King William’s Time.
The last figure that we dealt with among England’s kings was that bluff, vulgar-toned sailor, William IV., whom even the street-folk criticise, because he spat from his carriage window when driving on some State ceremonial.[81] Nor was this the worst of his coarsenesses; he swore—with great ease and pungency. He forgot his dignity; he insulted his ministers; he gave to Queen Adelaide, who survived him many years as dowager, many most uncomfortable half-hours; and if he read the new sea-stories of Captain Marryat—though he read very little—I suspect he loved more the spicier condiments of Peregrine Pickle and of Tom Jones.
Yet during the period of his short reign—scarce seven years—events happened—some through his slow helpfulness, and none suffering grievously from his obstructiveness—which gave new and brighter color to the political development and to the literary growth of England. There was, for instance, the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 (of which I have already spoken, in connection with Sydney Smith)—not indeed accomplishing all its friends had hoped; not inaugurating a political millennium; not doing away with the harsh frictions of state-craft; no reforms ever do or can; but broadening the outlook and range of all publicists, and stirring quiet thinkers into aggressive and kindling and hopeful speech. Very shortly after this followed the establishment of that old society for the “Diffusion of Useful Knowledge” which came soon to the out-put—under the editorship of Charles Knight—of the Penny Cyclopædia and the Penny Magazine.[82]
I recall distinctly the delight with which—as boys—we lingered over the pictured pages of that magazine—the great forerunner of all of our illustrated monthlies.
To the same period belong those Tracts for the Times, in which John Keble, the honored author of the Christian Year, came to new notice, while his associates, Dr. Pusey and Cardinal Newman, gave utterance to speech which is not without reverberating echoes, even now. Nor was it long after this date that British journalism received a great lift, and a great broadening of its forces, by a reduction of the stamp-tax—largely due to the efforts of Bulwer Lytton—whereby British newspapers increased their circulation, within two years, by 20,000,000 annually.[83]
All these things had come about in the reign of William IV.; but to none of them had he given any enthusiastic approval, or any such urgence of attention as would have dislocated a single one of his royal dinners.
In 1837 he died—not very largely sighed over; least of all by that sister-in-law, the Duchess of Kent, whom he had hated for her starched proprieties, whom he had insulted again and again, and who now, in her palace of Kensington, prepared her daughter Victoria for her entrance upon the sovereignty.