TO A SON (aged 14).
Bursledon Lodge, Feb., 1820.
Our good King’s death made an impression of melancholy on my mind, though I had only seen him in the usual way at the Queen’s Drawing-rooms. But I can never forget the paternal benevolence of his manner—banishing awe, without diminishing reverence. When presented to him, I partook of the usual feeling experienced by all who have lived to womanhood in a country where they never could see a king, and I was intimidated at the idea of being under the eye of a monarch; but the kindliness of his manner soon removed all my little feminine bashfulness; and from that day, whenever I went to the Drawing-room, I used to watch for his approach with pleasure.
His character, I think, will take a high place in history. He was sometimes, I believe, mistaken in the line of his duty; but he always pursued the road his conscience pointed out; and if we weigh his conduct with his temptations, and consider his justice, temperance, piety, purity, domestic affections, humility, and patience, I know not whether we could safely say, his dominions contained a better man.
TO CHARLES MANNERS ST. GEORGE, ESQ.
Bursledon Lodge, Feb., 1820.
Our fears are now gradually subsiding. They were artfully excited by both extremes—by the Radicals, and by the friends of arbitrary power. Both have gained their point. Strong and unpopular laws have passed; and discontent has increased. I pity the Moderates, the constitutional Whigs, the temperate zone, in short. Between the frottement of opposite tendencies to anarchy and despotism, they have a chance of being un peu froissé. As I rank my best friends and myself in this class, I look on it with double interest.
I do not like to talk or write of our good King’s death. Some noble mind will, I hope, do justice to his admirable qualities. They were so equally tempered, and his line of conduct so undeviating, that it requires meditation to see the full beauty of a character which was not set off by contrast, nor affected us with any surprise. It is too much the custom to blame him individually for the wars we have endured—for war is but another name for suffering, to the victors as well as the vanquished. If he erred on this point, he erred with a great proportion of his people, and some of the strongest minds in his dominions.