesous; yet even this consideration scarcely sary to consider seriously with his Treasury suffices to vindicate the course which, under intimates how far it would be impossible to such circumstances, the chancellor pursued. prolong the Interregnum. It was absolutely On returning from the palace, his lordship requisite to obtain, without much further said that when he had carried the Brown delay, the royal sanction to the foreign Bread Act to the king, his majesty was in despatches, and the royal assent to the Parthe possession of his understanding. But liamentary Bills. Pitt came to the concluthis was only his lordship's public declara- sion that unless his majesty should be quite tion. To Mr. Rose, as to a private friend, well before the 12th, that was the latest day he owned that he had not seen the king at to which he could defer an examination of all. He had sent in the Commission to the physicians either before the Privy Counhis majesty by Dr. Willis, who brought it eil or the House of Commons. In that case back signed, and told him that there would a Regency Bill might be brought in on the be no difficulty in obtaining the royal signa- 14th, and might pass by the 23d. This was ture to a dozen papers respecting which no on the supposition that it would be unopdetailed statements were necessary. posed. And Mr. Pitt thought that it would not be safe to defer the inquiry of the physicians even till the 12th, unless it could be ascertained that no delay would be created.

During many days the king's malady did not abate. During many days he was unable to see his ministers, either the late or the new, or even the queen and the princesses. Meanwhile the Government was in a most anomalous, nay, unprecedented state. Here was one Cabinet in progress of formation, and sanctioned by the king. Here was another Cabinet which had resigned; but still holding the seals of office, and alone

All questions of Regency, however, were set at rest by the king's convalescence. It is remarkable that the first favorable change was due to Mr. Addington, not, indeed, in his political, but rather in his filial capacity. He remembered to have heard from his *Vol. iii. p. 292, et seq.

father, the eminent physician, that a pillow to it, and that it was too plain the king was filled with hops would sometimes induce beginning to be unwell. Lord Pelham, who sleep when all other remedies had failed; played that evening with the queen, added and the experiment, being tried upon the that her anxiety was manifest, since she king, was attended with complete success. never kept her eyes off the king during the Some persons have supposed that a rumor whole time the party lasted. of this fortunate prescription gave rise to the nickname of "The Doctor," which, some months later, was almost universally applied to Mr. Addington; but I doubt whether the report was ever so prevalent as to produce that popular taunt, which was only, I conceive, a reminiscence of his father's profession.

On Friday, the 6th of March, the king, though much reduced in strength, was clear and calm in mind. He sat for some time with the queen and the princesses. He desired Dr. Thomas Willis to write an account of his convalescence to Mr. Addington, to Lord Eldon, and to Mr. Pitt. With respect to Mr. Pitt, his majesty used the following words: "Tell him I am now quite well-quite recovered from my illness; but what has he not to answer for who is the cause of my having been ill at all?" [Referring to Mr. Pitt's conduct on the Catholic question.]

Pitt was deeply affected. It had given to him and to his colleagues, who were retiring from the Cabinet, most heartfelt pain to find that their conscientious course of duty had been the means of bringing upon their royal master this heavy and unforeseen affliction. Lord Malmesbury has an entry as follows in his journal, under the date of the 25th of February: "Lord Spencer very much hurt at what has passed, and feeling a great deal for the share he has had in it; and Pitt, though too haughty to confess it, feels also a great deal." *

The king was at first attended only by his household physician. He had conceived a strong dislike to the Doctors Willis, from the treatment which they had found requisite in his malady three years before-a feeling very frequent with persons in that afflicted condition. At his urgent request, as his illness increased, another physician, Dr. Symonds, was called in. For two days his majesty's life was in danger, and for at least a week the derangement of his mind was complete. By degrees he began to rally, but more slowly and with a greater tendency to relapse than either in 1789 or 1801.*.

In May the mental state of the king continued to be a matter of anxiety. Mr. Pitt noticed some increase of agitation on the 10th and later in the month.

The Duke [of Portland] told Lord Malmesbury that he had little doubt of the king doing well. Quiet would set him right, and nothing else. Not quite so sanguine was Mrs. Harcourt, who came to see Lord Malmesbury the next day. She said that the king was apparently quite well, when speaking to his ministers, or to those who kept him a little in awe, but that to his family and dependants his language was incoherent and harsh, quite unlike his usual character. He had made capricious changes everywhere, from the lord chamberlain to the grooms and footmen. He had turned away the queen's favorite coachman, made footmen grooms, and vice-versâ: and, what was still worse, because more notorious, had removed lords of the bedchamber without a shadow of reason. All this, said Mrs. Harcourt, afflicts the royal family beyond The princesses are quite sinking

1804.-On the 12th or 13th of February, Lord Malmesbury states, the king (after having taken cold by remaining in wet clothes longer than should be) had symptoms of the gout. He could not attend on measure. the queen's birthday, though he appeared in under it. the evening at an assembly at the queen's house; he was too lame to walk without a cane; and his manner struck me as so unusual and incoherent, that I could not help remarking it to Lord Pelham, who, the next day (for I went away early) told me that he had, in consequence of my remark, attended *Vol. iii. p. 801.

The 27th of May, on which Lord Malmesbury wrote these last entries in his journal, supplied another proof that even a mere trifle might still throw the king's mind from off its balance. Going down to Windsor on the 26th, his carriage was followed some way, and loudly cheered by a party of Eton * Vol. iv. p. 119.

but quite in vain, all the arguments he could, stopping short only at the point when he feared lest he might disturb the health or the mind of his royal master." *

boys. This had such an effect upon his majesty at Weymouth. He "urged anew, majesty, that when he met a different party of the boys next morning, he said to them, "I have always been partial to your school. I have now the additional motive of gratitude for being so. In future I shall be an anti-Westminster."

A day or two prior to this interview, the king addressed a brief note to Mr. Pitt, Yet Mr. Rose, from whom we derive this which terminated with the following remark : story, declares that when on the 5th of June" His majesty's sight will not allow him to he attended a Council to kiss the king's add more, as, though he gains some ground, hand, on his appointment—which was the he can neither read what is written to him first time he had seen his majesty since his nor what he writes." recovery" the king spoke to me for about ten minutes, and I never saw him more entirely composed and collected; if anything, less hurried in his manner than usual."

1805, July 1.—His majesty was now suffering under a grievous calamity, the most grievous in this world perhaps, or second only to the mental aberrations which he had also undergone. He was beginning to lose his sight. One eye was almost entirely darkened, and the other grew less and less clear. There was a hope, but as it proved not well founded, that the advance of the cataract would leave scope hereafter for a successful operation. Meanwhile the king bore his distress with the greatest fortitude and resignation.t

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Towards the end of October, 1810, the king's mind became again disordered, and from this attack he never recovered, continuing in a state of mental incapacity until his death, which occurred at Windsor on the 29th January, 1820, in the eighty-second year of his age. All history," touchingly says the author of the "Four Georges," " 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 In a letter to Mr. Pitt, dated from Wey- her English home. The poor old father is mouth, August 26, 1804, the king says: represented in a purple gown, his snowy "As to Mr. Pitt's inquiries as to the king's beard falling over his breast-the star of his health, it is perfectly good, and the quiet of famous Order still idly shining on it. He the place and salubrity of the air must daily, was not only sightless: he became utterly increase his strength. By the advice of deaf. All light, all reason, all sound of Sir Francis Milman who is here, the king will bathe in the tepid bath, in lieu of going into the open sea. His majesty feels this a sacrifice, but will religiously stick to this advice, but does not admire the reasoning, as it is grounded on sixty-six being too far, accompanying himself on the harpsichord. advanced in life for that remedy proving efficacious."

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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

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 this heavy calamity from him, but if not, to give him resignation to submit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again fled."

*Vol. iv. p. 334.

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"The penury of writing materials, and the absence of all literary habits among the Romans before the second Punic war, forbid the idea that there could have been at that time any popular books, historical or otherwise, in general circulation. Even under the Empire, the number of copies of a book was probably very inconsiderable. It may be doubted whether there ever were a hundred copies of Virgil or Horace in existence any one time before the invention of Panting."

Mr. Merivale, in his History of the Romans under the Empire, vol. vi. p. 233, dwells upon the facilities afforded by the institution of slavery for the multiplication of copies of books, in antiquity, and he properly calls my attention to the discussion of the subject in the work of Adolf Schmidt, Geschichte der Denk-und Glaubens-Freiheit im ersten Jahrhundert der Kaiserherrschaft, (Berlin, 1847), with reference to the opinion which I had expressed in the passage above quoted.

I was acquainted with the work in question, but had forgotten the discussion to which Mr. Merivale adverts. I propose therefore to remedy my omission by an examination of the chapter in Adolf Schmidt's book, concerning Literary Intercourse and the Book-trade" (c. v. p. 109-155).

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He begins by affirming that a prejudice, founded on ignorance, prevails, even among scholars, with respect to the multiplication of books in ancient Greece and Rome; he undertakes to prove that the literary activity of antiquity was not far removed from that of our own time, and was far greater than that of the middle ages. He holds that thousands of copies of an ancient classic must have been in existence, for one to escape the destructive barbaaism of the mediæval period. This opinion, which differs widely from the ordinarily received belief on

the subject, he supports by numerous and detailed arguments, which I will proceed to state and examine.

In the first place, he calls attention to the copiousness of ancient literature, and maintains that the number of literary productions was greater in antiquity than at the present time. What modern nation, he asks, could, like the Greeks, show a list of 150 comic poets, and of 1,500 original comedies? He refers to a passage of Dionysius, who speaks of the "tens of thousands" of Greek writers on ancient Roman history ;* and to the 700,000 books attributed to the Alexandrine library.

We must, however, distinguish between the number of writers, and of their literary works, and the number of copies of each work; it is conceivable that literary productions may have been numerous, but that the number of copies of each may have been small. Every reader of Athenæus must be aware that the dramatic poets of Athens were numerous and prolific, and that the separate dissertations published by the antiquarian writers, often on very minute points, formed a large class. But when Dionysius mentions the Greek writers on early Roman history by "myriads," it is clear that he indulges in a rhetorical hyperbole ; and the argument derived from the number of books in the Alexandrine library, is not so strong as it seems at first sight. The numerical statements of the ancients were rarely founded on actual enumeration, and therefore were rarely accurate. In this case, the report varies between 700,000 and 400,000.† Even as to modern libraries, there has been much inaccuracy and much exaggeration, owing to the want of actual enumeration, as was shown by Mr. Panizzi in his evidence before the Commissioners of Inquiry into the British Museum. Moreover, we are not to suppose that "books," in the sense of the entire works of a single author, are meant. The Latin word volumen, meant either a separate roll of papyrus or parchment, or it meant a division of a work, such as a single

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proves nothing as to the number of any one collection. Two thousand is the total number of this class of writings, which the Government of Augustus was able to seize. Predictions were viewed with great jealousy by the Roman Government; the procuring of astrological or other prophecies was made a crime, and subjected to severe punishment, by the Imperial legislation.

book of Livy's History. In this context it by, or surrendered to, the Government, evidently meant rolls; and the works of a voluminous writer, such as Plato, Aristotle, Ephorus, Sophocles, or Menander, would each consist of many such rolls. From this statement, the number of separate works, or of separate writers, cannot be determined. Schmidt next calls attention to the Roman custom of readings by the author of his poetical or prose compositions, to a large audience of listeners. This practice, which prevailed to a great extent in the early part of the Empire, may prove the diffusion of literary tastes among the educated Romans; but it is unquestionable evidence of the paucity and dearness of books. Nobody who could buy a book at a moderate price, would resort to so imperfect and inconvenient a substitute as an oral communication of its contents. Accordingly, since the invention of printing, this practice has ceased.

The measure of Augustus and its results, should rather be compared with the incident at Ephesus, described in the Acts of the Apostles,* when, in consequence of St. Paul's preaching, the possessors of magical books voluntarily brought them forward, and burnt them, to the value of 50,000 pieces of silver; that is, drachmæ or denarii. If the united value of the books on magic at Ephesus amounted to 50,000 drachmas, we cannot be surprised that 2,000 copies of prop should have been found at Rome.

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The surrender of the copies of th writings in the possession of the Christians, to the Prefect of Africa, in the third century, was conducted on so large a scale, that the weaker brethren who complied with this persecuting edict, received the name of traditores.†

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After these preliminary arguments, the author advances to the material part of his case, and cites passages in which the works of Cicero, Horace, Propertius, and Martial, are described as read by the general public of Rome, and as even circulating widely in the provinces. He thinks that the copies of the works of these authors must have been reckoned, not by hundreds, but by thou- A strict perquisition for magical books. sands. In support of this view he appeals to was likewise made in the reign of Valens, the fact that Augustus seized two thousand and many persons burnt their entire libracopies of a single work, the poems of theries, lest some book should be found ir m pseudo-Sibyl, and destroyed them.† The which would support the accusation passage of Suetonius, to which reference is made, shows, however, that the seizure extended to all the unauthorized collections of prophecies which Augustus could find, and that he spared nothing except the Sibylline predictions, which had long been the official authority for the Roman State. It was a general measure, prohibiting the possession of collections of prophecies by private individuals, and requiring all copies in private hands to be given up.§ The number seized *Pages 112-116. † Page 118.

Quicquid fatidicorum librorum, Græci Latinique generis, nullis vel parum idoneis auctoribus, vulgo ferebatur, supra duo millia, contracta undique, cremavit ; ac solos retinuit Sibyllinos; hos quoque, delectu habito; condiditque duobus forulis auratis, sub Palatini Apollinis basi.-Suet. Oct. 31.

Tacitus states that Tiberius censured the authorities for receiving a new Sibylline book without sufficient caution, and proceeds thus :-"Simul commonefecit, quia multa vana sub nomine celebri vulgabantur, sanxisse Augustum, quem intra diem

informer.‡

The Emperor Severus, in like manner, collected all the writings of mystical contents from the Egyptian temples, and locked them up in the tomb of Alexander the Great at Alexandria; § and Diocletian is reported to have burnt the books of the Egyptians relative to the production of gold and silver, in order to prevent them from growing wealthy, and therefore formidable to the Romans.||

The author further appeals to an anecdote ad prætorem urbanum deferrentur neque habere privatim liceret.”—Ann. vi. 12.

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* xxxix. 19.

† See Milman's History of Christianity, vol. ii. 366-7.

Amm. Marc. xxix. 1, 2.
Dio Cass. lxxv. 13.

Joannes Antiochenus, Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. iv. p. 601, cited by Suidas in Atokλntiavòs and xnucía. This John of Antioch appears to have lived in the middle of the seventh century.

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