No. 9.

ANECDOTES OF GEORGE IV., WHEN PRINCE OF WALES.

THAT the prevalent idea among mankind, which supposes Kings are surrounded with flatterers ever ready to magnify even indifferent actions, which would not be noticed in common life, is often wholly unfounded, at least in this country, the distinct and decided example we have given in these MEMOIRS will show. To an exposition based upon the clearest facts in the case of his Father, we are enabled to add some particulars of George IV. equally unknown, but which the general voice would certainly desire should be rescued from oblivion-that they are so, was owing to the same concurrence of fortuitous incidents which, sixty years after John Harrison's petition was laid before Parliament, disclosed the philanthropic and unwearied interest his Sovereign had taken in procuring him redress for the violation of the legislative pledge. To the circumstance of the Author having been in habits of intimacy with the persons introduced (till separated by change of residence to distant parts of the king

dom) was owing their being now brought forward, as an appropriate addition, he thinks, to "A TRAIT IN THE CHARACTER OF GEORGE III."

On the first meeting of the House of Commons, June 29th, 1830, after the demise of George IV., Sir Robert Peel coming forward in his official character, paid a well deserved tribute to the memory of the deceased Monarch. "The late King," said the honourable Baronet, "was an admirable gentleman, and a liberal patron of the arts. His

66

66

"heart always sympathized with any appeal to his "benevolence. (Hear, hear, hear, and great cheering.)—I do not wish, Sir, to deliver any "overstrained panegyric on his late Majesty; his "acts speak for themselves."-That these praises were not words of course, the weight of which would not bear being sifted to the bottom, the following illustrative facts will show.

Mr. Edmund Scott was an engraver of respectable abilities, well known as such formerly in the metropolis, but subsequently a crayon painter, resident at Guildford in Surry. He was a man of strict sobriety and regular habits, but having a large family, and not being remunerated in proportion to his labours, he got into pecuniary difficulties, was arrested and in confinement: when the Prince of Wales heard of his situation, and through the intervention of a military gentleman* his royal high

*

According to the Artist's Son, this was Lieutenant Colonel Huxley Sandon.

ness discharged the debt. After which rightly judging that the properest course, if he would extend his benevolence, was to employ the artist professionally, he set him to take a portrait of his Princess—a fact directly at variance with the general, if not the universal belief, that mutual disgust, and a separation from bed and board took place almost immediately after their nuptials. If so, that the bridegroom shortly after should have employed an artist to take the likeness of his partner, cannot be reconciled to-is indeed quite incompatible with ordinary notions in such concerns, for no man separated from his wife under such circumstances ever thinks of introducing a painter with such an object. How can he be supposed to contemplate the production of art with pleasure, if the original, from whatever causes is wholly an alien to his satisfaction? How, we ask, is a difficulty to be got over, directly opposed to historical credence ?* for it leads

*Neither was this circumstance a solitary exception to the current belief which supposes the match was forced on the heir apparent and wholly contrary to his inclination: for Mr. Jefferys, of Picadilly, who furnished the jewellery ordered in consequence of the marriage, and was a principal creditor of his royal highness, having published a pamphlet on account of some dispute with the Commissioners appointed to settle the Princes affairs: incidentally informs us-that at the period of the proposed nuptials of the Prince of Wales with his Cousin, the Princess Caroline of Brunswic, he passed much of his time at Carlton House; and though it is at such complete variance with the generally received opinion, he continues-'I 'declare it to be my firm belief, however subsequent events,

to the inference that the royal pair differed little from other young couples during the probation called the honey-moon.-It is certain that from this portrait, a whole length, the joint production of Edmund Scott,* and of Mr. Stothard, the academician, a print was taken; which the Author has seen, and which decided his own persuasion on the subject: but in a case surrounded with so much novelty, indecision becomes a merit towards the public, and a bonus to the numerous writers who would complain of having incurred an awkward erratum, "by following rumour with her hundred tongues."

Changing the scene, we bring forward Mr. Charles Sheriff, born at Edinburgh, in 1755, being the second son of an eminent merchant in that city. Having lost his hearing when only three years old, it had all the consequences of being born deaf; and he continued in the state incident to that misfortune till about the age of eleven, when a circumstance very material to his future destiny occurred.

Mr. Braidwood, the enterprizing schoolmaster of 'which may be truly termed unfortunate for his Royal High'ness and for the country, may contradict the probability of 'my assertion, that no person in the kingdom appeared to feel, ' and I believe at the time did actually feel, more sincere pleasure in the prospect of the proposed marriage and the consequent 'separation from Mrs. Fitzherbert than his Royal Highness.'

*The family reside chiefly at Brighton. His eldest Son (who can testify to the facts related) is of respectable abilities as a landscape painter, in water colours.

R

the northern capital, had at this time matured his scheme for educating those under this privation, and it happened remarkably enough, our subject was his first pupil. From what is thought little better than a state of idiotism, he was brought to understand the language to write letters conforming to orthography and grammar; and to speak so as to be understood in the family, and by his intimates. He could not, as has been related of some individuals, converse by observing the motion of the lips in the speaker, but otherwise his facility of apprehension was extraordinary; for if a person opposite wrote rapidly in the air with his finger, Mr. Charles could read such writing although reversed and evanescent, as the Author has frequently witnessed. Having early employed himself in sketching with the blacklead pencil, and painting being designated as his future profession, he was placed with a drawing master in London, named Burgess; under whom, his works of that period show his progress to have been rapid; insomuch that it was proposed, though rather prematurely, to take him to Italy, the common rendezvous of artists and connoisseurs from every country. All his bright prospects, however, were soon overclouded by a storm that burst with a calamitous pressure on the whole family. The failure of Fordyce, an eminent banker at Edinburgh in that day, drew after it the insolvency of many mercantile men, and among others, Mr. Sheriff's father: but who, being