Stuart, Lord Bute's daughter. These letters having been by an oversight omitted in the former volume, are inserted in the Appendix to this. It may be added that Lady Louisa Stuart always denied in the most positive terms the notion of her father having had any intercourse with George III. after he retired from office. She was quite aware of the scene at Princess Amelia's villa, described in the former volume, p. 49.

In the Introduction to that volume, mention is made of the testimony borne, by their surviving friends, to the impartiality of the judgments pronounced upon statesmen with whom the author most widely differed. He thinks that in treating of Lord Castlereagh, the form of the expressions used, rather than the substance of the opinion given, may be open to objection; and he has therefore materially modified those expressions. But it is also right to add, that he, very possibly, had fallen into the common error so natural and so hard to be avoided, of underrating the capacity of the statesman because of his inferiority in debate; and he has now endeavoured to repair the injustice which may in some degree have been done, although allowance, possibly not ample enough, had been before stated as fit to be made for this source of error-an error peculiar to countries having Parliamentary government. While some of our statesmen are thus undervalued, not a few are entirely overlooked, as if they belonged to another class. An instance may be given in Sir C. Stuart, afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothsay. If the Duke of Wellington had been asked to name the person not in the army, whose co-operation in the Peninsular War, especially during the earlier and more arduous portion of it, he most highly prized, it is not doubtful that he would at once have named this great diplomatist, for whom he ever entertained a very high regard, from an intimate knowledge of his strict in

tegrity, and eminent capacity for affairs. Yet as he never sat in Parliament till late in life, nor ever took any part in debate, and as political fame in this country is confined to those who have there distinguished themselves, Lord Stuart's name is in all likelihood unknown to almost every reader of this feeble tribute to it, dictated more by a sense of justice than by the recollection of uninterrupted friendship for half-a-century.

The additions made in this publication are chiefly those of legal characters-Lord Plunket, Lord Abinger, and Sir Arthur Pigott are the most fully given; but there is a series of papers added for the use of the younger members of the legal profession, and to inculcate the principles, as much of prudence as of honour, which the history of eminent lawyers so largely illustrates the neglect of all useless display; the sacrifice of everything to the interests of the cause and the client; the resisting other temptations, especially that of political distinction; and persevering in the pursuit of professional eminence. These papers were with this design communicated to the Law Review, a journal under the patronage of the Law Amendment Society; they are written in the assumed character of a retired Welsh judge, and were understood to have had a useful tendency.

5

GEORGE IV.

It would not be easy to find a greater contrast in the character and habits of two princes succeeding one another in any country, than the two last Georges presented to the eye of even the most superficial ob

server.

George Prince of Wales had been educated after the manner of all princes whose school is the palace of their ancestors, whose teacher is boundless prosperity, whose earliest and most cherished associate is unrestrained self-indulgence, and who neither among their companions form the acquaintance of any equal, nor in the discipline of the seminary ever feel control. The regal system of tuition is indeed curiously suited to its purpose of fashioning men's minds to the task of governing their fellow-creatures-of training up a naturally erring and sinful creature to occupy the most arduous of all human stations, the one most requiring habits of self-command, and for duly filling which, all the instruction that man can receive, and all the virtue his nature is capable of practising, would form a very inadequate qualification. This system had, upon the Prince of Wales, produced its natural effects in an unusually ample measure. He seemed, indeed, to come forth from the school a finished specimen of its capabilities and its powers; as if to show how much havoc can be made in a character originally deficient in none of the good and few of the great qualities, with which

it may be supposed that men are born. Naturally of a temper by no means sour or revengeful, he had become selfish to a degree so extravagant, that he appeared to act upon a practical conviction of all mankind being born for his exclusive use; and hence he became irritable on the least incident that thwarted his wishes; nay, seemed to consider himself injured, and thus entitled to gratify his resentment, as often as any one, even from a due regard to his own duty or his own character, acted in a way to disappoint his expectations or ruffle his repose.

His natural abilities, too, were far above mediocrity; he was quick, lively, gifted with a retentive memory, and even with a ready wit-endowed with an exquisite ear for music, and a justness of eye, that fitted him to attain refined taste in the arts-possessing, too, a nice sense of the ludicrous, which made his relish for humour sufficiently acute, and bestowed upon him the powers of an accomplished mimic. The graces of his person and his manners need not be noted, for neither are valuable but as the adjunct of higher qualities; and the latter, graceful manners, are hardly to be avoided by one occupying all his life that first station which, by removing constraint, makes the movements of the prince as naturally graceful as those of the infant or of the child too young to feel embarrassment. But of what avail are all natural endowments without cultivation? They can yield no more fruit than a seed or a graft cast out upon a marble floor; and cultivation, which implies labour, discipline, self-control, submission to others, can scarcely ever be applied to the Royal condition. They who believe that they are exempt from the toils, and hardly liable to the casualties of other mortals-all whose associates, and most of whose instructors, set themselves about confirming this faith— are little likely to waste the midnight oil in any contemplations but those of the debauchee; and beings, who can hardly bring themselves to believe that they

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are subject to the common fate of humanity, are pretty certain to own no inferior control. Quoi donc" (exclaimed the young Dauphin to his Right Reverend preceptor, when some book mentioned a king as having died)"Quoi donc, les Rois meurent-ils ?" "Quelquefois, Monseigneur," was the cautious and courtly reply. That this Prince should afterwards grow, in the natural course of things, into Louis XV., and that his infant aptitude for the habits of royalty thus trained up, should expand into the maturity of self-indulgence which almost proved too great a trial of French loyal patience, is not matter of wonder. Our Louis, notwithstanding the lessons of Dean Jackson, and the fellowship of Thurlow and Sheridan, was a man of very uncultivated mind-ignorant of all but the passages of history which most princes read, with some superficial knowledge of the dead languages, which he had imperfectly learnt and scantily retained, considerable musical skill, great facility of modern tongues, and no idea whatever of the rudiments of any science, natural or moral; unless the very imperfect notions of the structure of government, picked up in conversation or studied in newspapers, can be reckoned any exception to the universal blank.

We have said nothing of the great quality of all,the test of character,-firmness, and her sister truth. That the Prince was a man of firm mind, not even his most unscrupulous flatterers ever could summon up the courage to pretend. He was much the creature of impulses, and the sport of feelings naturally good and kind; but had become wholly selfish through unlimited indulgence. Those who knew him well were wont to say that his was a woman's character, when they observed how little self-command he had, and how easily he gave way to the influence of petty sentiments. Nor was the remark more gallant towards the sex than it was respectful towards the Prince; inasmuch as the character of a woman transferred to the other sex