The health of the Duke of York now began to decline; and, although he had been in the receipt of such enormous sums from the people, he was actually destitute of a home,—at least of one he could call his own. Here was a disgraceful circumstance!—the heir presumptive to the throne of England, through his abominable and reckless extravagance, obliged to accept the hospitality of an acquaintance! An accumulation of diseases, arising from excesses of every kind, soon became manifest, and the duke was at length declared to be seriously indisposed. On the 14th December, he was pronounced, by his medical attendants, to be in the most imminent danger.

The revenue was deficient in its returns from the former year, two hundred and thirty-three thousand, nine hundred, and forty pounds! which arose from the very general stagnation of trade and the paralization of commerce. This enormous deficiency in the country's income, however, had no effect upon

[[152]]the men in power; for the most wanton expenditure was still kept up, both at home and abroad. Our ambassadors appeared the very type of their sight-loving and spendthrift master, and thousands were swallowed up in glittering baubles and unmeaning pageantry. At the time the "Dandy of Sixty," (as the ingenious and patriotic Mr. Hone usually termed him) was meditating on the most expeditious way of squandering the hard-earnings of the poor, his wicked and unmanly ministers pampered the royal appetite in all its childish wishes and unconstitutional desires, verifying the words of Pope,

"Fools grant whate'er Ambition craves."

The internal state of the country at the opening of

1827

exhibited the most lowering prospects; for when the people are suffering from oppressive enactments and injurious policy, the country cannot possibly wear a smiling countenance. Some of the milk-sop daily journals, notwithstanding, were very profuse in their complimentary language to royalty, and announced, as a matter of wonderful importance, the kindness and brotherly affection manifested by the king to the Duke of York, as his majesty had spent nearly two hours with his brother at the residence of his Grace of Rutland! What astonishing kindness! what inexpressible condescension that a man

[[153]]should visit his own brother who was at the point of death! But the king's condescension did not put aside the visit of the general conqueror, Death! for the Duke of York expired, at the mansion of the before-named nobleman, on the 5th of January, being then in the sixty-fourth year of his age.

If we were to form our judgment by the eulogiums bestowed on the character of the deceased duke, by the greater portion of the press, he was one of the brightest and most illustrious ornaments of society. But such disgraceful truckling to royalty and the "powers that be" could only tend to degrade the national character in the consideration of all well-informed men, who would observe in such unmerited compliments a convincing proof that Truth was a creditor, whose claims were "more honoured in the breach than in the observance." To prove that our complaints on this head are well-founded, let our readers look over the following outline of the royal duke's virtues, which we copy from "Baldwin's Annual Register for the year 1827:"

"Never was the death of a prince accompanied by more sincere and universal regret; and seldom have the public services of one so near the throne BEQUEATHED TO THE COUNTRY SO MUCH SOLID AND LASTING GOOD, as resulted from his long administration of the British army. His private character, frank, HONOURABLE, and SINCERE, was formed to conciliate personal attachments; a personal enemy he had never made, and a friend once gained, he