Harcourt and other members of the family. To her the queen addressed the most confidential of letters-full also of a pleasant gaiety, and even playfulness. To this devoted and sympathizing friend she disclosed her thoughts with the utmost freedom. The best testimony to the sterling worth, simple affectionate nature of the queen and her daughters is found in the letters of condolence addressed by the family to her on the loss of Lord Harcourt, and to her family on her own demise.

Happy had been this excellent queen, had only these little worries of the court been her lot. But now, weighty and serious trials were impending. They indeed seemed destined to await her and her family in a regular series, coming "in battalions," as it were. These always seemed to take an unusual and out-of-the-way form of affliction.

The symptoms and the distressing stages of the king's malady in 1788 have been often described. A more painful episode, a more embarrassing situation, or one more charged with tragic horrors cannot be imagined; and though private families have often had to endure this most painful and trying of all afflictions, it may be said that nothing in this way approached the complications and miseries the royal family had to pass through. There was the severity of the attack, the high position of the victim, the general publicity, the unseemly contest that raged round him, the opposing interests of the queen and princes, the difficulties of

applying proper restraint, the band of contending doctors, the greed and animosity of the contending factions— elements that all joined to make a scene of intense misery and horror. Perhaps the greatest sufferer was the unhappy queen herself, who, ill in mind and body, found every night and day a time of agony.

On the eve of the crisis there was a sense of impending horror, and the queen seemed a prey to a secret terror. There were violent bursts of tears, with much walking up and down the room, shaking of her head in irresolution and distress. Still the king went about as usual-would drive out in his chaise. How agitated the queen was, was shown by her anger at a paragraph in a morning paper, when she declared it should be brought to account; she then burnt it.

This excellent and amiable lady, then, after more than twenty years of sunshine, had now to call on all her resources of character to encounter a series of miseries, which day by day seemed to grow in their intensity. Lady Harcourt traces minutely for us the various stages of the king's malady. It seems to have begun on June 11th, 1788, with a bilious fever, from which the king recovered. The Cheltenham waters, which he had drunk too profusely, were supposed to be the cause of his malady. A rash came out over his face, which seems to have been driven in. He was particularly careless as to getting wet, changing his clothes, &c., and it was once noticed how the water actually ran out of his boots "when he took them off." Still, he went through his

levées and such functions; but when the family returned to Windsor, all were struck with his shrunk, haggard face. He said on entering, "I return to you a poor old man, weak in mind and body." Sunday, the 26th, was the first fatal day on which the malady regularly declared itself. In the middle of the sermon in church, he suddenly started up, and embraced the queen and princesses in a rather frantic way, saying, "You know what it is to be nervous." Fortunately this could not be seen by the congregation. The doctors were called in-Heberden and Sir G. Baker-who ordered him a blister on his head. But he did not mend. His family were now infinitely disturbed by a rapidity of talk or "gabble,” and his eyes, as the queen said, had become "like black currant jelly," the veins in his face all swelled, and the sound of his voice dreadful. "She described his talking on and on till he had to stop from actual exhaustion, but the instant he recovered breath, he began until the foam ran out of his mouth." These were the dreadful "hurries " which filled his family with such terror, and which were to be the chief "note" of his mania. He actually talked his voice away altogether.

About October 25th, the royal party, which had put off their migration to Windsor, was able to set forth, there being an improvement in the king's state. But the queen showed yet more and more uneasiness. She would distract herself by reading instructive books, such as Hunter on the New Testament; but when she came to a touching passage would break down. "How nervous I am," she would cry. "I am quite a fool-don't you

think so?" reply.

"No, ma'am," was her retainer's plain

There was one dreadful scene at the dinner-table on November 5th, when the violence of the malady first declared itself, which was long remembered. The prince was so affected as to be near fainting; one of the princesses had to rub his forehead with Hungary water, and he had to be "blooded." The queen fell into violent hysterics. Lady Harcourt does not mention what occurred, but long after, at Lord Jersey's table, the prince described the scene. The king suddenly rose, caught his son by the collar and pushed him against the wall with some violence, asking him who would dare to say to the king of England that he should not speak out, or who should prevent his whispering? He then whispered.' It is plain that the prince had incautiously tried to restrain him and keep him quiet. His womanish terror and alarm at the attack showed that there was ground for the king's repeated declaration that there was only one of his family that lacked personal courage. After this painful scene the queen, as soon as it was possible, got away-she had put a constraint upon herself, Lady Harcourt says, "beyond what she had strength to support, and as soon as she got into her room, she had an hysterical fit. Lady G. Waldegrave was the only person with her, but they were soon joined by the king, who, upon the lady telling him that the queen was ill, said, 'Then I will take care of her myself.' The queen made Lady Ely a sign not to leave her, and presently 1 Mr. Jesse quotes the account from the unpublished Willis MS.

the king proposed removing her Majesty into the drawing-room, when he made a sort of bed upon one of the sofas and placed her on it. He then fixed where each of the princesses should sit, and ordered all the candles except two to be put out." It was hinted to him that her Majesty should have a separate room: he agreed on condition that his should be next hers, but it was not until past midnight that he could be induced to let the queen go to her room.

Nothing is more dramatically vivid than Miss Burney's descriptions of these terrible scenes. All that night she sat in her room, alone, and a prey to impending terrors. There was a mysterious silence abroad. She would open her door to listen; not even the sound of a servant passing could be heard.1

At last the queen sent for her. "I could hardly get along-hardly force myself into her room-dizzy I felt almost to falling." Fanny was not likely to be of much practical use. "My poor royal mistress! Never can I forget her countenance-pale, ghastly pale, she looked. She was seated to be undressed her whole frame was disordered, yet she was still and quiet. Her two ladies assisted me to undress her, or rather I assisted them, for they were firmer from being longer present, my shaking hands and blinded eyes could scarce be of

1 We were now alone. But I could not speak, neither did Mr. Fairly. I had begun a hassock. If I had not had my work, I must have left the room to quiet myself." It is characteristic to find that previously she had found opportunity for indulgence in a little quiet "flirtation" with her Colonel "Fairly ". '-or Colonel Digby.