The news called forth an outburst of public joy, that hit the Prince’s party hard. A thanksgiving prayer was read in every church; and later on the King, to the dread of his advisers, would not be satisfied without the excitement of attending a solemn service at St. Paul’s, where he and the princesses were moved to tears, while his graceless sons attracted attention by their irreverent chattering. There is some slight palliation for the Prince of Wales’s conduct throughout this trying time, in the fact that the King had showed a dislike to him, and even a want of fairness to his shortcomings; but the Duke of York, always the father’s favourite son, has no excuse for backing up his undutiful brother. Soon after the recovery was announced, London had hailed it with a general illumination, from rushlights in the humblest cottage window to blazing devices on the clubs. It was witnessed by the Queen and all her daughters except the youngest, while, in their absence till the, for them, most unwonted hour of 1 A.M., Kew House too was lighted up and adorned with a transparency displaying The King—Providence—Health—Britannia; and on either side of the gates, in gold letters on a purple ground, shone these most loyal lines:—
Our prayers are heard, and Providence restores
A patriot King to bless Britannia’s shores.
Nor yet to Britain is this bliss confined,
All Europe hails the friend of human kind!
If such the general joy, what words can show
The change to transport from the depth of woe,
In those permitted to embrace again
The best of fathers, husbands, and of men?
Inside the house also the Muse was not silent. His darling Princess Amelia came to kneel before him, presenting her father with verses in the Queen’s name, from the pen of her novelist-attendant.