fied at the conduct of the Whig prelate, the king not only spoke of the sermon to the Archbishop of Canterbury in terms of high praise, but when the bishop next made his appearance at the levee, the king personally expressed to him the strong and grateful sense which he entertained of the service which he had rendered to monarchy, as well as to the community at large. "Sir," said the bishop, "I love to come forward in a moment of danger." "I see you do," replied the king, "and it is a mark of a man of high spirit." It was on the occasion of Bishop Watson publishing his "Apology for Christianity," that George the Third made his well-known remark, that "he never before was aware that Christianity stood in need of any apology." I The following brief account of a levee scene at St. James's, from the pen of another literary prelate, the celebrated Bishop Warburton, although it be of less value as bearing upon the story of George the Third, than as being characteristic of the bishop himself, is nevertheless worthy of notice. "I brought as usual," writes the bishop, fear and dislike of French republican principles in a publication entitled "The Substance of a Speech intended to have been spoken in the House of Lords, November 22, 1803." 1" His Majesty's reception of me at his levee, to which I went once, or at the most twice, a year," writes the Whig prelate, "was always so complimentary that, notwithstanding the pestilent prevalence of court duplicity, I cannot bring myself to believe that he was my enemy." on the 20th of February, 1767, "a bad cold with me to town, and, this being the first day I ventured out-of-doors, it was employed, as in duty bound, at court, it being a levee day. A buffoon lord in waiting—you may guess whom I mean was very busy marshaling the circle, and he said. to me, without ceremony, Move forward! you clog up the doorway.' I replied, with as little, 'Did nobody clog up the king's doorway more than I have, there would be room for all honest men.' This brought the man to himself. When the king came up to me he asked, 'Why I did not come to town before?' I said, 'I understood there was no business going forward in the House in which I could be of service to his Majesty.' He replied, 'He supposed the severe storm of snow would have brought me up.' I replied, I was under cover of a very warm house.' You see by all this how unfit I am for courts." The circumstance is rather a notable one, that, of the persons who had the most reason to dislike or to be disliked by George the Third, two at least should have borne pleasing testimony, the one to his intelligence, and the other to his virtues. "Wilkes," writes Butler the "Reminiscent," "thought highly of the talents and firmness of the late king, and was persuaded that a ministry protected by him could not, without some singular blunder, or some event singularly unlucky, be shaken by any opposition." "I believe," writes Benjamin Franklin, "that had the king had a bad character, and Wilkes a good one, the latter might have turned the former out of his kingdom." Again Franklin writes, during the London riots. in May, 1768: "What the event will be, God only knows. But some punishment seems preparing for a people who are ungratefully abusing the best Constitution and the best king any nation was ever blessed with." END OF VOLUME II. APPENDIX. I. AD SERENISSIMUM GEORGIUM WALLIÆ PRINCIPEM IN OBITUM FREDERICI WALLIÆ PRINCIPIS. SPES, nuper altera, prima nunc Britanniæ ! Qui, regna justo ponderans examine, Parere priùs assuesce; inoffenso pede Ducens volentem leniter Mentor tuus, Primum esse civem, deinde principem docet: Generosum et indolem, insitamque vim boni Procul, O! facessat; sed tamen veniet dies, Oblitus unquam, nec tamen nimis memor: GULIELMUS George. These once famous verses would seem to have been for the first time printed in a scarce volume, of which there is a copy in the King's Library at 'The edition of the Musa Etonenses by Prinsep, Rivington, MDCCLV., contains the following dedication: Vivo reverendo Gulielmo George, S. T. P. Decano Lincolniensi Nec non Collegii regalis præposito dignissimo per omnes literarum humaniorum gradus αἰεν ἀριστεύοντι ; hæc Etonensium suorum carmina Ipsius pleraque auspiciis condita, Optimo quondam præceptori. J. PRINSEP. |