[[145]]against the queen's persecutors. Would that he had performed HIS OWN PART more consistently with her majesty's wishes and interests!

On the 6th of March, Science mourned the death of her favourite son, in the Reverend Doctor Samuel Parr, a celebrated philologist, erudite classical scholar, and a profound mathematician, in the 79th year of his age. The weekly, monthly, and annual registers, did not forget to name the transcendent merits of the deceased in literary pursuits; but they either forgot or declined to mention the interest this worthy gentleman had taken in the cause of the Princess of Wales, and also after she became Queen of England. The memorials and testimonies of Doctor Parr in her cause were not chimerical opinions, as some have imagined, but the real sentiments of his honest and manly heart.

The close of this eventful year was marked with unprecedented calamity. The "panic," as it was briefly termed, which prevailed in the city of London, seemed to have overtaken the most wealthy of its inhabitants, and poverty and consternation appeared in all their terrors. The political horizon was also of the most foreboding and gloomy character. The "House of Incurables," however, still arrogantly boasted of the "freedom and prosperity of the nation," and shut their eyes against all the proofs of a contrary nature.

There was a time when some atonement for unjust acts would have been instantly demanded from the sovereign by the people; for we read in

[[146]]"Rapin," that Edward the Second, when conquered and made prisoner by his wife, was tried by the parliament, which decreed, "that (though kings are supposed incapable of doing wrong) he had done all possible wrong, and thereby must forfeit his right to the crown." Again, for the sake of illustration, we may mention, that the parliament tried and convicted Richard the Second; thirty-one articles were alleged against him, in the form of an impeachment, two of which were very remarkable, though perhaps not uncommon; the first was, "that he had BORROWED MONEY WITHOUT INTENDING TO PAY IT AGAIN!!!" the other, "that he had declared, before witnesses, 'he was master of the lives and property of his subjects.'" What a lesson, also, does the wretched death of our first Charles offer of the imbecility of kings, and of their blind contempt for the people, from whom their crowns and their wealth must always be derived. But, with some men, example is disregarded, and advice neglected, if not despised. George the Fourth, for instance, reckless of all consequences, appears to have held it as a maxim, "I am determined to make every body as miserable as I can; and, so long as all my wants are supplied, no matter from what source they are derived!"

At an early part of

1826,

the Duke of Devonshire attended the coronation

[[147]]of the despotic Nicholas, since the murderer of the brave Poles, as the representative of George the Fourth, King of England; and his splendid retinues and sumptuous fêtes created no little astonishment in the Russian capital at John Bull's extravagance.

In January, his majesty returned one thousand pounds of the public money, to relieve the distressed Spitalfields' weavers, who were suffering every possible hardship from the want of employment. We feel great pleasure in recording every instance of the charitable intentions of this king, entertaining no fear of being wearied with their detail. We should be equally happy, were it in our power, to record the payment of those loans and promissory notes, to which this personage had subscribed while Prince of Wales. It is a good old maxim, "Be just before you are generous;" and we cannot help thinking, that if the "first gentleman in the world" had given his accommodating ladies a little less, and satisfied the demands of the holders of those bonds, he would have acted more "as became a man." But no; his kingly dignity kept him aloof from the civil proceedings of his foreign creditors, and, being a stranger to honour, the documents were left undischarged!