Caxton's Book: A Collection of Essays, Poems, Tales, and Sketches.

by W. H. Rhodes

XX.

THE TWO GEORGES.

Between the years of our Lord 1730 and 1740, two men were born on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, whose lives were destined to exert a commanding influence on the age in which they lived, as well as to control the fortunes of many succeeding generations.

One was by birth a plain peasant, the son of a Virginia farmer; the other an hereditary Prince, and the heir of an immense empire. It will be the main object of this sketch to trace the histories of these two individuals, so dissimilar in their origin, from birth to death, and show how it happened that one has left a name synonymous with tyranny, whilst the other will descend to the lowest posterity, radiant with immortal glory, and renowned the world over as the friend of virtue, the guardian of liberty, and the benefactor of his race.

Go with me for one moment to the crowded and splendid metropolis of England. It is the evening of the 4th of June 1734. Some joyful event must have occurred, for the bells are ringing merrily, and the inhabitants are dressed in holiday attire. Nor is the circumstance of a private nature, for banners are everywhere displayed, the vast city is illuminated, and a thousand cannon are proclaiming it from their iron throats. The population seem frantic with joy, and rush tumultuously into each other's arms, in token of a national jubilee. Tens of thousands are hurrying along toward a splendid marble pile, situated on a commanding eminence, near the river Thames, whilst from the loftiest towers of St. James's Palace the national ensigns of St. George and the Red Cross are seen floating on the breeze. Within one of the most gorgeously furnished apartments of that royal abode, the wife of Frederic, Prince of Wales, and heir apparent to the British Empire, has just been delivered of a son. The scions of royalty crowd into the bed-chamber, and solemnly attest the event as one on which the destiny of a great empire is suspended. The corridors are thronged with dukes, and nobles, and soldiers, and courtiers, all anxious to bend the supple knee, and bow the willing neck, to power just cradled into the world. A Royal Proclamation soon follows, commemorating the event, and commanding British subjects everywhere, who acknowledge the honor of Brunswick, to rejoice, and give thanks to God for safely ushering into existence George William Frederic, heir presumptive of the united crowns of Great Britain and Ireland. Just twenty-two years afterward that child ascended the throne of his ancestors as King George the Third.

Let us now turn our eyes to the Western Continent, and contemplate a scene of similar import, but under circumstances of a totally different character. It is the 22d February, 1732. The locality is a distant colony, the spot the verge of an immense, untrodden and unexplored wilderness, the habitation a log cabin, with its chinks filled in with clay, and its sloping roof patched over with clapboards. Snow covers the ground, and a chill wintery wind is drifting the flakes, and moaning through the forest. Two immense chimneys stand at either end of the house, and give promise of cheerful comfort and primitive hospitality within, totally in contrast with external nature. There are but four small rooms in the dwelling, in one of which Mary Ball, the wife of Augustine Washington, has just given birth to a son. No dukes or marquises or earls are there to attest the humble event. There are no princes of the blood to wrap the infant in the insignia of royalty, and fold about his limbs the tapestried escutcheon of a kingdom. His first breath is not drawn in the center of a mighty capitol, the air laden with perfume, and trembling to the tones of soft music and the "murmurs of low fountains." But the child is received from its Mother's womb by hands imbrowned with honest labor, and laid upon a lowly couch, indicative only of a backwoodsman's home and an American's inheritance. He, too, is christened George, and forty-three years afterward took command of the American forces assembled on the plains of old Cambridge.

But if their births were dissimilar, their rearing and education were still more unlike. From his earliest recollection the Prince heard only the language of flattery, moved about from palace to palace, just as caprice dictated, slept upon the cygnet's down, and grew up in indolence, self-will and vanity, a dictator from his cradle. The peasant boy, on the other hand, was taught from his infancy that labor was honorable, and hardships indispensable to vigorous health. He early learned to sleep alone amid the dangers of a boundless wilderness, a stone for his pillow, and the naked sod his bed; whilst the voices of untamed nature around him sang his morning and his evening hymns. Truth, courage and constancy were early implanted in his mind by a mother's counsels, and the important lesson of life was taught by a father's example, that when existence ceases to be useful it ceases to be happy.

Early manhood ushered them both into active life; the one as king over extensive dominions, the other as a modest, careful, and honest district surveyor.

Having traced the two Georges to the threshold of their career, let us now proceed one step further, and take note of the first great public event in the lives of either.