CHAPTER IX

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THE COURT OF GEORGE III

Even before he ascended the throne George III had determined that his Court should be very different from that of his grandfather, and when he came into his kingdom he began at once a very drastic process of purification. He was a religious man, somewhat narrow in his views, and he held sacred things in great respect. At the coronation, after he had been anointed and crowned, when the Archbishop of Canterbury came to hand him down from the throne to receive the Sacrament, he told them he would not go to the Lord's Supper and partake of that ordinance with the crown on his head. The Archbishop of Canterbury did not know if it might be removed, and, after consulting the Bishop of Rochester, told the King neither could say if there was any order in the service for receiving communion with or without the crown. "Then there ought to be," said the monarch, and himself laid aside the crown.[178] Indeed he held very strong views as to the Sacrament, and when in 1805 Lord Chesterfield[179] prior to an Installation asked if the new Knights of the Garter would be required to take it, "No, My Lord," he replied severely, "the Holy Sacrament is not to be profaned by our Gothic institutions. Even at my coronation I was very unwilling to take it, but they told me it was indispensable. As it was, I took off the bauble from my head before I approached the Altar."[180]

George had this deep feeling for religion from his childhood, and before he was six years old had without direction learnt by heart several pages of Doddridge's "Principles of the Christian Religion"; while, from the time he grew up to the end of his life, he devoted one hour in the early morning to reading the Scriptures and to meditation. He was well acquainted with the works of Andrews, Sanderson and Sherlock, and asked a fashionable preacher of the day if he, too, were acquainted with them. "No, please your Majesty, my reading is all modern. The writers of whom you speak are now obsolete, though I doubt not they might have been very well at the time." The King looked at him, thinking of the man's own sermons, and replied: "There were giants on earth in those days."[181] One day George missed an under-gardener, and inquired as to the reason of his absence. "Please your Majesty, he is of late so very troublesome with his religion and he is always talking about it." "Is he dishonest? Does he neglect his work?" "No, your Majesty, he is very honest. I have nothing to say against him for that." "Then send for him again. Why should he be turned off? Call me Defender of the Faith!" he thundered. "Defender of the Faith!—and turn away a man for his religion!"

George III was not so bigoted but that he would visit a Quaker, and he and his consort witnessed the Lord Mayor's Show in 1761 from the house of Robert Barclay, one of the sect; and he could speak kindly of Nonconformists. On one occasion at Windsor he saw a maid-servant in tears and learnt that her distress was occasioned by the refusal of a superior to allow her to attend a dissenting meeting, whereupon he sent for the housekeeper and admonished her severely: "I will suffer no persecution during my reign!" "The Methodists are a quiet good kind of people and will disturb nobody; and if I can learn that any persons in my employment disturb them, they shall be immediately dismissed," he said when an attempt was made to interrupt the service at a Methodist chapel; and when a Bible Society was formed at Windsor, and the name of the Independent minister omitted, he desired that the name of "that good man" should without delay be added. But though George III could tolerate Nonconformists, on the other hand nothing could induce him to abate his prejudice against the Roman Catholics, and when urged to make concessions to them: "Tell me who took the coronation oath, did you or I? Dundas, let me have no more of your Scotch sophistry. I took the oath, and I must keep it."

After George's accession Dr. Thomas Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster, thought, by flattering him in a sermon delivered in the Chapel Royal, to ingratiate himself with the new King, only to be summoned to receive, to his great surprise, a stern rebuke: those who preached before him, the monarch warned Dr. Wilson, must remember "I go to church to hear God praised and not myself." George had, indeed, a high ideal for those in clerical orders, and this he enforced on all classes. "I could not help giving you the notification of the grief and concern with which my breast was affected at receiving an authentic information that routs have made their way into your palace," he wrote to Archbishop Cornwallis, when in 1772 he was informed by the Countess of Huntingdon that the prelate's wife had given a ball. "At the same time I must signify to you my sentiments on this subject, which hold these levities and vain dissipations as utterly inexpedient, if not unlawful, to pass in a residence for many centuries devoted to Divine studies, religious retirement, and the extensive exercise of charity and benevolence—I add, in a place where so many of your predecessors have led their lives in such sanctity as has thrown lustre upon the pure religion they professed and adorned. From the dissatisfaction with which you must perceive I behold these improprieties, not to speak in harsher terms, and still more pious principles, I trust you will suppress them immediately; so that I may not have occasion to show any further marks of displeasure, or to interpose in a different manner. May God take your Grace into His Almighty protection."

"I wish that every poor child in my dominion shall be able to read his Bible,"[182] he said rightly enough; but sometimes his fervour led him into excesses, such as the striking out in his copy of the Prayer-Book in the prayer for the Royal Family the words "our most Gracious King and Governor," and substituting an "unworthy sinner." It was this and similar examples of misdirected fervour that prompted Byron to write:

"All I saw further, in the last confusion,
Was, that King George slipped into Heaven for one;
And when the tumult dwindled to a calm,
I left him practising the hundredth psalm."[183]

One of the first acts of the King was to issue a proclamation for the "encouragement of piety and virtue, and for preventing and punishing of vice, profaneness, and immorality," which was especially commended to the notice of "judges, mayors, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and all other our officers and ministers, both ecclesiastical and civil."

"GEORGE R.

"We most seriously and religiously considering that it is an indispensable duty on us to be careful above all things to preserve and advance the honour and service of Almighty God, and to discourage and suppress all vice, profaneness, debauchery, and immorality, which are so highly displeasing to God, so great a reproach to our religion and government, and (by means of the frequent ill examples of the practices thereof) have so fatal a tendency to the corruption of many of our loving subjects, otherwise religiously and virtuously disposed, and which (if not timely remedied) may justly draw down the Divine vengeance on us and our kingdoms: we also humbly acknowledging that we cannot expect the blessing and goodness of Almighty God (by Whom Kings reign and on which we entirely rely) to make our reign happy and prosperous to ourself and to our people, without a religious observance of God's holy laws: to the intent thereof that religion, piety, and good manners may (according to our most hearty desire) flourish and increase under our administration and government, we have thought fit, by the advice of our Privy Council, to issue this our royal proclamation, and do hereby declare our royal purpose and resolution to discountenance and punish all manner of vice, profaneness, and immorality, in all persons of whatsoever degree or quality, within this our realm, and particularly in such as are employed near our royal person; and that for the encouragement of religion and morality, we will, upon all occasions, distinguish persons of piety and virtue, by marks of our royal favour. And we do expect and require that all persons of honour, or in place of authority, will give good example of their own virtue and piety, and to their utmost contribute to the discountenancing persons of dissolute and debauched lives, that they, being reduced by that means to shame and contempt for their loose and evil actions and behaviour, may be therefore also enforced the sooner to reform their ill habits and practices, and that the visible displeasure of good men towards them may (as far as it is possible) supply what the laws (probably) cannot altogether prevent. And we do hereby enjoin and prohibit all our loving subjects, of what degree or quality soever, from playing on the Lord's day at dice, cards, or any other game whatsoever; and we do hereby require and command them, and every one of them, decently and reverently to attend the worship of God on every Lord's-day, on pain of our highest displeasure, and being proceeded against with the utmost rigour that may be by law...."

Practical measures followed this proclamation, and first, as was to be expected from so regular a church-goer, George announced that the Sabbath Day must not be profaned even by so harmless an entertainment as a reception, and abolished the Sunday Drawing-rooms. This was followed by the discouragement of gambling at Court. When George discovered that at the Twelfth Night celebrations at St. James's Palace hazard was played for heavy stakes, he was horrified. First, he restricted the number of tables, later limited the hours of play, and subsequently refused to permit this amusement in his palaces. Then cards were instituted, only in turn to be forbidden, and it was announced that no game for money would be permitted among officials, under penalty of forfeiting their situations.[184]

It is an axiom that people cannot be made virtuous by proclamation, yet it is conceivable that those persons who were not moved to laughter by the exhortation to be good might appreciate it as an earnest of the King's intention to exact a standard of conduct higher than had been previously attained; and some acceptable result might have followed had the Court been popular, for, if the courtiers obeyed their master's behest, it is probable that those in lower ranks might follow the exalted example. Things began well. "For the King himself, he seems all good-nature, and wishing to satisfy everybody," Walpole wrote at the beginning of the reign. "All his speeches are obliging—I saw him yesterday, and was surprised to find that the levÉe room had lost so entirely the air of the lion's den. This sovereign does not stand in one spot, with his eyes royally fixed on the ground, and dropping bits of German news; he walked about and spoke to everybody; I saw him afterwards on the throne, where he is graceful and genteel, sits with dignity, and reads his answers well."

After the royal marriage, however, the good start was not followed up: the Court became the dullest and dreariest place conceivable and was soon attended only by those whose duties compelled them to attend. "The Court, independent of politics, makes the strangest figure," Walpole wrote to Lord Hertford not very long after the accession. "The Drawing-rooms are abandoned. Lady Buckingham was the only woman there on Sunday se'nnight. In short, one hears of nothing but dissatisfaction, which, in the city, rises almost to treason." Lord Holland, too, noted the prevalent feeling. "A young, civil, virtuous, good-natured King might naturally be expected to have such a degree of popularity as should for years defend the most exceptionable Favourite," he wrote in September, 1762. "But, which I can't account for, his Majesty from the very beginning was not popular. And now, because Lord Talbot[185] has prevented him from being cheated to the shameful degree that has been usual in his kitchen, they make prints treating his Majesty as they would a notorious old miser."[186]

Lord Talbot was Lord Steward of the Household and his appointment was not popular. "As neither gravity, rank, abilities, nor morals could be adduced to counterbalance such exaltation, no wonder it caused very unfavourable comments," was Walpole's opinion. "As the Court knew that the measures it had in contemplation could only be carried by money, every stratagem was invented to curtail the common expenses of the palace. As these fell into the province of the Lord Steward, nothing was heard of but cooks cashiered and kitchens shut up. Even the Maids of Honour, who did not expect rigours from a great officer of Lord Talbot's complexion, were reduced to complain of the abridgment of their allowance for breakfast."[187] The drastic changes in Lord Talbot's department brought down upon the nobleman a diatribe from Wilkes. "I much admire many of his Lordship's new regulations, especially those for the royal kitchen. I approve of the discharge of so many turnspits and cooks, who were grown of little use. It was high time to put an end to that too great indulgence in eating and drinking, which went by the name of Old English Hospitality, when the House of Commons had granted a poor niggardly Civil List of only £800,000."[188]

From a print dated 1762

THE KITCHEN METAMORPHOZ'D

The fact of the matter was the King was not possessed of those qualities that make for popularity. At times he showed a certain graciousness, as when at some watering-place where he went with the Queen, "We must walk about for two or three days to please these good people," he said, alluding to the crowds that assembled to see him, "and then we may walk about to please ourselves." Indeed, on the afternoons of Sundays and royal birthdays when the Court was at Windsor and the weather was fine, the King and Queen with their family walked on the Terrace, which was usually crowded with people of rank and fashion, and made so pretty a picture that many came from London to see the sight. In the country George was affable, especially with humble folk. At Weymouth he passed a field where, although it was harvest time, only one woman was at work, and, surprised by this neglect of work, he asked where were the other labourers. The woman said they had gone to see the King, and added: "I would not give a pin to see him. Besides, the fools will lose a day's work by it, and that is more than I can afford to do. I have five children to work for." "Well, then," said his Majesty, putting some money in her hands, "you may tell your companions who are gone to see the King, that the King came to see you."[189] Occasionally he would pay a compliment, as on one occasion at a review at Winchester when David Garrick, having dismounted and lost his horse, which, alarmed by the noise, had broken away, exclaimed, "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse," the King turned round, "I thought I could not be mistaken, Mr. Garrick," he said, "your delivery of Shakespeare can never pass unnoticed."[190] More frequently, however, his remarks were tactless, as in his conversation with a Yorkshireman at a levÉe, "I suppose you are going back to Yorkshire, Mr. Stanhope? A very ugly county, Yorkshire!" "Oh, sir!" said Stanhope, outraged in his tenderest feelings, "we always consider Yorkshire a very picturesque county." "What, what, what!" cried the King, who evidently had not sought the soft answer that turns away anger. "A coal-pit a picturesque object! What, what, what! Yorkshire coalpits, picturesque! Yorkshire a picturesque county!"[191]

Yet, though George neither as lad nor man possessed wit, at times he gave proofs of an unexpected vein of humour. Thus, when he inquired who was the owner of a newly erected palatial house, and was told it had been built by his Majesty's card-maker, "Indeed," quoth he, "then this man's cards have all turned up trumps." On another occasion when he had purchased a horse, the dealer handed him a large piece of parchment with the remark, "The animal's pedigree, Sire." "No, no," said the monarch, handing it back. "Keep it, my good man, 'twill do as well for the next horse you sell," which shows more knowledge of the world than is usually accredited to the speaker. One day Colonel Manners, who was in high favour at Court, sought an interview. "Let him in," the King replied, "he is not only Manners, but good manners." When at the end of March, 1781, Lord Bateman waited on him to ask at what hour his Majesty would have the stag-hounds turned out, "My Lord, I cannot exactly answer that," he replied, having just bestowed the Mastership on the Marquis of Carnarvon,[192] "but I can inform you that your Lordship was turned out an hour ago." More amusing is the message he sent to a Jacobite who would not take the oath of allegiance or acknowledge him as King of England—"Carry my compliments to him—but—what—stop—no—he may perhaps not receive my compliments as King of England. Give him the Elector of Hanover's compliments, and tell him that he respects the steadiness of his principles."

When Lord Chief Baron Macdonald, a great snuff-taker, and Mr. Baron Graham, an inveterate talker, were sitting in the Westminster court, "The Court of Exchequer," remarked the King, "has a snuffbox at one end and a chatterbox at the other."[193] To Lord Kenyon, a very violent-tempered man, he said: "My Lord, I hear that since you have been in the King's Bench, you have lost your temper. You know my great regard for you, and I may therefore venture to tell you I am glad to hear it."[194] Humorous, too, was his remark, À propos of George Selwyn's love of horrors. Selwyn was present at a levÉe, and withdrew after George had spoken to him, although it was known the monarch was to confer the honour of knighthood upon a country squire who had come to Court to present an Address. "The King afterwards, in the closet, expressed his astonishment to the Groom-in-Waiting," wrote Storer to Lord Auckland, "that Mr. Selwyn should not wish to see the ceremony of making a new knight, observing that it looked so like an execution that he took it for granted Mr. Selwyn would have stayed to see it."[195]

An amusing incident has also been related by Colonel Landmann when George III was at Weymouth. "The King had taken off one of his military white gloves, and in dropping the ends of his sash, he also at the same time dropped the glove, upon which, not only General Garth, but several others nearest to the King, scrambled for the glove on the ground, in order to mark their zeal and attention to his Majesty; but the King, desirous of recovering his fallen glove without having to thank any one for it, or perhaps wishing to display his activity, also attempted to seize it, in which he succeeded. On rising, the King's cane slipped from his hold, and again the King was the successful candidate for the prize. Now the sensation which the scrambling for the glove and then for the stick had created amongst the vast concourse of spectators was increased to an uncontrollable degree by the falling off of the King's hat, for the capture of which an increased number of competitors presented themselves, whose ambition to serve his Majesty greatly retarded its restitution.

"Colonel Campbell, at length, had the good fortune to rescue this from the hands of two members of the King's household, who were struggling with each other for victory; whilst the King, holding out his hands for his property, his face, in consequence of his stooping, as red as his coat, exclaimed: 'Never mind about the honour of the thing, never mind, never mind; give me my hat, give me my hat; there,' as the King received his hat, 'thank you—thank you all alike—you all picked it up—yes, yes,—all, all, all—you all picked it up.'

"The King, during the latter part of this contest, laughed most heartily, in which the whole of the cortÈge surrounding his Majesty immediately joined, throwing off all restraint."[196]

One of the best stories concerning George III has since been told in many forms of other persons. The King and his eldest son assisted a countryman whose cart had stuck in a rut near Windsor, and, after literally putting their shoulders to the wheel, they gave him respectively half-a-guinea and a guinea. The driver was puzzled to receive a larger coin from the Prince of Wales than from the monarch, who heard of the man's perplexity, and, meeting him again some time after, explained the matter: "Friend, I find you cannot account for my son being more generous than I; but you should consider I have a large family to provide for; he is but a single man, and has nobody to provide for but himself."

Even better than this was his remark after his recovery in 1789, when he heard that "Old Q." had gone over to the Opposition: "For once the old jockey has run on the wrong side of the post." This occasional sense of humour was rarely carried into the domain of affairs of state, but one instance when humour and justice combined has been preserved. Picking a pocket was not a capital felony, but in those days taking anything privily from the person, of the value of one shilling, was punishable with death. George abolished for all practical purposes this absurd distinction, for when the warrant for the execution of a pickpocket was brought for his signature, he refused to sign it, declaring there was no difference between the offences. "I had always understood," said he, "that the very essence of picking a pocket was, that it should be done as much as possible without the knowledge of the party."[197]

The King had a great sense of regal dignity, and, when outraged, could administer a rebuke with an air that rendered it crushing. When Lord Kingsale, in the exercise of the privilege bestowed by King John to wear his hat in the royal presence, remained covered, not for an instant, but throughout a Court, in the presence of the King and Queen, "My Lord Kingsale," said the monarch, "you are entitled to remain covered in the presence of your sovereign, but not in the presence of a lady." Again, when Addington quarrelled with Pitt, he went to surrender the key of the Council box that he held as Lord President of the Council, but the King declined angrily to receive it: "You must not give it to me, but to Lord Hawkesbury"; and when the retiring minister begged to be excused on the ground that Lord Hawkesbury and he were not on speaking terms, "that," said George, "was no concern of his."

George III took himself with the greatest seriousness, not only in matters of importance, but also in the most trivial details of ceremony, and when any change in etiquette was mooted, met the suggestion with the stereotyped reply, "I will have no innovations in my time." He could not bring himself ever to unbend even with ministers who were brought into daily contact with him, and during the interview, however long it might be, he would stand, and so prevent the minister from taking a seat. Indeed, on one occasion when Pitt was suffering from gout, George kept him standing for two hours, though well aware of the statesman's infirmity, for two days later he said to him he hoped he had not suffered by standing so long on Monday. And Pitt was overcome by this gracious inquiry and told his friends, "His Majesty is the greatest courtier in the country".[198]

It was not only ministers, however, who suffered in this way, for on one occasion Mrs. Siddons, who was summoned to read a play before their Majesties, was kept on her feet until she nearly fell from fatigue.

"Ready to drop to earth, she must have sunk,
But for a child that at the hardship shrunk—
A little prince, who marked her situation,
Thus, pitying, pour'd a tender exclamation:
'La! Mrs. Siddons is quite faint indeed,
How pale! I'm sure she cannot read:
She somewhat wants, her spirits to repair,
And would, I'm sure, be happy in a chair.'
What follow'd? Why, the r-y-l pair arose
Surly enough, one fairly may suppose!
And to a room adjoining made retreat,
To let her, for one moment, steal a seat."[199]

When George III "put on the King," Beckford said, "he was the personification of dignity," and "no man could stand before him";[200] while the impression he made on Johnson is well known. "Sir, they may talk of the King as they will, but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen," the doctor said to Barnard, the librarian; and supplemented this to Langton: "Sir, his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Louis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second."[201] This regal dignity was, however, not always sustained in private. "The oscillations of his body, the precipitations of his questions, none of which, it was said, would wait for an answer, and the hurry of his articulation"[202] were so many faults; and the famous "What? what?" with which he concluded his sentences were irritating to a degree. "His Majesty is multifarious in his questions," said Johnson, "but thank God he answers them all himself." The King was no fool, however, and, as Wraxall was at pains to point out, "his understanding, solid and sedate, qualified him admirably for business," though it was neither of a brilliant nor imposing description; but he had in him a great vein of folly.

Now, the dignity of a foolish man usually furnishes fit subject for mirth, and the King's reputation for stupidity, which originated in his early years, grew confirmed as time went on. No story, however seemingly absurd, was rejected as untrue by his loyal subjects, who, perhaps, found their greatest pleasure in this direction, in the well-known anecdote of the King and the apple dumpling.

"Once upon a time, a monarch, tired with whooping,
Whipping and spurring,
Happy in worrying
A poor defenceless, harmless buck
(The horse and rider wet as muck),
From his high consequence and wisdom stooping,
Enter'd, through curiosity, a cot.
Where sat a poor old woman and her pot.
"The wrinkled, blear-ey'd, good, old granny,
In this same cot, illum'd by many a cranny,
Had finish'd apple dumplings for her pot:
In tempting row the naked dumplings lay,
When, lo! the monarch, in his usual way,
Like lightning spoke, 'What's this? what's this? what? what?'
"Then taking up a dumpling in his hand,
His eyes with admiration did expand—
And oft did Majesty the dumpling grapple:
''Tis monstrous, monstrous hard, indeed,' he cried:
'What makes it, pray, so hard?'—The dame reply'd,
Low curtseying, 'Please, your Majesty, the apple.'
"'Very astonishing, indeed! strange thing!'
(Turning the dumpling round, rejoin'd the King).
''Tis most extraordinary then, all this is,
It beats Piretti's conjuring all to pieces,
Strange I should never of a dumpling dream,
But, goody, tell me where, where, where's the seam?'
"'Sir, there's no seam,' quoth she, 'I never knew[Pg 190]
That folks did apple dumplings sew'—
'No,' cry'd the staring monarch with a grin,
'How, how the devil got the apple in?'
"On which the dame the curious scheme revealed
By which the apple lay so sly concealed;
Which made the Solomon of Britain start:
Who to the Palace with full steam repaired,
And Queen and Princesses so beauteous scared,
All with the wonders of the Dumpling Art.
"There did he labour one whole week, to show
The wisdom of an Apple-Dumpling maker:
And, lo! so deep was Majesty in dough,
The Palace seemed the lodging of a Baker."[203]

The King's folly was most clearly seen in his pronouncements upon scientific questions. He had some liking for mechanics, and, it is said, directed the construction of some interesting clocks; but certainly, apart from mechanics, he was wofully ignorant, and as obstinate as he was ignorant. "Well, I suppose all your chickens are dead," he said to Beckford, alluding to the fact that his house was roofed with copper, an experiment which the King had declared must infallibly kill everything under the roof with verdigris.[204] George took an active part in the question which arose about 1778, whether lightning conductors, which at this time were ordered to be placed near all the powder magazines, should have blunted or pointed ends. A great dispute was raging: Sir John Pringle, President of the Royal Society, Dr. Franklin, and many men of light and leading advocating points, a view controverted by Sir Joseph Banks and some others. It was obviously a question for scientific experts, but the King, as a wit put it, "being rather partial to blunt conductors," thought to put an end to the matter by giving his peremptory decision, and announcing to the world the superiority of nobs. Not content with carrying out his theory in the lightning conductors at Buckingham House, he desired Sir John Pringle to publish his belief as the opinion of the Royal Society! Of course to this amazing demand, there could be but one answer, and Sir John regretted "it was not in his power to reverse the order of nature."

i190

Caricature by R. Newton

LEARNING TO MAKE APPLE DUMPLINGS

For art George had some liking, thus forming an agreeable contrast to his two predecessors who detested "bainting and boetry," but unfortunately his taste was quite uninformed and his critical faculties negligible: he preferred Benjamin West to Reynolds, and Peter Pindar "wept over the hard fate of Prince Octavius and Prince Augustus, children of our Most Glorious Sovereign," whose portraits had, by royal command, been painted by West.

"Ghost of Octavius! tell the bard,
And thou, Augustus, us'd so hard,
Why West hath murdered you, my tender lambs?
You bring to mind vile Richard's deed,
Who bid your royal cousins bleed,
For which the world the tyrant's mem'ry damns.
"West, I must own thou dost inherit
Some portion of the painting spirit;
But trust me—not extraordinary things—
Some merit thou must surely own
By getting up so near the throne,
And gaining whispers from the best of Kings."[205]

The King also delighted in Beattie, who was his and his consort's favourite poet.

"... Sweet Poesy exalts her voice,
MacOssian sings, and Homer's halls rejoice,
One lazy tenor Beattie's bag-pipe keeps,
And tragic Home most lamentably weeps.
The Monarch's favourites, and the Muses' too!
'Whawr, Bratons, whawr's yore Woolly Shockspare noo!'"[206]

However, to the best of his ability, George admired, and if when shown some of Blake's drawings he cried, "What—what—what! Take them away, take them away!" and if he thought Shakespeare "sad stuff," on the other hand it is to his credit that he took much interest in the foundation of the Royal Academy, and, though he did not desire that Reynolds should be President, yet he sanctioned the appointment and knighted the painter. In his respect for letters he conceived the idea to establish an Order of Minerva for eminent writers and scientists. "The knights were to take rank after the Knights of the Bath, and to sport a straw-coloured ribbon and a star of sixteen points. But there was such a row among the literati as to the persons who should be appointed, that the plan was given up, and Minerva and her star never came down amongst us."[207] He accumulated a fine library that George IV, when he found he might not sell it, gave to the British Museum; but he was probably entirely ignorant of his acquisitions, though he had a fondness for the exterior of books, and it is to his credit that he instructed his librarian "never to bid a farthing against a scholar, or professor, or against any person of moderate means, desiring a particular volume for his own use."[208]

George liked to think himself a patron of art and artists, but it is hinted he was not always inspired by the right motive, as when he found a place for Gibbon as a Lord of Trade:

"King George in a fright,
Lest Gibbon should write
The Hist'ry of England's disgrace,
Thought no way so sure
His pen to secure
As to give the historian a place."

The royal patronage was certainly not exercised on the heroic scale. Thus, Richard Paton was commanded to bring to Kew for their Majesties' inspection naval pictures intended for St. Petersburg, and he obeyed the summons, at a cost of fifty pounds for carriage, for which he was repaid only with thanks; and it was the payment by the King of twenty-five pounds for a picture, the market price of which was four times that amount, painted by a friend of Dr. Wolcot, that brought down upon the monarch the many vigorous onslaughts by that keen though coarse satirist.[209]

On another occasion the Queen was persuaded to sit to young Thomas Lawrence. "The poor young fellow was naturally inexperienced in the ways of a Court, and the manner in which her Majesty treated him was not with her usual kind consideration. She declined to give him a last sitting for the ornaments, as it was too much trouble, but eventually was prevailed upon to allow Mrs. Papendiek to act as her deputy. No money was paid. The King told him to remove it to town, and have it engraved. When that was done, the portrait was to be sent to Hanover, and then the King proposed to pay. But Lawrence had no money, and could not risk the engraving at his own expense."[210] The picture, therefore, remained in his studio, and was sold with others after his death.

Even royalty itself was not able to induce the King to put aside his dislike of spending money, for when the Empress of Russia asked for a portrait of himself by Reynolds, the monarch, with "laudable royal economy," as the satirist put it, went, not to Reynolds, but to an inexpensive portrait-painter.

"I'm told, and I believe the story,
That a fam'd Queen of Northern brutes,
A gentlewoman of prodigious glory,
Whom every sort of epithet well suits;
Whose husband dear, just happening to provoke her,
Was shov'd to heaven upon a red-hot poker!
Sent to a certain King, not King of France,
Desiring by Sir Joshua's hand his phiz,
What did the royal quiz?
Why, damned genteelly, sat to Mr. Dance."[211]

Certainly on no occasion made public did George III ever show a royal generosity. He saved his old master, Goupy, from a debtor's prison, and appointed his fencing master Redman, who had fallen upon evil days, a Poor Knight of Windsor; he released a man who had been imprisoned twelve years in Dorchester Jail for a debt of £100 by paying that amount; and one day, having taken shelter in a cottage where a joint was suspended before the fire by a string, he left two guineas behind him to "buy a jack."

"I never considered the King as munificent," Lord Carlisle remarked; "when he gave the kettledrums costing £1,500 to the Blues, he was deranged. Before his illness he stopped all the hunt to give an old man something for opening a gate at Bray Wick: after a long search for his purse he produced from it a penny and bestowed it on the man. He gave a fÊte in the Castle to all the Eton school boys. It consisted of a very long concert of sacred music with nothing to eat or drink."[212]

i196

From an old print

THE KING RELIEVING PRISONERS IN DORCHESTER GAOL

It was not so much that George III was not good-natured, but that he lacked the imagination that might have assisted him to a more worthy generosity. He could never divest himself of a care for trifling sums of money, and while he would authorize, nay encourage, the spending of millions to further some matter upon which he had set his heart, he would sit at home and work out the cost of his son's household to a halfpenny,[213] and take great care that his agricultural hobby should show a balance on the right side, which last consideration aroused again and again the ire of Peter Pindar.

"The modern bard, quoth Tom, sublimely sings
Of sharp and prudent economic kings,
Who rams, and ewes, and lambs, and bullocks feed.
And pigs of every sort of breed:
"Of Kings who pride themselves on fruitful sows;
Who sell skim milk, and keep a guard so stout
To drive the geese, the thievish rascals, out,
That ev'ry morning us'd to suck the cows;
"Of Kings who cabbages and carrots plant
For such as wholesome vegetables want;
Who feed, too, poultry for the people's sake,
Then send it through the villages in carts,
To cheer (how wondrous kind!) the hungry hearts
Of such as only pay for what they take."[214]
i198

From a drawing by Isaac Cruikshank, 1791

SUMMER AMUSEMENTS AT FARMER GEORGE'S

The reason for the unpopularity of the Court may be traced, not to the King's lack of appreciation of what was best in art and letters, not even to his stupidity, but to the lack of wisdom in the sovereigns who, in their zeal for reform, carried their love of decorum to excess (although the Queen's Puritanism was not so deep but that she could for her own ends aid and abet such a frail, designing baggage as Lady Jersey[215]), and to a parsimony unpardonable when exercised in conjunction with a large Civil List.[216] Their miserly tendencies were noted and commented upon with disgust at the Queen's first party, given on November 26, 1762, a "gingerbread affair," which, including the ladies-and-gentlemen-in-waiting, did not consist of more than a baker's dozen of couples. On this occasion, though dancing began before seven o'clock and went on uninterrupted till long after midnight, there was no supper, an omission that furnished Lord Chesterfield with the opportunity for a bon-mot in a subsequent conversation as to possible additions to the peerage on the King's next birthday. "I suppose," said some one, "there will be no dukes made." "Oh, yes," said Lord Chesterfield, "there is to be one. Lord Talbot is to be created Duke Humphrey, and there is to be no table kept at Court but his!" Those who attended the royal functions fully appreciated this reference to "dining with Duke Humphrey"; and Peter Pindar voiced the public feeling in his "Odes to Kien Long":

"The pocket is a very serious matter,
Small beer allayeth thirst—nay, simple water.
The splendour of a chase, or feast, or ball,
Though strong, are passing momentary rays—
The lustre of a little hour; that's all—
While guineas with eternal splendour blaze."

The lack of hospitality shown to those who attended at Court was combined with an equal penury in connexion with those who were summoned to amuse the royal circle, and of some disgraceful examples of this unroyal miserliness Peter Pindar again is the historian.

"For, not long since, I heard a forward dame
Thus, in a tone of impudence, exclaim,
Good God! how kings and queens a song adore!
With what delight they order an encore!
When that same song, encor'd, for nothing flows!
This Madam Mara to her sorrow knows!
To Windsor oft, and eke to Kew,
The r-y-l mandate Mara drew.
No cheering drop the dame was asked to sip—
No bread was offer'd to her quivering lip:
Though faint, she was not suffer'd to sit down—
Such was the goodness—grandeur of the crown.
Now tell me, will it ever be believ'd,
How much for song and chaise-hire she receiv'd?[Pg 201]
How much pray, think ye? Fifty guineas. 'No.'
Most surely forty. 'No, no.' Thirty. 'Poh!
Pray, guess in reason, come again!'—
Alas! you jeer us!—twenty at the least;
No man could ever be so great a b—st
As not to give her twenty for her pain.—
'To keep you, then, no longer in suspense,
For Mara's chaise-hire and unrivall'd note,
Out of their wonderful benevolence,
Their bounteous M——ies gave—not a groat.'"[217]

The pecuniary treatment accorded to Madame Mara was meted out also to Mrs. Siddons, who, appointed preceptress in English reading to the Princesses, but without salary,[218] was summoned frequently to read or recite at Court, and came out of the palace "as rich as she went in."

"Such are the stories twain! Why, grant the fact,
Are princes, pray, like common folks to act?
Should Mara call it cruelty, and blame
Such r-y-l conduct, I'd cry, Fie upon her!
To Mrs. Siddons freely say the same,
Sufficient for such people is the honour."[219]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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