Towards the close of George the Fourth's wicked career, he pretended to be very much attached to the drama, and that accomplished and fascinating actress, Miss Chester, was therefore engaged as READER to his majesty. Sir Thomas Lawrence, at that time engaged in taking a portrait of this lady, as well as one of the king, was entrusted with the delicate negotiation. A meeting was soon obtained, and a kind

[[289]]of excuse adopted to have Miss Chester near the king's person, as "PRIVATE READER," at an annual salary of six hundred pounds! Thus was another beauty added to the royal establishment, and her name emblazoned in the "red book" of the country's burdens. For the kind attentions this lady bestowed on the "polished" monarch, she has lately been admitted to that refuge for royal mistresses, titled dames, and pensioned members of the aristocracy—Hampton-Court Palace! Without disputing Miss Chester's claims to be maintained at the public expense among the noble drones there domiciled, it is not without something like disgust and indignation that we view one of our most ancient kingly edifices, built by the liberality of the nation, and at this moment supported by the public purse, being converted into an asylum of this description. Englishmen are thus taxed to support the paramours, and minions of royalty in ease and luxury! But we need not confine our indignation to this one royal residence; for is not Bushy Park within a mile of Hampton, where the progeny of an actress kept at that place form now a portion of our noble aristocracy? We do not charge these unworthy doings exclusively on the Tories; for, alas! the Grey Whigs seem to be treading very closely in the footsteps of their predecessors in office, by tolerating such royal doings, as well as filling their own pockets and that of their families.

From such disreputable means of acquiring title

[[290]]and wealth, England has long been imposed on, and the ancient nobility of the country degraded. Any pre-eminent degree of merit, if exercised for the country's benefit, was sure to render its possessor a certain object of George the Fourth's vengeance. His private court, therefore, found their best security in their want of virtue. By a voluntary submission to the tyrant's caprices, they retained the high privilege of his smile and favour, and built the bulwark of their safety on their own personal insignificance! And yet, strange as the infatuation may appear, these very creatures fancied their nature had undergone a real metamorphosis by his majesty granting them a title; they considered themselves refined by a kind of chemical process, sublimed by the sunshine of royal favour, and thus separated from the dross and the dregs of ordinary humanity,—from that humanity of which the mass of mankind partake, and which, contemptible as it may seem to upstart lords, is the same with the prince upon the throne and the beggar upon the dunghill. But from such proud characters, we may trace the present contempt in which nobility is almost universally held. The great endeavour of George the Fourth's favourites has been to keep "the people" at a distance, lest their own purer nature should be contaminated by plebeian society; and the first lesson they teach their offspring is, not to revere God, but to maintain their own dignity in the scale of being! To men of such principles, the king had only to make his wishes known,

[[291]]however monstrous and unjust they might be, and they were immediately, and, in too many cases, fatally executed. Under such a government as that of the last sixty years and upwards, it was fortunate indeed to escape notice,—to creep through the vale of obscurity, and to die in old age, without the prison, the pointed steel, or the poisoned cup! From a vigorous mind, in every way calculated to find pleasure and honourable employment in noble and virtuous actions, George the Fourth degenerated into a monster, delighting in baubles and in a wantonness of wickedness that produced the most flagitious habits, and which rendered him the most despicable man in the whole circle of society; yet he was designated "the most accomplished gentleman of the age!!!" We are aware that he was surrounded with flatterers and sycophants, who wished to gratify their own avarice and pride by extending his tyrannical power; but ought such a mean excuse to be urged in extenuation of his crimes? A man, like him, endowed with nature's choicest gifts, both of mind and body, which were farther heightened by the most liberal education, should have spurned such minions from his presence, and kept company with none but the virtuous and the patriotic. Away, then, with that vindication of George the Fourth's unjust deeds, which would fix the stigma of crimes, prompted by his own love of sensuality, to the "advice of evil counsellors!" Evil counsellors would not have dared to present him the cup of flattery, if he had not shewn himself so

[[292]]greedily desirous of swallowing its contents. Let every friend of man and of his country, then, guard against two similar reigns of horror, and defy, as we do, fines and imprisonment, in attempting, by every lawful and rational means, to push back the gigantic strides of tyranny, whether in a king or an overbearing ministry. Even now we are cursed with a power, generated by Queen Charlotte and the late king, her son, which is trying, by every scheme of ingenuity and desperation, to bring back its former unjust, intolerant, and corrupt ascendency, both in church and state; but who is there that can contemplate the possibility of such a state of affairs occurring again, without feelings of horror? What man in the possession of his senses but would exclaim against the national misfortune of having another Pitt, a Liverpool, a Londonderry, a Canning, or a Wellington, in power? Awful, however, as the havoc appears which these men have made, the country need not yet give itself up to despair. We believe that there is a fund of vigour in the empire that may stand experiments, the least of which would shake the sickly frames of other empires to dissolution. There is probably no dominion on earth that has within itself so strong a repulsion of injury, or so vivid and rapid a spring and force of restoration. Its strength is renewed like that of the young eagle; and it is this very faculty of self-restoration that has so long allowed the empire to hold together, notwithstanding the infinite speculations, tamperings, absurdities, and crimes of men

[[293]]in power, under the guidance of Queen Charlotte and George the Fourth. Yet is it right that England should be kept merely above bankruptcy, while she has the original power of being the first, most vigorous, richest, and happiest portion of the world? Where does the earth contain a people so palpably marked out for superiority in all the means of private and public enjoyment of affluence, influence, and security? The most industrious, strong-minded, and fully-educated population of the world inhabit her island. She has the finest opportunities for commerce, the most indefatigable and sagacious efforts and contrivances for every necessity and luxury of mankind; inexhaustible mines of the most valuable minerals, and almost the exclusive possession of the most valuable of them all,—COAL; a singularly healthy and genial climate, where the human form naturally shapes itself into the most complete beauty and vigour; a situation the most happily fixed by Providence for a great people destined to influence Europe,—close enough to the Continent to watch every movement, and influence the good or peril of every kingdom of it from Russia to Turkey, and yet secured from the sudden shocks and casualties of European war by the Channel, of all defences, the cheapest, the most permanent, and the most impregnable!

When these immense and enviable advantages are compared with the present state of England, heavy indeed must the sins of our rulers appear! But a new class and character of hostility is now happily