34. George the First, their son.

35. George the Second, his son.

36. Frederick, Prince of Wales, son of George the Second.

37. George the Third, his son. 38. George the Fourth, his son.*

CHAPTER II.

Birth of the Prince.

On the 12th of August, the birth of the heir-apparent was announced; her Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales, the ladies of her majesty's bedchamber, and the chief lords of the privy council, being in attendance.

On this occasion the king's popularity, independently of the great interests connected with the royal succession, had excited the most universal public feeling. As the time of the queen's accouchement drew nigh, the national anxiety increased. It was raised to its height by the intelligence, on the evening of the 11th, that her majesty's illness was immediately at hand. The great officers of state were now ordered to await the summons in the neighbourhood of the royal bedchamber; a precaution which sounds strangely to our ears, but which has been considered a matter of propriety, from the imputations thrown on the birth of the son of James the Second.

* "Yorke's Royal Tribes." Those who desire to search deeper into the antiquities of the Hanoverian line, may examine " Eccard's Origines Guelficæ," "Muratori's Antichita Estense," for the Italian branch; and Sir Andrew Halliday's "Annals of the House of Hano ver," for a detail of the various possessions and alliances of the northern.

The palace was crowded during the night. At four in the morning the Princess Dowager of Wales arrived. The queen had been taken slightly ill some time before. The great officers of state were in attendance in the anteroom of the royal chamber from five; and at twenty-four minutes past seven the joyful news was spread through the palace that an heir was born to the throne. The sound was caught with enthusiasm by the people, who had long since thronged the avenues of St. James's, was instantly conveyed through London, and was hailed by all as an event which accomplished the singular public prosperity of the new reign.

On those occasions popular feeling delights in seizing on every fortunate coincidence. The day was deemed auspicious, as the anniversary of the Hanover succession. But a more direct popular triumph occurred while the king was yet receiving the congratulations of the nobility.

Of all wars, in those times, the most popular was a Spanish war; and of all prizes, the most magnificent was a Spanish galleon. The Hermione, one of those treasure-ships, sailing from Lima, had been taken in May, off Cape St. Vincent, by three English frigates. Rumour had exaggerated the wealth on board to the enormous sum of twelve millions sterling in silver, besides the usual precious merchandise from the Spanish settlements. But the actual treasure was immense; the officers made fortunes, and even the share of a common sailor, though three crews were to divide the capture, was computed at nearly one thousand pounds. The chief cargo was silver, but many bags of gold were found hidden in the dollar chests, probably to evade some impost at Cadiz, which largely increased the value to the fortunate captors.

The wagons conveying the treasure had arrived in London on the night before, and were on this morning to have passed before the palace in their

way to the Tower. Almost at the moment of announcing the royal birth, the cavalcade was seen en tering St. James's Street, escorted by cavalry and infantry with trumpets sounding, the enemy's flags waving over the wagons, and the whole surrounded by the multitude that such an event would naturally collect. The sudden spectacle (a striking and even triumphant one) led the king and the nobility to the palace windows. The news of the prince's birth was now spread like flame; and innumerable voices rose at once to wish the young heir prosperity., A Roman would have predicted, that an existence begun under such omens must close without a cloud. The king, in the flower of youth, and with the exultation of a sovereign, and the still deeper delight of a father, was conspicuous in exhibiting his feeling of the public congratulation; and the whole scene was long spoken of as one of the most natural and animated exhibitions of national joy known in the reign.

George the Third had commenced his sovereignty with a manly and generous declaration of his pride in being born a Briton,-a declaration in which he had the more merit from its being his own, and from its being made in defiance of the cold-blooded statesmanship which objected to it in the privy council, as a reflection on the Hanoverian birth of the two former kings. The result showed the superior wisdom of a warm heart to a crafty head; for this single sentence superseded the popular memory of every other syllable in the royal speech, and became instantly the watchword of national affection to the throne.

But the king followed the principle into the details of life. He loved to be a thorough Englishman. Like every man of sense, he scorned all affectation; and, above all, scorned the affectation of foreign manners. The lisping effeminacy, the melancholy jargon, the French and German foppery of the

mustached and cigarred race that the coffee-house life of the continent has propagated among us, would have found no favour in the eyes of this honest and high-principled king. Honour to God and justice to man, public respect for religion and private guidance by its spirit, public decorum and personal virtue, a lofty and generous zeal for the dignity of his crown and people, and a vigilant yet affectionate discipline in his family and household, were the characteristics of George the Third. But even in his royalty he loved to revive the simple customs of English domestic life and his famous speech from the throne scarcely gave more national delight and assurance of an English heart, than the homely announcement, which followed in a few days after the queen's recovery; that the royal infant was to be shown in its cradle to all who called at the palace; and that their majesties, after the old English custom, invited the visiters to cake and caudle.

On the 17th of August, a few days after his birth, his royal highness had been created Prince of Wales by patent, in addition to that weight of honours which devolves on the heir of the British and Hanoverian sovereignties. The title of Prince of Wales was one of the trophies of the conquest of Llewellyn, and was originally conferred by the first Edward upon hus son in 1284, investing him by cap, coronet, verge, and ring. The title is exclusively devoted to the eldest son of the throne, except where it has been engrossed by the throne itself.

The eldest son is also, as inheriting from the Scottish kings, hereditary Steward of Scotland, Duke of Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, and Baron of Renfrew; titles conferred by Robert the Third, king of Scotland, on the prince his eldest son, in 1399; and appropriated for ever to the princes of Scotland from their birth.

The heir-apparent is born Duke of Cornwall, and possessor of the revenues of the dutchy. But it is

singular that he has no Irish title, while all the junior branches of the royal family enjoy honours from Ireland.

Addresses rapidly flowed in from the leading public bodies: that of the city seemed to have imbodied the substance of the chief popular testimonials. After congratulating his majesty on the birth, it alluded to the Hanover succession. "So important an event, and upon a day ever sacred to liberty, fills us with the most grateful sentiments to the Divine Goodness, which has thus early crowned your majesty's domestic happiness, and opened to your people the agreeable prospect of permanence and stability to the blessings which they derive from the wisdom and steadiness of your majesty's victorious reign." This was courteous. But the addresses of the clergy were observed to be generally in a higher tone; and the address of the clergy of the province of Canterbury was distinguished by a direct appeal to those great doctrines on which the constitution stands. The king's answer was manly, and suitable to the free king of a free people. "He saw with peculiar pleasure their gratitude to Heaven for the birth of a Protestant heir. Their confidence in his fixed intention to educate the prince in every principle of civil and religious liberty, was truly acceptable to him; and he desired them to rely upon him for observing his pledges to the empire, and for leaving nothing undone that could promote the sacred interests of Christian piety and moral virtue, and transmit to posterity our most happy constitution."

The fickleness of popularity is the oldest lesson of public life: yet the sudden change of public feeling towards George the Third is among its most remarkable and unaccountable examples. No European throne had been ascended for the last hundred years by a sovereign more qualified by nature and circumstances to win "golden opinions" from his people. Youth, striking appearance, a fondness not