in the personal biography of the king, to whom it was the beginning of a long series of vexations and irritations. The climax of these came on the publication of the celebrated No. 45, the object of which was maintained to be virtually to give the king the lie. The professed object of the paper was to denounce the conduct of Bute in accomplishing the peace of Fontainbleau. After the strong political things that have been said during the century which has since elapsed, one will feel surprise in reading this paper, that it should have been deemed so offensive as to be almost treason against the sovereign. Its most offensive passage, indeed, praises the king, and calls his speech from the throne "the minister's speech"—"This week has given the public the most abandoned instance of official effrontery ever attempted to be imposed on mankind. The minister's speech last Tuesday is not to be paralleled in the annals of the country. I am in doubt whether the imposition is stronger on the sovereign or on the nation. Every friend of his country must lament that a prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom England truly reveres, can be brought to give the sanction of his name to the most odious measures and to the most unjustifiable public doctrines, from a throne ever reverenced for truth, honour, and unsullied virtue." Then, a passage being quoted from the king's speech is thus characterized:—"The infamous fallacy of this whole sentence is apparent to all mankind," &c. Perhaps if the king and his advisers had shown less excitement and anger on this occasion, he might not afterwards have had to endure the far keener shafts of sarcasm and vituperation aimed at him in the Letters of Junius, whose relentless attacks he had to sustain without being able to find any protection or remedy.
It is proper, however, to go back from these events to state one of greater importance still in his personal history—his marriage. On this occasion it has been maintained that he sacrificed his own inclination to his sense of public duty, since his heart was already devoted to a fascinating subject whom he ought not to raise to the throne, and would not seek for his companion in a more unworthy fashion. She was Lady Sarah Lennox, sister of the duke of Richmond. It has been stated that her brother-in-law, the elder Fox, plotted to make her queen; and Walpole, in his recently published Memoirs of George III., describes her in the grounds of Holland house, near Kensington, "where she appeared every morning in a field close to the great road, when the king passed on horseback, in a fancied habit, making hay." The young king placed himself in the hands of his mother and the favourite to find a proper queen. A messenger was sent to search and report on the princesses in the several protestant courts. It was significantly remarked that the messenger, Graham, was a jacobite who had been out in the '45; and people quoted a jocular remark made to him by Hume, that he would find it a better business making queens than making kings. At length the selection fell on Charlotte Sophia, the second daughter of Charles Louis Frederic, duke of Mecklenberg-Strelitz.
The marriage was celebrated on the 8th of September, 1761. The queen was a person of very plain appearance; and it was remarked that the king at the first interview could not help allowing a shade of disappointment to cover his good-humoured face when his eye fell on her. But whatever may have been at first his secret feelings, he treated her with all honour and kindness, and subsequently became much attached to her. They were alike rigidly virtuous in their morals. She was trained to the painful and drudging etiquettes of a German court, and liked them; he, also, was a slave of etiquette when it was necessary, and went through the labours of a large levee with inconceivable patience and equanimity of temper. Hunting appears to have been his only relaxation and amusement. Neither of them had any relish either for frivolities or the objects of a higher taste; and Miss Burney the novelist, who held the extremely unpleasant office of tirewoman to the queen, has left a thoroughly picturesque account of the moral, unamiable, tiresome court in which she found herself. The only occasion in which the name of George III. used to be connected with literature, was his celebrated meeting with Dr. Johnson in the royal library. Miss Burney's Diary somewhat startled people by adding to this his opinions on Shakspeare, in the following passage:—"Was there ever," cried he, "such stuff as great part of Shakspeare! only one must not say so! but what think you! What! Is there not sad stuff! What! what!" * * * "Oh," cried he, laughing good-humouredly, "I know it is not to be said, but it's true; only it's Shakspeare, and nobody dare abuse him." Then he enumerated many of the characters and parts of plays that he objected to; and when he had run them over, finished with again laughing, and exclaiming, "But one should be stoned for saying so."
Whatever appreciation he personally had, however, of literature, he encouraged it by pensioning authors and endowing chairs; and though he was a man of strong prejudices, it is noticeable that in no reign was the patronage of learning and genius more impartially administered. Nay, more, it is said on tolerable authority, that he was himself an author as a contributor to the periodical press. Arthur Young, the editor of the Annals of Agriculture, told Bentham that the king was the author of an article on Ducket's Husbandry, "by Mr. Ralph Robinson, of Windsor," published in the Annals for January 1, 1787, and of some other articles in that collection. George III. was simple and affable in his demeanour, and had the reputation of being easily accessible. In reality, however, his simple life and dislike of parade kept him within a comparatively narrow circle, seldom intruded on. He possessed, too, a very convenient instrument for making affability go far—a marvellous memory, which seemed to retain everything either seen or heard, however minute. So, he not only never forgot a face he had ever seen, but he remembered all the particulars he had ever heard of its owner. At the same time, as he had a fondness for personal gossip, he was apt to know a quantity of particulars about people before he saw them; and the abashed stranger presented at court was often astounded by a voluble commentary on the particulars of his obscure personal history, given out with a torrent of repetitions and expletives in the manner of the passage just quoted from Miss Burney.
Of the long and memorable history of Britain during the reign of George III., it is proper here only to refer to those portions in which he himself took a personal and prominent part. Of these the appointment of Lord Bute was one; but the result of this selection taught him that the appointment of a prime minister was ceasing to become the uncontrolled act of the crown, and that the strength of an administration must be found in parliament. This administration, so renowned in history, lasted little more than two years, it came to an end from unpopularity and a sort of general inanition, in April, 1763. It has often been said that the favourite retained his secret influence, and continued to make the cabinets, after he had ceased to belong to them. In the selections, whether they were his own or his favourite's suggestion, the king soon found himself thwarted in many shapes. George Grenville, Rockingham, and the duke of Grafton were successively placed at the head; but the man who really could, from his parliamentary authority and his popularity, keep a cabinet together, was Pitt. He was not passed over; on the contrary, earnest efforts were made to secure him. The king, however, found that when he spoke to the haughty commoner, he was not employing a servant, but rather conducting a treaty of alliance with an independent power. The leader stipulated for terms which the king would not at first grant. At length, however, in 1766, Pitt again became the head of an administration; but he was no longer the "great commoner;" and in the house of peers, as Lord Chatham, he was away from the sphere of his triumphs.
The American war soon followed; the seeds of it, indeed, were sown in a measure for taxing the colonies, brought in by Grenville during Chatham's administration. When this measure was revoked, and another fully more offensive afterwards carried, and there was actual civil war, the king took so strong an interest in pushing the contest that it was called "George III.'s own war." He looked, indeed, upon the revolting colonists, from the political notions in which he had been brought up, as criminals of an aggravated kind, on whom punishment must be inflicted, let it cost what it would. When he had to bend to force, it was with a severe pang that he agreed to the acknowledgment of the independence of the United States; but he did so in good faith, and without any of those secret reservations which monarchs have so often considered that they are entitled to retain towards revolted subjects.
There was another political occasion on which he showed great self-will—the bill on the government of British India, brought in by the Fox and North coalition ministry of 1783. This measure would have placed in the house of commons powers which were by the usage of the constitution vested in the crown.
