the boxer's widow, and declared he never would attend another battle. "But, nevertheless," I read in the noble language of Pierce Egan (whose smaller work on Pugilism I have the honor to possess)," he thought it a manly and decided English feature, which ought not to be destroyed. His Majesty had a drawing of the sporting characters in the Fives' Court placed in his boudoir, to remind him of his former attachment and support of true courage; and when any fight of note occurred after he was king, accounts of it were read to him by his desire." That gives one a fine image of a king taking his recreation; at ease in a royal dressing-gown; too majestic to read himself, ordering the prime minister to read him accounts of battles: how Cribb punched Molyneux's eye, or Jack Randall thrashed the Game Chicken.

Where my Prince did actually distinguish himself was in driving. He drove once in four hours and a half from Brighton to Carlton House fifty-six miles. All the young men of that day were fond of that sport. But the fashion of rapid driving deserted England; and, I believe, trotted over to America. Where are the amusements of our youth? I hear of no gambling now but amongst obscure ruffians; of no boxing but amongst the lowest rabble. One solitary four-in-hand still drove round the parks in London last year; but that charioteer must soon disappear. He was very old; he was attired after the fashion of the year 1825. He must drive to the banks of Styx ere long, where the ferry-boat waits to carry him over to the defunct revellers who boxed and gambled and drank and drove with King George.

The bravery of the Brunswicks, that all the family must have it, that George possessed it, are points which all English writers have agreed to admit; and yet I cannot see how George IV. should have been endowed with this quality. Swaddled in feather-beds all his life, lazy, obese, perpetually eating and drinking, his education was quite unlike that of his tough old progenitors. His grandsires had confronted hardship and war, had ridden up and fired their pistols undaunted into the face of death. His father had conquered luxury and overcome indolence. Here was one who never resisted any temptation; never had a desire but he coddled and pampered it; if ever he had any nerve, frittered it away among cooks, and tailors, and barbers, and furniture-mongers, and opera-dancers. What muscle would not grow flaccid in such a life - a life that was never strung up to any action an endless Capua without any campaign—all fiddling, and flowers, and feasting, and

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flattery, and folly? When George III. was pressed by the Catholic question and the India Bill, he said he would retire to Hanover rather than yield upon either point; and he would have done what he said. But, before yielding, he was determined to fight his Ministers and Parliament; and he did, and he beat them. The time came when George IV. was pressed too upon the Catholic claims; the cautious Peel had slipped over to that side; the grim old Wellington had joined it; and Peel tells us in his Memoirs," what was the conduct of the king. He at first refused to submit; whereupon Peel and the Duke offered their resignations, which their gracious master accepted. He did these two gentlemen the honor, Peel says, to kiss them both when they went away. (Fancy old Arthur's grim countenance and eagle beak as the monarch kisses it!) When they were gone he sent after them, surrendered, and wrote to them a letter begging them to remain in office, and allowing them to have their way. Then his Majesty had a meeting with Eldon, which is related at curious length in the latter's Memoirs." He told Eldon what was not true about his interview with the new Catholic converts; utterly misled the old ex-Chancellor; cried, whimpered, fell on his neck, and kissed him too. We know old Eldon's own tears were pumped very freely. Did these two fountains gush together? I can't fancy a behavior more unmanly, imbecile, pitiable. This a defender of the faith! This a chief in the crisis of a great nation! This an inheritor of the courage of the Georges!

Many of my hearers no doubt have journeyed to the pretty old town of Brunswick, in company with that most worthy, prudent, and polite gentleman, the Earl of Malmesbury, and fetched away Princess Caroline for her longing husband, the Prince of Wales. Old Queen Charlotte would have had her eldest son marry a niece of her own, that famous Louisa of Strelitz, afterwards Queen of Prussia, and who shares with Marie Antoinette in the last age the sad pre-eminence of beauty and misfortune. But George III. had a niece at Brunswick; she was a richer princess than her Serene Highness of Strelitz: -in fine, the Princess Caroline was selected to marry the heir to the English throne. We follow my Lord Malmesbury in quest of her; we are introduced to her illustrious father and royal mother; we witness the balls and fêtes of the old court; we are presented to the Princess herself, with her fair hair, her blue eyes, and her impertinent shoulders a lively, bouncing, romping Princess, who takes the advice of her courtly English mentor most generously and kindly. We can be present at her

very toilette, if we like; regarding which, and for very good reasons, the British courtier implores her to be particular. What a strange court! What a queer privacy of morals and manners do we look into! Shall we regard it as preachers and moralists, and cry Woe, against the open vice and selfishness and corruption; or look at it as we do at the king in the pantomime, with his pantomime wife and pantomime courtiers, whose big heads he knocks together, whom he pokes with his pantomime sceptre, whom he orders to prison under the guard of his pantomime beef-eaters, as he sits down to dine on his pantomime pudding? It is grave; it is sad; it is theme most curious for moral and political speculation; it is monstrous, grotesque, laughable, with its prodigious littlenesses, etiquettes, ceremonials, sham moralities; it is as serious as a sermon, and as absurd and outrageous as Punch's puppet-show.

Malmesbury tells us of the private life of the Duke, Princess Caroline's father, who was to die, like his warlike son, in arms against the French; presents us to his courtiers, his favorite; his Duchess, George III.'s sister, a grim old Princess, who took the British envoy aside, and told him wicked old stories of wicked old dead people and times; who came to England afterwards when her nephew was regent, and lived in a shabby furnished lodging, old and dingy, and deserted, and grotesque, but somehow royal. And we go with him to the Duke to de mand the Princess's hand in form, and we hear the Brunswick guns fire their adieux of salute, as H.R.H. the Princess of Wales departs in the frost and snow; and we visit the domains of the Prince Bishop of Osnaburg — the Duke of York of our early time; and we dodge about from the French revolutionists, whose ragged legions are pouring over Holland and Germany, and gayly trampling down the old world to the tune of ça ira; and we take shipping at Slade, and we land at Greenwich, where the Princess's ladies and the Prince's ladies are in waiting to receive her Royal Highness.

What a history follows! Arrived in London, the bridegroom hastened eagerly to receive his bride. When she was first presented to him, Lord Malmesbury says she very properly attempted to kneel. He raised her gracefully enough, embraced her, and turning round to me, said..

"Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy." I said, "Sir, had you not better have a glass of water?" Upon which, much out of humor, he said, with an oath, "No; I will go to the Queen."

What could be expected from a wedding which had such a