remoniously exclaimed, 'Let me tell your majesty, I wouldn't have your two legs for your three kingdoms !'

Sir John Vanbrugh, the architect and dramatic poet, held various lucrative posts under the crown, but, from extravagance, seldom kept himself out of difficulties. His 'Provoked Wife,' and 'Confederacy' still keep the stage; but all his plays are tinged with the indelicacy of his day. He built Blenheim house for the duke of Marlborough; a splendid, but heavy pile, with scarcely an apartment of magnitude sufficiently proportioned to the size of a lordly mansion.

Thomas Guy, sometime a bookseller in Cornhill, amassed a large fortune by penurious living, the purchase of the right to print bibles, the disreputable practice of buying up seamen's prize-tickets, and by speculations in the South Sea stock. In the end, however, he made good use of his wealth: he gave 200,000l. to found the hospital in Southwark, which bears his name; erected almshouses at Tamworth; and left 80,000l. to be divided amongst such as could prove any relationship towards him.

storing his health, 1775. His 'Family Expositor,' and Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul,' are the most valuable of his works.

Massillon, made bishop of Clermont by Louis XIV., who said to him on one occasion, When I hear other preachers, I go away pleased with them; but when I hear you, I go away displeased with myself!" So effective was his style in the pulpit, that involuntary murmurs of applause would arise amongst his congregation; and in France his name was long a proverb, to denote one having the superior gifts of eloquence.

Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister during the reigns of the first and second George. In Anne's reign he was sent to the Tower, through party malice; but his attachment to the Hanoverian interest occasioned his rapid advancement by George I. He impeached Oxford, Bolingbroke, Ormond, and Strafford, and by his labours to preserve peace at home and abroad, gained great popularity; yet did he attack the court and ministry, when again turned out by the Stanhope administration, with all the zeal of a reDr. Doddridge, son of a London former. Again restored, he remained oilman, became an eminent preacher prime minister till 1742; when George amongst the dissenters. He resided II. created him earl of Orford, and at Northampton twenty-two years, re- he retired to his estate in Norfolk, spected as a divine, successful as a where he died at the age of sixty-eight, teacher of youth, and beloved as a 1745. He used to boast that, as a private man; and died at Lisbon, whi-politician, he knew the price of every ther he had gone with the hope of re- man amongst his opponents.

INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES, INSTITUTIONS, AND USAGES. Septennial Parliaments, instead of triennial, fixed by the parliament's own

act, 1716.

Lombe's Silk-throwing Machine first used at Derby 1719, whereby one waterwheel moved 26,586 wheels, and worked in twenty-fours, 320 million yards of organzine silk thread, 1721.-Inoculation for Smallpox tried first on criminals.-The Beer called Porter invented. The three beers in use in England had been long known by the respective names of twopenny, ale, and

beer; when one Harwood, about 1720, produced a liquor which partook of the united flavour of the three, calling it entire butt, because it came from one cask. This beverage being soon in request by porters and other labouring men, it acquired the name of porter's beer from the populace.Pewter made first of Antimony and Bismuth. The best pewter is a mixture of lead, tin, and brass. Brass is also a mixed metal, and compounded of copper and zinc. Steel is only the

hardest and finest iron combined with charcoal, by a particular process.Loadstone, or magnet, is a muddy iron ore, in which the iron is modified in such a manner, as to afford a passage to a fluid called the magnetic fluid. It is known by its property of attracting steel-filings, and is found in Spain, Sweden, and Siberia. The pure metals are seven gold, silver, platina, copper, iron, lead, and tin; quicksilver is an imperfect metal, and found mostly in the silver-mines of South America, Spain, and China.

hard, and then dipped into liquid typemetal, so that a fac-simile of each page of printer's type is produced; and this imitative page, which is, of course, one fixed mass, is capable of giving off impressions with ink, in the same manner as the moveable type of the printer. By this process, a large number of plates may be struck from one compositor's work, and any quantity of copies of a work printed in a brief space of time: books, therefore, of universal demand, such as bibles, are always stereotyped, and can, from Whitehall Preacherships founded, the saving of labour in the printing1721, by George I. with suitable al-office, be sold at a lower rate than any lowances. The preachers are twenty- others. Stereos means in Greek imfour in number, twelve from each uni- moveable. versity. They must be resident fellows of colleges during the whole time they hold the office; to which they are appointed by the bishop of London, as dean of his majesty's chapel.

Stereotype Printing invented, 1725. Ged, a Scotsman, discovered the principle of stereotyping; but as the common printers opposed him virulently, the art was neglected for half a century; when Mr. Tilloch revived it in England, Didot at Paris, and lord Stanhope brought it to perfection. It is effected by taking an impression of each page of type, when set in order by the compositor, in plaster of Paris: the plaster-mould thus formed is baked

SOVEREIGNS. Turkey. 1703, Achmet III. Popes. 1700, Clement XI.; 1721, Innocent XIII.; 1724, Benedict XIII. France. 1643, Louis XIV.; 1715, Louis XV. Russia. 1696, Peter I.; 1725, Catherine I.; 1727, Peter II. Sweden. 1697, Charles XII.; 1719, Ulrica-Eleonora ; 1720, Frederick of Hesse-Cassel. Denmark and Norway. 1699, Frederick IV. Portugal. 1705, John V. Spain. 1700, Philip V.; 1724, Louis I. and Philip V. Germany. 1711, Charles VI. Poland. 1609, Frederick Augustus. Prussia. 1713, Frederick William I.

SECTION II.

GEORGE II., KING OF ENGLAND.

1727 TO 1760-33 YEARS.

Political History. George II. was born at Hanover 1683, and like his father, constantly preferred the interests of his German state to those of his more important inheritance. He had married, 1704, Caroline, princess of Brandenburg-Anspach, an amiable woman, who displayed great dignity as queen of England, and was always the warm patron of the learned, and the instant friend of the needy. She died 1737, aged fifty-four, universally regretted. By her the king had eight children; the most distinguished of whom were Frederick, prince of Wales, who died before his father, and whose son George III. succeeded to the throne; William, duke of Cumberland, a bachelor, and the conqueror of the Pretender; and Louisa, queen of Frede

rick V. of Denmark. George II. was short and well shapen, with very prominent eyes, a high nose, and a fair complexion. He was prone to anger, but easily appeased; otherwise he was moderate and humane; in his mode of living, temperate and regular. He was fond of pomp and military parade, and personally brave. In fact he loved war as a soldier, and corresponded on the subject with some of the greatest military characters of the continent. He was popular throughout his reign; and was very generally and sincerely regretted at his decease.

Political History. George II. succeeded at the mature age of forty-five, when the two parties, into which the nation had so long been divided, had changed their names from whig and tory to the court and country parties. Throughout the greatest portion of this reign there seem to have been two grand objects of controversy, namely, the national debt (thirty millions), and the number of forces to be kept in pay. The court party constantly found excuses, notwithstanding a profound and continued peace, to increase the one and not diminish the other, and were constantly victorious. The next thing worthy of notice is the charitable corporation, whereby a society of men, under the plea of raising a capital of 23,000l., to lend money at legal interest to the poor upon small pledges, increased that capital to 600,000l., and then decamped with the money. No less than six members of parliament, besides many persons of higher rank, were found to be concerned in this act of fraud; and it was long before the public forgot the circumstance. This happened in 1731; and in 1732 Walpole formed a scheme to fix a general excise, by commencing with tobacco, which was to pay no customs on importation, but fourpence per pound when sold out of the government warehouses, where it was ordered to be placed on arrival. So violent was the popular ferment, that the commons threw out the bill, alarmed at the threats of the crowds which daily beset the house; the minister was burned in effigy; and a new parliament called. Walpole having succeeded, in this new assembly, in his design to drive out the country party, passed several useful laws to gain popularity, and then declared war with Spain, 1739.

Ever since the treaty of Utrecht, the Spaniards had insulted the commerce of England; and as a right of cutting logwood in the bay of Campeachy in South America, gave the British frequent opportunities of pushing in contraband commodities upon that continent, the Spaniards, in revenge, declared no more logwood should be cut. Hostilities thereupon commencing, the British admiral Vernon destroyed the fortifications of Porto Bello; while Anson, after a voyage of three years' duration, in which he circumnavigated the globe, returned laden with the spoils of a Spanish galleon and other prizes, valued at 600,000l., though he lost a complete fleet in the stormy South Seas. But the attack of the English on Carthagena failed, and after great loss, they re-embarked their troops, and returned home, 1741; whereupon the popular indignation forced Walpole to resign, and he was removed to the house of peers as earl of Orford.

No less than 407 British ships having been captured in the contest with Spain, the nation became disgusted with naval affairs; and at once entered into the quarrels that were beginning on the continent of Europe. Augustus, king of Poland, had died, and Stanislaus, who had been nominated by Charles XII., had been supported by the French in his attempt upon the throne, but was put down by the Austrians and Russians. The emperor of Germany dying in 1740, the French, regardless of treaties, particularly of the Pragmatic Sanction, caused the elector of Bavaria to be crowned emperor; and the Prussians aided them on this occasion. England, however, stood forth in Maria Theresa's defence, and Holland and Russia soon becoming her allies, the nominal emperor was obliged to fly; and, stripped even of Bavaria, his inherit

ance, he passed henceforward a life of obscurity at Frankfort. Meanwhile the English and Hanoverians were trying to effect a junction with Maria Theresa's general, prince Charles of Lorraine, in order to crush the French at a blow. The earl of Stair and king George II. himself were in command; but near the village of Dettingen, the French contrived to surround them, and, had they acted without precipitation, would have made the British army, king and all, prisoners. Their impetuosity, however, saved Britain this disgrace; and they were ultimately driven back across the Mayne, with a loss of 500 men; a victory which was long celebrated in England, and to commemorate which the well-known Te Deum of Handel was composed.

The French were about to invade England after this defeat, with the Pretender at their head, when admiral Norris dispersed their fleet. They, however, appeared with 120,000 men in the Netherlands, under count Saxe; and the allies, amongst whom were the English under the duke of Cumberland, were defeated by them at the bloody battle of Fontenoy, 1744, with the loss of 12,000 men. Immediately after this disaster, Charles Edward, the young Pretender, son of the Pretender prince James, landed in Scotland with a few followers, and a ship-load of arms, 1745; and being joined by the Highlanders of certain clans, entered Edinburgh, and routed Sir John Cope and the English forces at Preston-pans. Had the prince marched at once into England, the consequences would probably have been serious to the party in power; but he remained in Edinburgh, waiting for succours which had been promised him, but which never arrived; so that the season of action was lost. Though general Wade could not get his 6000 Dutch troops to act against Charles Edward, the duke of Cumberland soon arrived from Flanders with a detachment of welldisciplined dragoons and infantry; and Charles Edward, having been compelled by the quarrels amongst his Highland generals, to retreat to Edinburgh, after advancing within 100 miles of London, found himself opposed by 14,000 well-supplied and veteran soldiers. An engagement ensued at Culloden, near Inverness, in which the Pretender's troops were defeated with great slaughter, and himself compelled to fly. The duke of Cumberland behaved on this occasion with the greatest cruelty, refusing quarter to the wounded, the unarmed, and the defenceless; and many were slain who had only been spectators of the combat, the soldiers themselves doing the office of the common executioner. Thirty-seven officers, adherents of the Pretender, were executed as traitors at Kennington-common, Carlisle, and York, respectively; and the earl of Kilmarnock, lord Balmerino, and lord Lovat, were put to death with the usual solemn ceremonial. The Highlanders of Scotland were commanded henceforth to wear clothes of the common fashion, laying aside their military dress and arms; and the power of their chieftains was wholly destroyed, every man being granted a participation in the common liberty, to the abolition of clanship for ever. Prince Charles Edward, meanwhile, with a price of 30,000l. upon his head, wandered six months in the frightful wilds of Glengary; and, like his greatuncle, Charles II., was eventually, by the aid of a few faithful adherents, put safely on shore in France. The duke of Cumberland returned after the battle of Culloden to Flanders, to take the command of an army to which he was by no means equal. The French recovered every fortress which the duke of Marlborough had taken; and had not admirals Anson, Warren, and Hawke made some captures of French ships, the English affairs would have been in a desperate state. At length Louis, tired of the contest, proposed a peace; and a treaty was accordingly concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle, 1749.

In 1751 died Frederick, prince of Wales, beloved by the majority for his good nature, and his opposition to the ministry. So much had he displeased his royal parent on the latter account, that they seldom met amicably; and

when, on a former occasion, prince Frederick had offended the king in a family matter, a public order was issued to the effect, that all who visited the prince would be refused admission at court.

War again broke out with France 1756, on account of the opposition of that power to the introduction of British settlers in Nova Scotia; a territory which the English were anxious to possess, in order the better to defend their American colonies and fishery. Although the British arms met with little success in Nova Scotia, many French ships were taken; and nothing was then talked of but an invasion of England. Fifty thousand men were brought down to the French shores, to embark in flat-bottomed boats for the opposite coasts: but, from some undefined cause, the attempt was laid aside for an attack on Minorca. Admiral Byng was instantly despatched to raise the siege; but sailing away without effecting his object, he was tried on his return to England, and shot; though he protested his innocence as to any treacherous intent. The British ministry then entered into alliance with the king of Prussia, who promised to protect Hanover from the French; and thus England and Prussia found themselves opposed alone to the allied powers of France, Russia, Austria, and Sweden.

The two powers, however, desperate as was their case, succeeded against their enemies. By the spirited conduct of colonel Clive, who had recently been a clerk of the East India company, all the French towns and factories on the Coromandel coast in India, except Pondicherri, were seized by the English; while, in 1759, the French possessions in North America fell rapidly before the British arms, general Wolfe at length entering Quebec as a conqueror, and all Canada surrendering to his troops. So did France, as if by magic influence, lose her hold upon her chief territories both in the East and West; added to which, the vigorous measures of the new ministry under Mr. Pitt, afterwards earl of Chatham, seemed to threaten the very annihilation of her power. Though Hanover had fallen before the French, by the capitulation of Closter-Seven, a reinforcement from England enabled the king of Prussia to proceed against the Russians; while 7000 English, under duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, defeated 80,000 French at Minden, 1759. The British army in Germany was soon after augmented to 30,000, and continued opposed to the French with various success, till they retired in October 1760 into winterquarters.

This measure had no sooner been taken, than news arrived of the death of George II. He had risen at his usual hour, October 25, and observed to the lord in waiting, that, as the weather was fine, he would walk before breakfast in the gardens of Kensington, where he then resided. In a few minutes after his return, being left alone in his room, he was heard to fall with violence upon the floor. His attendants hurried into the apartment, and lifted him upon his bed; when he desired with a faint voice that the princess Amelia might be sent for: but before she could reach his chamber, he had expired. He was in the seventy-seventh year of his age, and was buried in Westminster-abbey.

CHIEF DOMESTIC EVENTS.

Charitable Corporations Fraud, 1731, | do so, throughout the reigns of the first as in the history. and second George. In one instance, however, the revenue officers had succeeded in detecting Wilson, a baker in the county of Fife, and in ruining him by the fines levied upon him for his practices. This man, while infuriated by his losses, happening to hear that

The Porteous Riot, 1736. The Scottish people, unaccustomed to imposts, and regarding them as an unjust aggression upon their ancient liberties, made no scruple to elude them by smuggling, whenever it was possible to