CHAPTER XI

"With greatrespectI here assure you, Ma'am,Your name our common people loudly damn;Genteelerfolk attack withsilentcurses."

Still, the Schwellenberg's devotion to her mistress was undeniable, and her reverence for Majesty so intense that she could not even faintly understand why, when she announced, "Miss Bernar, the Queen will give you a gown," that lady was not overcome with gratitude for the high honour. Perhaps Miss Burney depicted her with a pen dipped too deeply in gall, and certainly she let her anger get the better of her humour, though no excuse for this need be sought, since association with the illiterate old scold day and night for years might well have embittered a more chastened person than the authoress of "Cecilia"; but why she should have borne with the woman's tyranny and capriciousness, and not in return, at least,have chaffed her, as did Colonel Manners and Colonel Grenville, is past understanding.

Why the King and Queen invited Miss Burney to accept the part of dresser on the resignation of Mrs. Haggerdorn in 1786 is a problem only to be solved by the acceptance of Macaulay's belief that it was thought to be an act of kindness. "But their kindness was the kindness of persons raised high above the mass of mankind, accustomed to be addressed with profound deference, accustomed to see all who approached them mortified by their coldness and elated by their smiles. They fancied that to be noticed by them, to serve them, was in itself a kind of happiness; and that Frances Burney ought to be full of gratitude for being permitted to purchase, by the surrender of health, wealth, freedom, domestic affections and literary fame, the privilege of standing behind a royal chair and holding a pair of royal gloves."[232]

It would be as easy as it would be unprofitable to moralize upon the vanity of princes: it is more interesting to inquire why Miss Burney accepted a menial position at Court. She has told us of her consternation when Mr. Smelt brought the unwelcome offer and informed her, "Her Majesty proposed giving me apartments inthe palace; making me belong to the table of Mrs. Schwellenberg with whom all her own visitors—bishops, lords, or commons—always dine; keeping me a footman, and settling on me £200 a year." Miss Burney's first impulse was to refuse, but Mr. Smelt's astonishment that she should hesitate, the surprise of Mrs. Delany at her reluctance, and the persuasion of her father undermined her decision, and, swayed perhaps by the fascination that great personages had for her, she accepted the offer, and on July 11 attended the Court in an official capacity. Much pity has been expended upon the famous novelist, and Macaulay has made an attack on Dr. Burney for his share in inducing her to accept; which attack is, perhaps, more brilliant than fair, for Miss Burney was more than thirty years of age, had innumerable unprejudiced friends eager to advise, and was not constrained to accept by poverty, from the grinding pressure of which her pen at this time could save her. Her awe of royalty doubtless had something to do with her going to Court, and it says much for the respect in which the Court was held that she who was well acquainted with many of the most notable persons in England, should lose her self-possession when the King addressed her. "I believe there is no constraint to be put upon real genius; nothing butinclination can set it to work," George said once in her presence, "Miss Burney, however, knows best." Then, hastily returning to her, he cried, "What? what?" "'No, Sir, I—I—believe not certainly,' quoth I, very awkwardly, for I knew not how to put him off as I would another person."[233]

Miss Burney does not seem to have been unhappy at first, although, of course, the uncongenial surroundings and employment soon wearied her. Indeed, she found much amusement in the etiquette of the Court, which alone disqualified her for the post, for the woman who was tickled by the quaintness of her walk backwards in the presence of royalty instead of treating it as a serious matter should have had no place in a royal retinue. Her humour was sufficiently robust in the early days of her employment to draw up for her mother's edification a quaint list of "directions for coughing, sneezing, or moving before the King or Queen."

"In the first place you must not cough. If you find a tickling in your throat, you must arrest it from making any sound; if you find yourself choking with the forbearance, you must choke—but not cough. In the second place, you must not sneeze. If you have a vehement cold, you must take no notice of it; if your nose-membranesfeel a great irritation, you must hold your breath; if a sneeze still insists upon making its way you must oppose it by keeping your teeth grinding together; if the violence of the repulse breaks some blood-vessel, you must break the blood-vessel, but not sneeze. In the third place, you must not, upon any account, stir either hand or foot. If, by chance, a black pin runs into your head, you must not take it out. If the pain is very great, you must be sure to bear it without wincing; if it brings the tears into your eyes, you must not wipe them off; if they give you a tingling by running down your cheeks, you must look as if nothing was the matter. If your blood should gush from your head by means of the black pin, you must let it gush; if you are uneasy to think of making such a blurred appearance, you must be uneasy, but you must say nothing about it. If, however, the agony is very great, you may, privately, bite the inside of your cheek, or of your lips, for a little relief; taking care, meanwhile, to do it as cautiously as to make no apparent dent outwardly. And with that precaution, if you even gnaw a piece out, it will not be minded, only be sure either to swallow it, or commit it to a corner of the inside of your mouth till they are gone—for you must not spit."[234]

Theirritating complacency of royalty for not blaming her when, for instance, she had been out of doors when wanted within, after a time seemed to Miss Burney but natural; and it is doubtful if she could summon up a smile even for the delightful equerry, Colonel Manners, who once announced, "I think it right to be civil to the King." The iron slowly entered into her soul, and she became as imbued with flunkeyism as the meanest scullion in the royal kitchen. Let those who doubt read her remarks on the trial of Warren Hastings.

The private life of the sovereigns was almost inconceivably dull, and the tedium of the monotonous existence not unnaturally affected them adversely: Charlotte was far from happy, and a marked change came over George. "His [the King's] formerly excellent spirits had evidently forsaken him. Instead of that easy, good-natured, ingratiating familiarity, which had hitherto distinguished him in his intercourse with others, his manner had become distant and cold, and his countenance expressive of melancholy. It was evident to all who approached him that his mind was ill at ease."[235]George endeavoured to find amusement in poking about Windsor, asking questions of all he met in his rambles. "Well, lad,what do you want?" he asked a stable-boy. "What do they pay you?" "I help on the stables," the youngster grumbled, "but I have nothing but victuals and clothes." "Be content," said the monarch, philosophically, "I have no more." Sometimes his inquisitiveness enabled him to redress a grievance, and then he was happy for, according to his lights, he was a just man. Soon after his accession several of the lower servants were dismissed without his knowledge, and one day, entering a cottage near the Castle he saw an old woman engaged in housework, who, assuming that the visitor was one of the royal housemaids, whom she expected, complained, "I have seen better days in the old King's time, but the young King has turned everything topsy-turvy," adding, "I suppose you'll be turned out, too." It is pleasant to learn she was re-instated.

George, indeed, took an active interest in the domestic economy of the palaces, and little that was trivial failed to attract his attention. The system of vails-giving had become a serious tax on the pocket of visitors. It has been told how Sir Timothy Waldo dined with the Duke of Newcastle, and on his departure found the servants lined up awaiting tribute. He paid right and left, and when he came to the cook, put a crown in his hand. "Sir, I don't takesilver," said the man,returning the coin. "Don't you, indeed?" said the baronet courteously, as he replaced it in his pocket. "Well, I don't givegold!" Indeed, the abuse had come to such a pass that many a man could not afford to dine with a friend. Jonas Hanway has amusingly narrated one of his after-dinner experiences, "Sir, your great-coat," said one, upon which he paid a shilling. "Your hat," said another—a shilling—"Your stick"—a shilling—"Sir, your gloves." "Why, friend, you may keep the gloves," said Hanway, "they are not worth a shilling." After this Hanway wrote his "Eight Letters to the Duke of Newcastle on the custom of Vails-giving in England," which pamphlet was shown by the Duke to the King, who at once summoned the servants of his household, and addressed them: "You come into my service at a stipulated salary; that salary is regularly paid to you; your services are paid by me, nor will I henceforth be subject to the meanness of having my servants paid by the contribution of others. I will not have a single vail taken in my household, and the first who is guilty of the offence shall that instant receive his dismissal. This order applies to you all; therefore as far as my example can extend, the practice of vails-giving shall be abolished."[236]The immediate sequelto this address was an assembly of the royal servants at Drury Lane Theatre on the occasion of the King's visit on March 7, 1761, when the monarch was received with shouts of execration.

A quaint light on the internal economy of the palace is thrown by a letter from the Queen to Lord Harcourt in 1803, that shows that the parody, "The King commands the first Lord-in-waiting to desire the second Lord to intimate to the gentleman Usher to request the page of the Antechamber to entreat the Groom of the Stairs to implore John to ask the Captain of the Buttons to desire the maid of the Still Room to beg the Housekeeper to give out a few more lumps of sugar, as His Majesty has none for his coffee, which is probably getting cold during the negotiations," had a sound basis of fact. "My Lord, I want you to exert your authority in dismissing my footman, Oby, the service as soon as possible, as his unquenchable thirst is now becoming so overpowering, that neither our absence nor our presence can subdue it any more," the Queen wrote. "Some messages of consequence being sent by him to the apothecary's, was found in his pockets when laying dead drunk in the street a few days ago, luckily enough by the Duke of Cumberland, who knowing they were for the family,sent them to Brand; I do not want him to starve, but I will not have him do any more duty. This I hope will be an example to the others; but as I write a Tipling-letter, I think it not amiss to mention that Stephenson has appeared twice a littleBouzy, the consequence of which was a fall from his horse yesterday, by which he was very much bruised; and the surgeon who came to bleed him at the Duke of Cambridge's House, who very humanely took him in, declared him to have been at least over dry, if not drunk. A reprimand to him will be necessary; for should it happen again he must go."

i220From a caricature published in 1786THE CONSTANT COUPLE

From a caricature published in 1786

THE CONSTANT COUPLE

Nothing could exceed the simplicity of the private life of George and Charlotte, the regularity of which was broken only by the frequent confinements of the Queen and the King's illnesses. During the first years of her married life Charlotte every morning read English with Dr. Majendie, a task at which George sometimes assisted. She scarcely knew a word of the language of her adopted country on her arrival, which gave Lady Townshend the opportunity to remark, on hearing that Lady Northumberland had been made a Lady of the Bedchamber, that "it was a very proper appointment, for, as the Queen knew no English, that lady would teach her the vulgar tongue." The first use to which her Majesty puther newly-acquired knowledge was to address poetical effusions to her husband. "I send you verses,saidto be the Queen's upon the King, it seems impossible that she should write them so soon, but I fancy she wrote in French," Lady Sarah Bunbury wrote to Lady Susan O'Brien in 1764. "Whitehead or somebody translated them; whoever did, they are bad enough."[237]In spite of their lack of merit, one set of verses may perhaps be given as a curiosity:—

"Genteel is my Damon, engaging his air,His face like the morn is both ruddy and fair,Soft love sits enthroned in the beam of his eyes,He's manly, yet tender, he's fond, and yet wise."He's ever good-humour'd, he's generous and gay,His presence can always drive sorrow away,No vanity sways him, no folly is seen,But open his temper, and noble his mien."By virtue illumin'd his actions appear,His passions are calm and his reason is clear,An affable sweetness attends on his speech,He's willing to learn, though he's able to teach."He has promised to love me—his words I'll believe,For his heart is too honest to let him deceive;Then blame me, ye fair ones, if justly you can,Since the picture I've drawn is exactly the man."

"Genteel is my Damon, engaging his air,His face like the morn is both ruddy and fair,Soft love sits enthroned in the beam of his eyes,He's manly, yet tender, he's fond, and yet wise.

"He's ever good-humour'd, he's generous and gay,His presence can always drive sorrow away,No vanity sways him, no folly is seen,But open his temper, and noble his mien.

"By virtue illumin'd his actions appear,His passions are calm and his reason is clear,An affable sweetness attends on his speech,He's willing to learn, though he's able to teach.

"He has promised to love me—his words I'll believe,For his heart is too honest to let him deceive;Then blame me, ye fair ones, if justly you can,Since the picture I've drawn is exactly the man."

After her English lesson, the Queen devoted an hour or two to needlework, and then walked orrode with the King till dinner. In the evening, if there was no company she would sing to her own accompaniment on the spinet, and play cards with her ladies, while the King amused himself at backgammon, a game to which he was devoted. Nothing could be more genteel and more dull. "The recluse life led here at Richmond—which is carried to such an excess of privacy and economy, that the Queen'sfriseurwaits on them at dinner, and four pounds only of beef are allowed for their soup—disgusts all sorts of persons," Walpole wrote to Lord Hertford; but while this is probably an exaggeration, the statement is valuable as showing the spirit in which the Court was regarded. Occasionally, of course, there was a little mild gaiety, which usually took the form of an informal dance, for her Majesty was as fond of dancing as of cards, housekeeping and the theatre. "I prefer plays to all other amusements," declared the Queen, who "really looked almost concerned" to learn that Miss Burney had never seen Mrs. Pope, Miss Betterton, or Mr. Murray.[238]When she was at the Queen's House, she went to a theatre once a week, but was careful always to select the piece to be performed, which, as the choice was made presumably after hearing the plot, must have robbed her of muchof her enjoyment. This precaution was taken after a visit to see "The Mysterious Husband," when George was so overcome that he turned to his consort, "Charlotte, don't look, it's too much to bear," and commanded it should not be repeated. He, too, was fond of the theatre, liking comedy better than tragedy, and while the Queen's favourites were John Quick and Mrs. Siddons, he preferred Quin and Elliston to all other actors. Both delighted in music, frequently attended the Opera, and gave concerts at St. James's, when the King's band played, when Stanley was organist, Crosdill 'cellist, and Miss Linley sang, until after her marriage, when her place was taken by Madame Bach (neéGalli), and Miss Cantilo. As a rule, however, to the great disgust of the majority of thesuite, only the works of Handel were performed.

i223From an engraving by W. WoollettKEW PALACE

From an engraving by W. Woollett

KEW PALACE

"The Kew life, you will perceive, is different from the Windsor. As there are no early prayers, the Queen rises later; and as there is no form or ceremony here of any sort, her dress is plain, and the hour for the second toilette extremely uncertain," Miss Burney wrote. "The royal family are here always in so very retired a way, that they live as the simplest country gentlefolks. The King has not even an equerry with him, nor the Queen any lady to attend her when she goes her airings."[239]At Windsor a certain degree of ceremony was observed, and many old customs preserved. "I find it has always belonged to Mrs. Schwellenberg and Mrs. Haggerdorn to receive at tea whatever company the King and Queen invite to the Lodge," Miss Burney noted, "as it is only a very select few that can eat with their Majesties, and those few are only ladies; no man, of what rank soever, being permitted to sit in the Queen's presence."[240]The King, who was an early riser, worked at affairs of state from six until eight o'clock, when a procession for chapel was formed, headed by the King and Queen, the Princesses following in pairs, and after them the ladies and gentlemen in waiting, who usually attended in full strength, for though it was not obligatory on the members of the suite, their absence was resented by the Queen. "The King rose every morning at six, and had two hours to himself. He thought it effeminate to havea carpet in his bedroom. Shortly before eight, the Queen and the royal family were always ready for him, and they proceeded to the King's chapel in the castle. There were no fires in the passages; the chapel was scarcely alight; Princesses, governesses, equerries grumbled and caught cold; but cold or hot, it was their duty to go; and, wet or dry, light or dark, the stout old George was always in his place to say amen to the chaplain."[241]

After breakfast, the King would either return to his study, or go riding or hunting, two forms of exercise to which he was very partial. Until his illness prevented him, he never missed going with the whole of his family to the races at Ascot Heath, at which place he gave a plate of a hundred guineas, to be run for on the first day by such horses as had hunted regularly with his own hounds the preceding winter.

While the King had the business of state and hunting with which to occupy himself, his consort was less fortunate, for her husband never mentioned public affairs in her presence, and let her understand from the first that this would always be so. Five years after the Royal marriage, Chesterfield remarked, "The King loves her as a woman, but I verily believe has not yet spoken oneword to her about business"; and long after Lord Carlisle stated, "The King never placed any confidence whatever in the Queen as to public affairs, nor had she any power either to injure or serve any one. In this respect he treated her with great severity." However, as time passed and children came to her, she found some occupation—as well as much anxiety. "The Queen would have two physicians always on the spot to watch the constitutions of the royal children to eradicate, if possible, or at least to keep under, the dreadful disease, scrofula, inherited from the King," Mrs. Papendiek, assistant-keeper of the Wardrobe and Reader to her Majesty, has told us. "She herself saw them bathed at six every morning, attended the schoolroom of her daughters, was present at their dinner, and directed their attire, whenever these plans did not interfere with public duties, or any plans or wishes of the King, whom she neither contradicted nor kept waiting a moment under any circumstances."[242]As the children grew up, the elder were sometimes allowed to breakfast with their parents, who once a week went with the entire family to Richmond Gardens; but the intercourse was strictly regulated, and the little boys and girls were never allowed to forget that their mother and father were the King andQueen of England. Charlotte tried to find pleasure in her trinkets, and she told Miss Burney how much she liked the jewels at first. "But how soon that was over!" she sighed. "Believe me, Miss Burney, it is the pleasure of a week—a fortnight at most, and to return no more. I thought at first I should always choose to wear them; but the fatigue and trouble of putting them on, and the care they required, and the fear of losing them, believe me, ma'am, in a fortnight's time I longed again for my earlier dress."[243]The poor woman had not even the satisfaction of being popular with her subjects, for the public, which did not love minor German royalties, had not at the first shown any great enthusiasm for the Queen, and such favour as she had found in their eyes very soon declined.

Indeed, it was not long before there was a very marked feeling against her, and this became obvious to all the world when, within a month of her firstaccouchement, she attended a public installation of the Garter.[244]This early reappearance was thought indelicate, and an ill-advised pleaput forward by her friends—that her German training must be taken into consideration—only added fuel to the fire, for foreign customs even to-day find little toleration at the hands of this nation whose creed is liberty.

"You seem not to know the character of the Queen: here it is—she is a good woman, a good wife, a tender mother, and an unmeddling queen," Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son in 1765; and a loyal rhymester set forth the same view in a "Birthday Ode," in which he played at satire.

"The Queen, they say,Attends her nurs'ry every day;And, like a common mother, sharesIn all her infant's little cares.What vulgar unamusing scene,For George's wife and Britain's queen!'Tis whispered also at the palace,(I hope 'tis but the voice of malice)That (tell it not in foreign lands)She works with her own royal hands;And that our sovereign's sometimes seen,In vest embroidered by his queen.This might a courtly fashion beIn days of old Andromache;[Pg 229]But modern ladies, trust my words,Seldom sew tunics for their lords.What secret next must I unfold?She hates, I'm confidently told,She hates the manners of the timesAnd all our fashionable crimes,And fondly wishes to restoreThe golden age and days of yore;When silly simple women thoughtA breach of chastity a fault,Esteem'd those modest things, divorces,The very worst of human curses;And deem'd assemblies, cards and dice,The springs of every sort of vice.Romantic notions! All the fairAt such absurdities must stare;And, spite of all her pains, will stillLove routs, adultery, and quadrille."

In a Birthday Ode indiscriminate eulogy is expected, and due allowance made for the enthusiasm of the poet, but from a man with the perspicacity of Lord Chesterfield a more critical estimate of the Queen's character might have been anticipated. Leigh Hunt said Charlotte was a "plain, penurious, soft-spoken, decorous, bigoted, shrewd, overweening personage,"[245]and the truth of his description cannot be seriously impugned. That she was not fair to look upon was a misfortune more severe to herself than to others, but her domineering spirit was a sore trial to those who cameinto contact with her, as readers of Fanny Burney's Diary know. She was very jealous of her influence with the King, clinging to such power as it gave her with remarkable tenacity, and suspicious of those who were dear to him. Thus, when in 1772 the King's sister, the Duchess of Brunswick, visited England at the suggestion of the Princess Dowager, her mother, the Queen did not offer the Duchess the hospitality of a royal palace, but took for her "a miserable little house" in Pall Mall, and contrived that she should not see the King alone. This strange behaviour became generally known and as generally disapproved, with the result that when at this time the King and Queen visited a theatre they were received in chilling silence, but, to mark its feeling, the house vociferously cheered the Duchess of Brunswick on her entry.

Charlotte's faults, however, were probably mostly due to environment. "Bred up in the rigid formality of a petty German court, her manners were cold and punctilious: her understanding was dull, her temper jealous and petulant."[246]She seems to have had affection for the husband to whom, with all her faults, she made a good wife, although she but rarely gave any overt sign of her feeling for him. "The Queen had nobody but myself withher one morning, when the King hastily entered the room with some letters in his hand, and addressing her in German, which he spoke very fast, and with much apparent interest in what he said, he brought the letters up to her and put them into her hand. She received them with much agitation, but evidently of a much pleased sort, and endeavoured to kiss his hand as he held them. He would not let her, but made an effort, with a countenance of the highest satisfaction, to kiss her. I saw instantly in her eyes a forgetfulness at the moment that any one was present, while drawing away her hand, she presented him her cheek. He accepted her kindness with the same frank affection that she offered it; and the next moment they both spoke English, and talked upon common and general subjects. What they said I am far enough from knowing; but the whole was too rapid to give me time to quit the room; and I could not but see with pleasure that the Queen had received some favour with which she was sensibly delighted, and that the King, in her acknowledgments, was happily and amply paid."[247]

Charlotte, however, had no endearing qualities, or, if she had in her youth, they soon became atrophied by the spirit that forced her to put her dignity before all else. A certain Duchess begged theQueen to receive her niece, about whom an unfounded scandal had been circulated. Her request was refused, and, on leaving the royal presence, she made a further appeal, "Oh, Madam! what shall I say to my poor niece?" "Say," replied Charlotte, "say you did not dare make such a request to the Queen." The Duchess at once resigned the post she held at Court, and the Queen made half a score of bitter enemies. She was a hard woman, and had no consideration for herentourage. Lady Townshend, who was with child, became greatly fatigued at a royal function at which it was, of course,de rigeurto stand, and the Princess of Wales, noticing this, turned to her mother-in-law, and asked, "Will your Majesty command Lady Townshend to sit down?" "She may stand," said Charlotte, petulantly, "she may stand." This was, however, only to be expected in a mother who seldom permitted her offspring to sit in her presence: it is related that when she was playing whist one of her sons fell asleep standing behind her chair. The Duchess of Ancaster suffered by this severe etiquette, but she was a woman of resource, and when in her official capacity she accompanied her royal mistress on a state visit to Oxford, becoming very tired, she drew a small body of troops before her, and, thus sheltered, rested on a convenient bench.

Amore favourable picture of Queen Charlotte is drawn by Miss Burney, who thought very highly of her. "For the excellence of her mind I was fully prepared; the testimony of the nation at large could not be unfaithful; but the depth and soundness of her understanding surprised me: good sense I expected; to that alone she could owe the even tenour of her conduct, universally approved, though examined and judged by the watchful eye of multitudes. But I had not imagined that, shut up within the confined limits of a court, she could have acquired any but the most superficial knowledge of the world, and the most partial insight into character. But I find now, I have only done justice to her disposition, not to her parts, which are truly of that superior order that makes sagacity intuitively supply the place of experience. In the course of this month I spent much time alone with her, and never once quitted her presence without fresh admiration of her talents."[248]That Charlotte had common sense combined with strong will may be admitted, nor can it be denied that she could be kind on occasion. She purchased a house in Bedfordshire as a home for poor gentlewomen, and she became the patroness of the Magdalen Hospital; she was gracious to the Harcourts, and was perhaps seen ather best in her intercourse with Mrs. Delany, to whom, after the death of Margaret, Duchess of Portland, the King presented a furnished house at Windsor and an annuity of £300 out of the Privy Purse, the half-yearly payments of which were taken to her by the Queen in a pocket-book, in order that it might not be docked by the tax-collector. The sovereigns met Mrs. Delany for the first time at Bulstrode Park, when George offered a chair to the old lady, who was much confused by his condescension. "Mrs. Delany, sit, down, sit down," said Charlotte, smiling, to set her at her ease, "it is not everybody that has a chair brought her by a King."

i235Caricature by Wm. HogarthJOHN WILKES

Caricature by Wm. Hogarth

JOHN WILKES

"No. XLV"

Lord Bute, to support his policy, had founded two newspapers, "The Auditor," and, under the editorship of Smollett, "The Briton," and these inspired John Wilkes, member of Parliament for Aylesbury, to set up, as a weapon for the Opposition, "The North Briton," the onslaughts in which were so ferocious that "The Auditor" on February 8, 1763, and "The Briton", four days later, died of sheer fright. Wilkes and Charles Churchill,[249]the most valuable contributor to "The North Briton," did indeed fight with the buttons off the foils, and, while other papers still retained the custom of referring to persons by their initials, they disdained this foolish method, and gave their enemies the poor comfort of seeing their names in the full glory of print.

When Bute resigned, No. xliv of "The North Briton" had appeared, and the next issue was in preparation. Wilkes, on hearing this important intelligence, delayed the publication to see if GeorgeGrenville,[250]the new Prime Minister, would offer a new policy, or follow in the footsteps of his late leader. Pitt and Lord Temple showed Wilkes an early copy of the King's Speech, and, learning from this that no change would take place, the latter proceeded with the composition of the since historic No. xlv. The King's Speech was read on April 19, 1763, and on April 23 appeared the famous sheet, wherein the terms of the peace, the Cyder tax, and other acts of the Ministry were attacked, and the Address was stigmatised as "the most abandoned instance of ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be imposed upon mankind." In the paper it was stated very clearly that the King's Speech was always regarded, not as the personal address of the sovereign, but as the utterance of ministers. "Every friend of his country," said "The North Briton," "must lamentthat a prince of so many great and amiable qualities, whom England truly reveres, can be brought to give the sanction of his sacred name to the most odious measures and to the most unjustifiable declarations from a throne ever renowned for truth, honour and unsullied virtue."

This attack on ministers was not more violent than others that had appeared in earlier issues of the same paper, but the adherents of Bute, whom Wilkes had taken an active part in ousting from the Ministry, now saw an opportunity to avenge their fallen leader. The severe criticism of his speech made the King furious, and on the principle of "L'étât, c'est moi," he disregarded the distinction that Wilkes had so carefully drawn between the utterances of the monarch and the utterances of ministers in the monarch's name, and encouraged, if, indeed, he did not instigate, a prosecution. The Secretary of State, Lord Halifax, issued a general warrant, that is, a warrant which specified neither the name nor names nor described the person nor persons of the offender or offenders, but only gave instructions "to make a strict and diligent search for the authors, printers and publishers of a seditious and treasonable paper entitled 'The North Briton,' No. xlv, Saturday, April 23, 1763, printed for G. Kearsley, in Ludgate Street, London, andthem, or any of them, having found, to apprehend and seize, together with their papers, etc."

The printer and publisher were at once arrested, and, when brought before Halifax and Egremont, gave the names of the authors as John Wilkes and Charles Churchill. The warrant was shown to Wilkes at his house in Great George Street on the night of April 29, but he declined then to comply with it, stating his objection to a general warrant as such, pointing out that his name was not mentioned, that he was a Member of Parliament, and concluded by threatening the first who should offer violence to him in his own house at that hour of the night; but when the officers returned in the morning he offered no further opposition. Just after he was arrested and before he had been removed from his house, Churchill walked into the room, where were Wilkes and his captors. Wilkes knew the messengers wanted also to arrest Churchill, and observing they did not know the poet by sight, before the latter could speak, with great presence of mind, said, "Good morning, Mr. Thomson. How is Mrs. Thomson to-day?Does she dine in the country?" Churchhill took the hint, said Mrs. Thomson was waiting for him, left the room, and fled from the metropolis.

Wilkes'spapers were seized, and he was taken before the Secretaries of State, and by them, after he had asserted his privileges as a Member of Parliament and had refused to answer any questions, was committed a prisoner to the Tower. Such were the preliminaries of the great battle that made Wilkes a great and popular figure in the struggle for the liberty of the subject and the liberty of the press in England.

Wilkes's friends moved at once for a writ ofhabeas corpus, and after some delay, on May 6, the prisoner was produced before Chief-Justice Pratt[251]in the Court of King's Bench, when counsel applied for his discharge on the ground that the commitment was not valid. The Judge gave his decision in favour of Wilkes, declaring that general warrants were illegal, and that, anyhow, the charge against the accused was not sufficient to destroy his privileges as a Member of Parliament.

Wilkes was no sooner at liberty than he showed he was not a man who could be maltreated with impunity. He republished the numbers of "The North Briton" in a volume with notes, reasserting that the King's Speech could only be regarded as a ministerial pronouncement. He addressed to Lord Halifax and Lord Egremont an open letter, ofwhich many thousand copies were distributed throughout the country, complaining that his home had been robbed, and that he was informed that "the stolen goods are in possession of one or both of your Lordships." His papers were not returned, and he brought an action against Robert Wood, the Under-Secretary of State, against whom he received a verdict giving £1,000 damages, and another action against Lord Halifax for unlawful seizure, from whom also, after many years' delay, he recovered heavy damages. In the meantime Lord Egremont had written to Lord Temple that the King desired the latter, as Lord-Lieutenant of the county, to inform Wilkes that he was dismissed from the Colonelcy of the Buckinghamshire Militia, which task Temple duly discharged, saying, "I cannot, at the same time, help expressing the concern I feel in the loss of an officer, by his deportment in command, endeared to the whole corps." As a punishment for this expression of sympathy, the King removed Lord Temple from the Lord-Lieutenancy, and with his own hand struck his name out of the Council books.

"To honour virtue in the Lord of Stowe,The pow'r of courtiers can no further go;Forbid him Court, from Council blot his name,E'en these distinctions cannot rase his fame.[Pg 241]Friend to the liberties of England's state,'Tis not to Courts he looks to make him great;He to his much lov'd country trusts his cause,And dares assert the honour of her laws."[252]

"To honour virtue in the Lord of Stowe,The pow'r of courtiers can no further go;Forbid him Court, from Council blot his name,E'en these distinctions cannot rase his fame.

[Pg 241]Friend to the liberties of England's state,'Tis not to Courts he looks to make him great;He to his much lov'd country trusts his cause,And dares assert the honour of her laws."[252]

The ministers in this struggle had found a powerful ally in Hogarth, who, though he had been friendly with Wilkes and Churchill, had been high in Bute's favour, even before the accession of George III, and now saw an opportunity to repay his patron. The quarrel between the painter and the agitator had begun with Hogarth's political cartoon, "The Times," in which Wilkes was ignominiously portrayed; and Wilkes, who let no man attack him with impunity, had replied in "The North Briton" with a violent onslaught upon the caricaturist. When Wilkes appeared in the Court of King's Bench, Hogarth, it is said, from behind a screen made a sketch for a caricature of the accused, in which the latter's squint was most malignantly exaggerated. Wilkes took this in good part, and, indeed, in later days said jocularly that he found himself every day growing more and more like the unflattering portrait; but Churchill, who was devoted to his friend, replied in "An Epistle to William Hogarth," in which—after the model furnished by Pope in his immortal reprimand to Addison—while praising Hogarth'sgenius, he poured vitriolic scorn upon his vanity and other weaknesses, concluding with a tremendous indictment of the painter's supposed dotage.

"Sure, 'tis a curse which angry fates impose,To mortify man's arrogance, that thoseWho're fashioned of some better sort of clay,Much sooner than the common herd decay.What bitter pangs must humbl'd Genius feelIn their last hours to view a Swift and Steele!How must ill-boding horrors fill her breast,When she beholds men mark'd above the restFor qualities most dear, plunged from that height,And sunk, deep sunk, in second-childhood's night!Are men, indeed, such things? and are the bestMore subject to this evil than the rest?To drivel out whole years of idiot breath,And set the monuments of living death?Oh, galling circumstance to human pride!Abasing thought, but not to be denied!With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.Constant attention wears the active mind,Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind.But let not youth, to insolence allied,In heat of blood, in full career of pride,Possess'd of genius, with unhallow'd rageMock the infirmities of reverend age;The greatest genius to this fate may bow;Reynolds, in time, may be like Hogarth now."

Hogarth replied to the "Epistle" by a savage caricature of Churchill, entitled, "The Bruiser, C.Churchill (once the Reverend!) in the character of a Russian Hercules, regaling himself after having killed the monsterCaricatura, that so sorely-galled hisvirtuousfriend, the Heaven-born Wilkes." The poet is portrayed as a bear, with torn clerical bands and ruffles, seated upon Massinger's "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," and "A List of the Subscribers to 'The North Briton,' etc., one arm holding a quart pot, and the other round a massive club, on which the knots are inscribed "Lye 1," "Lye 3," "Lye 5," "Lye 8," "Fallacy," etc.

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