[127] Sylvester Douglas, afterwards Lord Glenbervie (1743-1823), who married, in September, 1789, Catherine, eldest daughter of Lord North. He was educated at Leyden as a doctor, a circumstance to which Sheridan alludes in the lines—
"Glenbervie, Glenbervie,
What's good for the scurvey?
For ne'er be your old trade forgot."
He became a barrister, reported in the King's Bench, and was made a K.C. After his marriage he left the Bar for a political career, and held several minor appointments.
[128] Brienne retired to Italy in August, 1788, and Necker was recalled in the same month. He at once took steps for summoning the States-General which met at Versailles, May 4, 1789.
[129] In the summer of 1788 George III. showed symptoms of mental derangement; but he had signed a warrant for the further prorogation of Parliament from September 25 to November 20. In that interval he grew rapidly worse, and was placed under restraint. The evidence of the king's physicians was laid before the Privy Council and Parliament, and a motion was made in the Lower House for a committee to search for precedents of proceedings in the case of the interruption or suspension of the royal authority. Pitt, on December 16, 1788, moved three resolutions: (1) that the personal exercise of the royal authority was interrupted; (2) that the two Houses have the right to supply this defect of the royal authority; (3) that it was necessary to determine the means by which, during the continuance of the king's incapacity, the royal assent should be given to bills passed by the two Houses. The resolutions were carried in both Houses. The plan of a regency was then submitted to the Prince of Wales, and five resolutions embodying the scheme were proposed and carried in January, 1789. On February 5, 1789, the Regency Bill was introduced in the House of Commons, carried, and sent up to the Lords. It was still under discussion when, on February 19, the Lord Chancellor announced the king's convalescence, and further proceedings were suspended.
[130] James, first Earl of Malmesbury, the distinguished diplomatist, married Harriet Mary, daughter of Sir G. Amyand, Bart.
[131] George Ellis (1753-1815) is best known for his Specimens of the Early English Poets (1790) and his Specimens of Early English Romances in Metre (1805). He was, wrote Sir Walter Scott, "the first converser I ever saw. His patience and good breeding made me often ashamed of myself, going off at score upon some favourite topic." To him Scott addresses the lines in the fifth canto of Marmion, beginning—
"Thou who canst give to lightest lay