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with the price, and got it raised to a shilling. He afterwards made a bolder attempt, he asked half-a-crown: this was too serious, and another person was employed.
Not many years ago, his majefty was so ill, that his recovery was doubtful. His son, the prince, advised him to leave two-hundred pounds to the poor "No, said he, I have lost a great deal by the poor, but I never got any thing by them in my life.—Why leave any thing to them?" But the amiable youth reasoning with him on the awful scene before him, he gave way. “Well, says he to his only child, his heir and executor, I will leave one hundred, if you will be fifty of it." Whether ever in his life, before, he hit upon so curious a method of cheating himself, is unknown. This was not the finishing of his reign; he recovered, and, in his 89th year, lamented the shortness of life: “Could we but, says he to his old friend Wilson, live to the age of Methuselah, we might then have some chance of getting rich; but we no sooner find ourselves in the way of getting a little together, than death comes upon us and spoils all." He did but lately at Patterdale-hall, in the 92d year of his age; and is succeeded in his title and estate by his only child John, who has a numerous family.
This young man is almost adored in the place; and the writer of this can faithfully testify, that he had the pleasure of hearing the following remark, “That, if it was possible, he was too good."
A gentleman of his acquaintance once said, that if he was inclined to envy any potentate in Europe, it would be the King of Patterdale. If this was the case during the life of the late King, how much more so now, when this Prince has for some time since been looked upon as the tutelar deity of the vale, whose chief study it has been to render the inhabitants more happy, easy and contented! Extracted from the Gentleman’s Magazine, London.
