tremes. Some of the most earnest and noble-hearted of the

laity joined them. Their doctrines, like Wesley's, were many of them hard and narrow, but, like his, their hearts were good. They and their friends and followers suggested most of the charitable works which sprang into life towards the end of the last century.

After George II. had slept with his fathers, and his grandson, George III., was reigning in his stead, not only in the Church, however, but throughout the country, men's hearts seemed to grow larger and warmer. They cared more and more for their fellow-creatures, and had an ever-increasing pity for the weak and the suffering. "I was sick, and ye visited Me; I was in prison, and ye came unto Me," their Master had said. They longed that He should say that to them. Some went among the sick, and comforted them; others penetrated into those dens of misery, the prisons. Some cared for the children, and drew them into schools. Sunday schools were first established in 1788. The children were very coarse and rough and dirty; when a gentleman or lady tried to teach and help them, it perhaps seemed a very hard and repulsive work; but as they saw how surprise and interest would kindle in their eyes, and warmth and sympathy would melt their wild young hearts, the teacher kindled and warmed too; duty was turned into love. Missionary societies, Bible societies, and other ways for helping mankind, were soon set on foot. The spirit was everywhere abroad, which led a poor woman to say, Yes, I know we have given everything we can spare; but I want to give something which we can't spare."

66

CHAPTER LIV.

THE ENGLISH GEORGE.

George III. The American colonies. Policy of England. Declaration of Inde pendence. The slave trade. Wilberforce. The younger Pitt. The French Revolution.

GEORGE III. had the longest reign of any English soverHe was not a man of eign, and a remarkable reign it was. ability; but for the greater part of the sixty years he wore the crown of England he was a very popular king. 1760. People who remembered him always spoke of him George III. with kindness and affection; as "dear old George III.," "good old King George," and yet we know he was dull, obstinate, blundering, undignified. One reason, doubtless, for the love he inspired was that he was an Englishman, and gloried in being so; for the nation had never loved its German kings. "This sovereign," said Walpole, " don't stand in one spot, with his eyes fixed royally on the ground, and dropping bits of German news; he walks about, and speaks to everybody." But more than that, with all his defects he was a good man. He said he intended to introduce a new custom, "that of living well with all his family." Instead of deserting or slighting his wife, and leading an immoral life, as the other two Georges had done, he was a good, true husband, a loving father, a sincere Christian. He loved his church and his Bible. He said he longed for every poor man in his dominion to be able to read his Bible and to have a Bible to read. He was honest, and if he was obstinate, it was because he always believed the things he wished were the right things. He was simple-minded and kind-hearted. He got up early and went to bed early, and lived a quiet, good, and religious life. In his later years he was sorely afflicted, for he grew blind and lost his reason. One of his greatest comforts in those sad times was sacred music, sometimes parts of Handel's beautiful oratorios. In one of the last lucid intervals he had, Thackeray relates that

he was found by the queen "singing a hymn, and accompanying himself on the harpsichord. When he had finished he knelt down and prayed aloud for her, and then for his family, and then for the nation, concluding with a prayer for himself, that it might please God to avert his heavy calamity from him, but if not, to give him resignation to submit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again fled."

George III. had been better educated than his father, and to the extent of his abilities was fond of literature and learned men. A love of books and of culture was more and more spread abroad. "Any man," says Dr. Johnson, "who wears a sword and a powdered wig," and Education that meant in those days every gentleman, "is ashamed to be illiterate." It was George who gave Dr. Johnson his pension of three hundred pounds a year.

and art.

1768.

He encouraged the founding of the Royal Academy of Arts. Though cultivated Englishmen had been fond of pictures and statues, they had always been obliged to buy them abroad, or to employ foreigners to paint them in England. There were now, however, English artists who might stand, and not be ashamed, beside the greatest of the foreigners. The first president of the Royal Academy was Sir Joshua Reynolds. He and his friend and rival, Gainsborough, though they could paint as perfectly as the best Italian artists, were generally content with painting portraits, or simple rural subjects.* What they saw they painted beautifully: those men with the powdered wigs; those lovely ladies, who look so stately and so innocent, year after year, on the walls of the Royal Academy.

Towards the latter end of George's long reign, Turner, the greatest landscape painter whom England has ever known, was beginning to open the eyes of men to the infinite glory and majesty of earth, and sea, and sky.

The greatest misfortune which happened to England during his reign was the loss of her American colonies; and that misfortune, it is impossible to deny, was in Loss of the great part due to King George's inveterate obsti- American nacy. The quarrel was caused by the tyranny of the mother country. Ever since the colonies had been

colonies.

* The student of this history who comes to study art afterward will see that this paragraph needs to be amplified and corrected to make it reasonably satisfactory.

founded they had been greatly hampered in their manufac tures and their trade by the selfishness of England. It was an established principle that the interests of all colonies and dependencies were to be subservient to those of England.

If it was thought that any article which England produced or manufactured could be provided better or cheaper in a colony, the colonists, instead of being encouraged to make and sell it, were hindered in every possible way. For example, in America they had plenty of iron and of wool, more than they wanted for themselves, and which other countries would have been very glad of; but as the English also had wool and iron, the American colonies were not allowed to make theirs into useful things and sell them, because the English wished to maintain a monopoly of wool and iron in the markets of the world.

The English treated Ireland in the same way, preventing the Irish from selling what they had. They were discour aged from weaving either wool or linen. At one time they were forbidden to sell the meat, butter, and cheese which their green, fertile land produced in great abundance, even in England, lest people might buy from them instead of from English farmers. England, in fact, reminds one of Bottom in the play, who, not content with his own part, wants to act everybody else's part too.

Statesmen and legislators had not yet begun to see that the more food and clothing and other useful things the earth produces, the better it is for all its inhabitants; and that if one country can produce one thing best, and another another, it is the wisest thing for them each to produce plenty, and to exchange with each other freely, instead of hindering and thwarting each other by jealousy.

This selfish policy on the part of England alienated the hearts of the Americans, and helped on greatly in leading them to revolution. A still worse grievance was the taxation. The colonies knew very well that a main principle of the English constitution is that no tax can be imposed without the consent of the people taxed; that is to say, the consent of the representatives whom they choose to act and speak for them in Parliament. Now, the colonies had no one to speak for them in the English Parliament; they sent no members there, but had representative assemblies of their own, which imposed their taxes and attended to local gov ernment. The English government, being in great want of

money, attempted to tax the colonies. Many of the Americans were descended from the old Puritans, and were men of the same type as Pym and Hampden; they resisted, just as their forefathers would have done. They declared that they would not pay taxes which were imposed by a Parliament in which they were not represented. One of the colonists, who had taken a principal part in the military affairs of the country, and who afterwards rose to be general-in-chief of the army, was George Washington. WashingHe was a man whom Englishmen consider quite worthy to be placed beside Hampden; he was brave, persevering, truthful, and magnanimous. In all his after life he never sought or accepted anything for himself; all he thought of was justice for his country. He had, too, the clear eye of a commander, and knew how to march to his ends through trouble, and difficulty, and danger.

ton.

At first the Americans had no wish to separate themselves from England; they only demanded "the rights and privileges which are essential to the happiness of every free state." Lord Chatham, as Pitt was now called, and the wisest of the king's other counsellors, advised him to give in, and said that the Americans were right. "We are told," said Lord Chatham, "America is obstinate; America is in open rebellion; I rejoice that America has resisted." But George, who had all the instincts of a despotic_monarch, and who loved his own way as dearly as ever a Tudor or a Stuart had done, would not give in. It was firmly fixed in his mind that, if the Americans succeeded, all the other colonies would also be lost, and England would "reduce itself to a poor island indeed." He called the Americans rebels, and he called Lord Chatham's speech "a trumpet of sedition." He said that, if the English were resolute, the Americans would "undoubtedly be very meek."

But the Americans were not meek at all, and they would not yield. One of the grievances had been about the importation of tea. The government had made a decree demanding a certain duty to be paid by the Americans on all the tea which they received from the mother country. The Americans, women as well as men, bound themselves to drink no tea at all, sooner than pay that duty; and at last, when some English ships laden with tea arrived in Boston Harbor, a mob, disguised as Indians, uttered a loud war-whoop, boarded the ships, and

1773.