scene of mockery and vexation, the country was so entirely with them, that the Lords never would have ventured to proceed in their absence.* But fate ordered it otherwise; the whole case on both sides was exhausted to the very dregs; and the accusation failing, the Ministers were fain, on carrying one vote by only a majority of seven, to withdraw their Master's Bill and leave him to himself. There is every reason to believe that they were too happy to have so good a pretence for sounding a retreat from their hazardous position; and they rested satisfied with allowing the King to continue the same petty warfare of annoyance and insult in which the royal veteran had formerly reaped so many laurels, only refusing him any more Bills of Attainder. Under such aggressions upon her peace and the comforts of all her associates and supporters, after a struggle of less than a year, the gallant nature sunk, which had borne up against all neglect, braved the pitiless storms of incessant annoyance, and finally triumphed over the highest perils with which persecution could surround her. The people continued firmly her friend, but the upper classes were, as usual, found unable to face the frowns, or resist the blandishments of the Court. As long as the interest of the contest continued, and popular favour could be gained by taking the right side, these aristocratic partisans could defy, or thought they could defy, the royal displeasure. But when the excitement had subsided, and no precise object seemed furthered by any more popularity, they were disposed, some to regain lost favour elsewhere, almost all to avoid widening the breach. There would be no use in concealing the truth, were it not already well known; the Queen's circle became daily more and more contracted; her cause was as much as ever allowed to be that of right and justice; her husband's conduct that of a tyrant destitute alike of feeling and of honour; but he was powerful, and she was weak; so the sentiment most generally felt was, that the subject was irksome-that it might as well now be dropt that there were never such atrocities as the Prince had committed, nor such balls as he well and wisely gave from time to time—and that if the sense of public duty *The difficulties in which the Whig leaders then were placed hardly fell short of those of the Ministers. Than Lord Grey's whole conduct nothing could be more noble; whether the powers which he displayed or the honest independence of his demeanour be regarded. But we must restrain ourselves from the subject, so inviting, of sketching that amiable, honourable, and highly gifted person's character-offering such a brilliant contrast to many of whom we have spoken. Long, very long may it be before so irreparable a loss brings him within the province of history! commanded votes and speeches against the Bill, in either House of Parliament, a feeling of what was due to near and dear relatives dictated the private duty of eschewing all that could close against their fashionable families the doors of Carlton House. In this state of the public mind, the resolution of the Queen once more to leave a country where her lot had been so wretched, would, upon its being disclosed, have produced very different effects in the various parts of the community. The people would have felt general concern, probably great, perhaps just displeasure; the Aristocracy, even its Liberal members, would have rejoiced at the removal of an irksome inconvenience. This plan, when on the eve of being carried into execution, was frustrated by Her Majesty's death. Exhausted by continued and unremitted persecution, and suffering severely by the signal failure of an attempt, ill-devised and worse executed, because planned against the peremptory remonstrances of her law advisers, and executed without any of her accustomed firmness of purpose, she was stricken with a malady that baffled all the resources of the medical art, and expired, after declaring to her chief adviser, in an affecting interview, that she was happy to die, for life had never been to her any enjoyment since her early years, and was now become a heavy burthen. It is remarkable that the extreme fondness for young children which had twice before led her into trouble, should have caused her to do the only reprehensible act of her latter days.* The adoption of the sailmaker's child had led to the Delicate Inves'tigation,' as it was called, of 1806; the delight she took in the child of one of her attendants, when in Italy, was the cause of all * In the acts which caused this celebrated Princess to be sometimes taxed with the habitual ingratitude of her caste, something may always be allowed for inconsistency and want of reflection. A striking instance of this occurred on the defeat of the Bill, in 1820. Mr Brougham waited upon her to announce it, and tender his congratulations. She instantly said that there was a sum of L.7000 at Mr D. Kinnaird's (the banker's), which she desired him to take, and distribute L.4000 of it among his learned coadjutors. This he of course refused. Her Majesty would take no refusal, but the day after recurred to the subject, and insisted on his laying her commands before her other Counsel. They all joined in the respectful refusal. A few weeks after, Mr Kinnaird suggested that the salaries of her law officers were in arrear, they never having been paid. The sum was under L.200, but she peremptorily refused to have it paid off-and both this arrear, and all their other professional emoluments, on the ordinary scale, were first paid after her decease by the Treasury, among the other expenses of the cause! the favour which the father enjoyed in her household; and now her love of the child of her chaplain induced her to make room for the parents in her establishment, removing Lord and Lady Hood, whose services during her last persecution had been all that the most devoted attachment could render, and whose rank fitted them for the place according to the strictness of Court etiquette. It is matter worthy of observation, that during the three hours of wandering which immediately preceded her decease, the names of any of the persons with whom she had been accused of improper conduct, never escaped her lips; while she constantly spoke of those children,-a remarkable circumstance, if it be considered that the control of reason and discretion was then wholly withdrawn. The body of the Queen lay in state at her villa near Hammersmith, and was conveyed through the metropolis attended by countless multitudes of the people. The Regent was then in Dublin, receiving those expressions of loyal affection in which our Irish fellow-subjects so lavishly deal, when they are filled with expectations of thereby gaining some favourite object. Indeed Mr O'Connell himself, in consideration that money enough had not been spent in providing palaces, headed a proposition for building a mansion by subscription. The Ministers, therefore, in their Master's absence, and having no orders from him, could only conjecture his wishes and act accordingly. They therefore called out the troops to prevent the funeral procession from passing through the City, and a struggle ensued with the people, which ended in the loss of several lives. Except that the funeral was turned aside at Hyde Park, this unjustifiable proceeding produced no effect; for after moving along part of the New Road, it came back and entered the Strand near Temple Bar, so as to traverse the whole City. The inscription upon the coffin, dictated by the Queen herself— Caroline of Brunswick, the Murdered Queen of England '-made some ecclesiastical authorities refuse it admission into the churches, on its way to the port of embarkation, where it arrived, accompanied by the executors, Mr Sergeant Wilde and Dr Lushington, attending the remains of their royal client to the place of her final repose in Brunswick. The indecent haste with which the journey to Harwich was performed, excited indignation in all, surprise in none. Nor was there perhaps ever witnessed a more striking or a more touching scene than the embarkation displayed. Thousands of all ranks thickly covered the beach; the sea, smooth as glass, was alive with boats and vessels of every size, their colours floating half-mast high, as on days consecrated to mourning; the sun shone forth with a brightness which made a contrast to the gloom that shrouded every face; the sound of the guns booming across the water at intervals, impressed the solemnity upon the ear. Captains, grown grey in their country's service, were seen to recall the Princess's kindness and charities, whereof they had been the witnesses or the ministers, unable to restrain the tears that poured along their scarred cheeks. At length the crimson coffin was seen slowly to descend from the crowded pier, and the barge that received it wheeled through the water, while the gorgeous flag of England floated over the remains of the Murdered Queen,' whose sufferings had so powerfully awakened the English people's sympathy, and whose dust they now saw depart from their shores for ever, to mingle with the ashes of an illustrious race of heroes,-smitten with feelings in which it would be vain to deny that a kind of national remorse at her murder exacerbated their deep commiseration for her untimely end. Let it not be supposed, that in sketching the characters of George IV. and his Queen, we have yielded to the feelings of party violence, and while we excused the errors of the injured party, exaggerated the offences of the wrongdoer. The portrait which we have painted of him is undoubtedly one of the darkest shade, and most repulsive form. But the faults which gross injustice alone could pass over without severe reprobation, we have ascribed to their true cause,—the corrupting influence of a courtly education, and habits of unbounded self-indulgence upon a nature originally good; and although the sacred rules of morality forbid us to exonerate from censure even the admitted victim of circumstances so unfriendly to virtue, charity, as well as candour, permit us to add, that those circumstances should bear a far larger share of the repreprehension than the individual, who may well claim our pity, while he incurs our censure. During the anxious period over which we have been passing, the licentiousness of the press had, as might be expected, reached its greatest height; and the most unmeasured attacks upon all the Royal Family, from the King downwards, were become as familiar as the communications of the Court Circular, or the weekly Gazette of prices and promotions. They thus became also about as harmless, and prosecution was never thought of for a moment. But after the loss of the Bill, the vindictive spirit of the Regent was turned to the adversaries by whom he had been discomfited; and then was begun a system of constant slander against private as well as public character, which spared women married and unmarried as little as men; and which was certainly never before equalled in any part of the world. The old predilection for this kind of warfare by which the Prince of Wales's younger days had been inspired, led men's minds to guess the quarter in which this plot against character and against society had been hatched; and it was pretty well understood, that he who had formerly paid some thousands of pounds for the damages given against a newspaper to a young lady of rank, rendered obnoxious to him by her virtue, and therefore broadly impeached by the libel, was fully capable of plan- ́ ning and directing the gross and foul slanders which now habitually disfigured a portion of the periodical press. It was remarked, too, that those who patronised this vile species of political warfare, played a very safe game. If their slanders succeeded, their adversaries were lowered, and all public men were sufferers in the end, to the no small benefit of the kingly power. If those slanders wholly failed, then the press was lowered, and its influence diminished, or even destroyed--an advantage still more precious to arbitrary power, because it was the disarming of its most powerful and deadly enemy. There can be little doubt that the latter alternative for a long while was the event which happened. The value and effect of Newspaper attacks on individual character has been incalculably lessened; and the influence of the Periodical Press is now confined to that which the force and the fairness of discussion gives it. The result is, that as an organ of instruction its power is not at all diminished; it can still warn powerfully against bad measures, and lend an important help in furthering good; but its terrors in the eyes of public men are exceedingly reduced; and they who would, some twenty years ago, have been staggered by a few invectives, or vexed by a satirical joke, now face the whole artillery, light and heavy, of ridicule and of defamation without ever seeming to flinch. These remarks, although of general application, certainly apply peculiarly to the Newspaper Press, which has, ever since the Queen's Case, become not only more unbridled and violent in all attacks upon the measures of government, the institutions of the country, and the public conduct of public men, but incomparably more licentious in every other respect, and more especially in slanderous attacks upon character. Nor are such attacks confined to the private feelings of public men; they extend to unoffending individuals who never pass the bounds of a secluded life; to the aged who can no longer bear a part in the bustle and contentions of the busy world; to the young whose time for embarking on its troubled waves has not yet come; to women whose sex, and fears, and delicacy both forbid their meddling with public affairs, and should protect them against the hand of the libeller. The |