that I am entirely incapable of those exertions which my birth and the circumstances of the times peculiarly call for. Standing so near the throne, when I am debased, the cause of royalty is wounded. I cannot sink in public opinion, without the participation of your majesty in my degradation; therefore, every motive of private feeling and public duty induces me to implore your majesty to review your decision, and to place me in that situation which my birth, the duties of my station, the example of my predecessors, and the expectations of the people of England, entitle me to claim."

Public attention had been strongly fixed on the prince during the progress of this transaction; and from the innumerable rumours which were propagated by his friends and enemies, it became of importance to him, that he should be enabled to bring his whole conduct on the occasion before the empire. The king, at least, gave him no cause to complain of delay. Nothing could be more prompt, nor more peremptory, than his majesty's answer:

"MY DEAR SON,-Though I applaud your zeal and spirit, in which I trust no one can suppose any of my family wanting, yet, considering the repeated declarations I have made of my determination on your former applications to the same purpose, I had flattered myself to have heard no further on the subject. Should the implacable enemy succeed so far as to land, you will have an opportunity of showing your zeal at the head of your regiment. It will be the duty of every man to stand forward on such an occasion; and I shall certainly think it mine to set an example, in defence of every thing that is dear to me and my people.

"I ever remain, my dear son,

"Your most affectionate father,
"GEORGE R."

Application was thenceforth at an end; but the prince addressed a strong vindication of his motives to his majesty; and after some correspondence with the Duke of York, whom he had hastily conceived to be the king's adviser on the occasion, and a remonstrance on his being omitted in a list of military promotions towards the close of the year, he at length submitted to a necessity which perhaps no subject in the empire could have felt with more pain. A final note to the minister put this offended feeling in the strongest light. The reports of invasion had been loudly renewed, at a time when the prince was known to be preparing to spend the winter at Brighton, a point which must have been considerably exposed, in the event of an enemy's force being off the coast. Mr. Addington* wrote a few lines to beg that the journey might be delayed. The answer was spirited, soldierlike, and indignant.

"SIR,-By your grounding your letter to me on intelligence which has just reached you, I apprehend you allude to information leading you to expect some attempt on the part of the enemy. My wish to accommodate myself to any thing which you represent as material to the public service, would of course make me desirous to comply with your request:

"But if there be reason to imagine that invasion will take place directly, I am bound by the king's precise order, and by that honest zeal which is not allowed any fitter sphere for its action, to hasten instantly to my regiment. If I learn that my construction of the word intelligence is right, I shall deem it necessary to repair instantly to Brighton."

In England there can be but few state secrets, and this correspondence soon made its way to the jour

* October 23.

nals. The debate, on moving for a committee on the defence of the country, introduced the prince's name; when Tyrrwhitt, one of his household, defended him from the possible charge of reluctance, by stating the nature of his applications to the throne. The debate, though with closed doors, was immediately made public; and the correspondence thus announced appeared in a few days.

No sufficient light has been hitherto thrown on this inveterate rejection of his royal highness's services. The personal safety of the heir-apparent could not have been the object; for, at the head of his regiment, he would probably have only taken a more exposed share in the struggle. Constitutional maxims could scarcely have interfered; for the prince neither desired to obtain an extensive command, nor, if he had, was the authority of the Duke of York to be superseded, but by the express determination of the king. But no parliamentary torture could force the secret from the minister. The only reply which he made to Fox's angry demands, and to the strong expressions of curiosity on the part of the legislature, was the old ministerial formula of defiance: "Nothing less than the united authority of the house, and the direct commands of the king, should compel him to say another word upon the subject." The true cause was probably the king's personal displeasure, originating in his royal highness's conduct to the princess. The unhappy connexion with Mrs. Fitzherbert had continued; and was, as it had begun, a perpetual source of embarrassment to the prince, of regret to the empire, and of offence to the king. While this contumely to English feeling was daily offered, there could be no complete reconciliation between a father who felt himself not more the guardian of the public rights than of the public morality, and a son who exhibited himself in the most conspicuous point of view as an offender against the great bond of society,

that rite to which, above all the institutions of human wisdom, a hallowed sanction has been given; and whose disregard has been universally the forerunner of national decay, as its purity and honour have been the unfailing pledges of national virtue, prosperity, and freedom.

CHAPTER XII.

Parliament.

THE age of parliamentary greatness was going down. Burke, Pitt, and Fox successively disappeared; and men looked no longer to parliament for the old noble displays of the highest ability, exerted in the highest cause. All the forms of panegyric have been so long lavished on the memory of those illustrious statesmen, that praise would be now alike impotent and unnecessary. Their rank is fixed beyond change. It is the inseparable characteristic of the fame of those who are made for immortal remembrance, that time, which decays and darkens all fabricated renown, has no power over the true; or rather, that it purifies and brightens the natural grandeur and lustre of the master mind. The tumult, the hot and misty confusion of actual life, often distort the great luminary; and it is only when years allow us leisure to look upward, when another face of the world is offered to the heavens, and the orb has emerged from the vapours of our day, that we can see it in its glory.

But time, like death, does even more than exalt and purify. By breaking the direct link between the man of genius and his country, it gives him an illustrious communion with all countries. The

poet, the orator, and the hero are no longer the dwellers of a fragment of the globe; they belong to the human race in all its boundaries; the covering of this world's clay thrown off, their renown and their powers are, like their own nature, spiritualized; they have passed out of, and above, the world; and from their immortal height they bear healing and splendour on their wings, for all lands and all generations.

Burke died in his 68th year,* with the calmness that belonged to a life in which he had never done intentional evil to a human being, and had done all the good that the finest qualities of head and heart could do to his country. His decline had been gradual, and he was fully aware that his hour was at hand. He had desired a paper of Addison's to be read to him; talked for some time on the perilous aspect of public affairs; and then gave directions for his funeral. Finding himself suddenly grow feeble, he expressed a wish to be carried to his bed; and as the attendants were conveying him to it, sank down in their arms, and expired without a groan.

Pitt died in his 47th year,† First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer. An illness which had confined him for some period, four years before, had left him in a state of comparative debility. The infinite labour of office, on his return to power, still more enfeebled a frame not naturally strong; and the total overthrow of the Austrian armies at Ulm and Austerlitz, threatening the disruption of those alliances which it had been his pride to form, and on whose firmness depended the safety of Europe, probably increased the depression of disease. His nervous system was at length so completely deranged, that for some weeks he was unable to sleep. His hereditary gout returned; and after struggling with water on the chest, he expired. By † At Putney, Jan. 23, 1806.

* July 26, 1797