OF GEORGE THE FOURTH, (DESCRIPTIVE OF THE MOST INTERESTING SCENES OF HIS Private and AND THE IMPORTANT EVENTS OF HIS MEMORABLE REIGN;) WITH CHARACTERISTIC SKETCHES OF ALL THE CELEBRATED MEN (WHO WERE HIS FRIENDS AND COMPANIONS AS A PRINCE, AND HIS MINISTERS AND COUNSELLORS AS A MONARCH. (COMPILED FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES, AND DOCUMENTS IN THE KING'S LIBRARY IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM, &c. BY ROBERT HUISH, Author of Kelly's celebrated Memoirs of the Princess Charlotte, Life of George III. VOLUME THE SECOND. LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. KELLY, PATERNOSTER-ROW; FISHER, SON, AND OF THE MUSES, FINSBURY-SQUARE; AND G. VIRTUE, IVY-LANE. MDCCCXXX. MEMOIRS OF GEORGE THE FOURTH. SECTION I. [From 1810 to 1820.] THE year 1810 was big with the fate of the royal family of England. In the month of May the public mind was intensely agitated by an attempt, on the part of a domestic of the name of Sellis, to assassinate the Duke of Cumberland in his apartments at St. James', and which was bruited forth to the public as one of the most diabolical acts on record. The public, at the time, sympathized with the royal Duke, and wondered what so good, so exemplary, so virtuous a man could have done to arouse the vengeance of the cold-blooded assassin. Fortunately for the country, the life of so valuable a Prince was spared; and the public were informed, that as the murderer had not succeeded in his infernal attempt on the Duke, he considered that the most advisable act he could commit was to murder himself. The form of a coroner's inquest was gone through, and a verdict of felo de se passed upon the guilty suicide, and he was buried at the corner of Scotland Yard. We are fully aware of the sentiments which at this time time pervade the public mind on the death of Sellis, but as the investigation of the truth or falsity of those sentiments has no bearing upon the life or actions of the immediate subject of these memoirs, we shall decline entering upon it. It is at best unbecoming the character of a Briton to prejudge, and is it highly derogatory to the patriot sense of loyalty, to promulgate opinions in prejudice to facts, which may be said to form the only true and just criterion of human action. Every man by the Constitution is declared innocent till he is pronounced guilty, and until facts themselves, incontrovertible and unim-peachable, absolutely and unquestionably prove the guilt, no one, legally or morally possesses the right of condemnation, much less the infliction of positive punishment. It has not fallen to our lot, in the progress of this work, frequently to pass an eulogium on the actions of royalty. Kings are beings very different from other men; their sensations are of another kind; their exemptions from the general lot of hardships in some degree attending all other situations, make them strangers to commiseration and sensibility; the pleasures of friendship are exchanged for those of flattery and obsequiousness; the nature of their education is calculated to destroy all natural disposition—at least the effects are the same as if it were a part of the plan; they begin so early to live by rules of art, that they are in masquerade the whole of their lives; whether their design be to oblige or offend, they are equally under the necessity of employing artifice. There is no other rank in life that can be so generally defined, because there is no order of men who are framed so much alike, and have such a sameness in so many respects. It is said that in one of the royal cabinets on the Continent, the names of all the patriot kings or demi-gods, who have reigned since the commencement of history, are written in the circumference of a silver penny, and that there is still a vacancy for more. Although George IV. will not find a place there, we have some hope that the next will be William IV. of England. The traveller who has been plodding his weary way through the dark gloom and solitude of the forest, feels his heart cheered and spirits enlivened, when at a distance he beholds the faint glimmerings of light, the harbinger of brighter scenes and purer, substantial joys; so the historian, who has been depicting the tragic scenes of human life, emanating from the turbulence of passion or deep-rooted vice, feels himself relieved as if from some oppressive burden, when some spotless and fairy object comes before him, in which he can trace the purer virtues of the Christian character, even if that object appears but for the moment, and then vanishes for ever. There is a tie of the human heart in which is concentred all that ennobles its nature-all that gives a charm to social life; the founder and the preserver of domestic happiness. It is the love of the parent for the child, the love of the child for the |