CHAPTER VI.
Our last chapter brought us into the presence of that vivacious specimen of royalty, George IV., who “shuffled off this mortal coil” in the year 1830, and was succeeded by that rough-edged, seafaring brother of his, William IV. This admiral-king was not brilliant; but we found brilliancy—of a sort—in the acute and disputatious essayist, William Hazlitt; yet he was far less companionable than acute, and contrasted most unfavorably with that serene and most worthy gentleman, Hallam, the historian. We next encountered the accomplished and showy Lady Blessington—the type of many a one who throve in those days, and who had caught somewhat of the glitter that radiated from the royal trappings of George the Fourth. We saw Bulwer, among others, in her salon; and we lingered longer over the wonderful career of that Disraeli, who died as Lord Beaconsfield—the most widely known man in Great Britain.
We then passed to a consideration of that other wonderful adventurer—yet the inheritor of an English peerage—who had made his futile beginning in politics, and a larger beginning in poetry. To his career, which was left half-finished, we now recur.