official duties, and the resolution to make everything yield to the discharge of them, those duties being much more of the hand than the head.

But it would be a great mistake to imagine that George III.'s ambition was confined within the range of his abilities. He was impressed with a lofty feeling of his prerogative, and a firm determination to maintain, perhaps extend it. At all events, he was resolved not to be a mere name, or a cipher in public affairs; and, whether from a sense of the obligations imposed upon him by his station, or from a desire to enjoy all its powers and privileges, he certainly, while his reason remained entire, but especially during the earlier period of his reign, interfered in the affairs of government more than any prince who ever sat upon the throne of this country since our monarchy was distinctly admitted to be a limited one, and its executive functions were distributed among responsible ministers. The correspondence which he carried on with his confidential servants during the ten most critical years of his life lies before us, and it proves that his attention was ever awake to all the occurrences of the government. Not a step was taken in foreign, colonial, or domestic affairs, that he did not form his opinion upon it, and exercise his influence over it. The instructions to ambassadors, the orders to governors, the movements of forces, down to the marching of a single battalion, in the districts of this country, the appointments to all offices in church and state, not only the giving away of judgeships, bishoprics, regiments, but the subordinate promotions, lay and clerical; all these form the topics of his letters; on all his opinion is pronounced decisively; on all his will is declared peremptorily. In one letter he decides the appointment of a Scotch puisne judge; in another the march of a troop from Buckinghamshire into Yorkshire; in a third the nomination to the Deanery of Worcester; in a fourth he says that, "if Adam, the architect,

succeeds Worsley at the Board of Works, he shall think Chambers ill used."*

For the greater affairs of state it is well known how substantially he insisted upon being the King de facto as well as de jure. The American war, the long exclusion of the Liberal party, the French Revolution, the Catholic question, are all sad monuments of his real power. Of all his resolutions on these affairs, the desire to retain America in subjection seems to have been his strongest propensity; during the whole contest all his opinions, all his feelings, and all his designs, turned upon what he termed the "preservation of the empire." Nor was his rooted prejudice against both the Whigs and the French unconnected with the part they both took in behalf of the colonies. Rather than quit his hold over those provinces and receive the Whigs into his confidence, or do what he called "submitting to be trampled on by his enemies," he at one time threatened to abdicate; and they who knew him are well aware that he did not threaten without a fixed resolution to act. No less than thrice within four days, in March 1778, did he use this language, in the agony of his mind, at having a junction with the Whig party proposed by his chief minister; and upon one occasion he says, "If the people will not stand by me, they shall have another king, for I never will set my hand to what will make me miserable to the last hour of my life." The threat is revived upon the division against Lord North four years afterwards.

That such a sovereign was, for the servants he confided in, the best possible master, may well be supposed. He gave them his entire and hearty support. If he kept a watchful eye over all the proceedings both of parliament and the country; if we find him one day commenting on the line taken in

* This was in 1777, in the middle of the most anxious moment of the American contest; the letter immediately preceding relates to the sum of affairs.

debate as "dangerous," at another "timid and vacillating," or discussing the composition of the majority or its numbers upon the division, or suggesting that the journey of Mr. Fox to Paris should "make the different departments bring on all their business before he comes back, as we shall have much less noise for the next three weeks;" or expressing his conviction that "the Speaker's illness is feigned, and all to let the opposition have their pleasure at Newmarket;" he also asks, "Who deserted you last night that you thought you had a right to count upon? Give me their names, that I may mark my sense of their behaviour at the drawing-room to-morrow;" and again, "If the utmost obsequiousness on my part, at the levee to-day, can gain over Mr. Solicitor-General to your views, it shall not be wanting." This was, indeed, efficiently supporting a favourite ministry; and when he had one forced upon him, his whole conduct was the reverse; all his countenance being given to their antagonists, until the moment arrived when he could safely throw them out.

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The first impression which such conduct makes is unfavourable to the monarch, and may even give rise to an opinion that it was unconstitutional. But further reflection makes this somewhat more than doubtful. The question is, "Does the king of this country hold a real or only a nominal office? he merely a form, or is he a substantive power in our mixed and balanced constitution ?" Some maintain, nay, it is a prevailing opinion among certain authorities of no mean rank, that the sovereign, having chosen his ministers, assigns over to them the whole executive power. They treat him as a kind of trustee for a temporary use, to preserve, as it were, some contingent estate; or a provisional assignee, to hold the property of an insolvent for a day, and then divest himself of the estate by assigning it over. They regard the only power really vested in the crown to be the

choice of ministers, and even the exercise of this to be controlled by the parliament. They reduce the king more completely to the condition of a state pageant or state cipher than one of Abbé Sièyes's constitutions did, when he proposed to have a Grand Functionary with no power except to give away offices; upon which Napoleon, then first consul, to whom the proposition was tendered, asked if it well became him to be made a "Cochon à l'engrais à la somme de trois millions par an?"* The English animal, according to the Whig doctrine, much more nearly answers this somewhat coarse description; for the Abbé's plan was to give his royal beast a substantial voice in the distribution of all patronage; while our lion is only to have the sad prerogative of naming whomsoever the parliament chooses, and eating his own mess in quiet.

Now, with all the disposition in the world to desire that Royal prerogative should be restricted, and the will of the nation govern the national affairs, we cannot comprehend this theory of a monarchy. It assigns to the Crown either far too much revenue, or far too little power. Το pay a million a-year, or more, for a name, seems absurdly extravagant. To affect living under a kingly government, and yet suffer no kind of kingly power, seems extravagantly absurd. Surely the meaning of having a sovereign is, that his voice should be heard, and his influence felt, in the administration of public affairs. The different orders of the state have a right to look towards that high quarter all in their turn for support when their rights are invaded by one another's encroachments, or to claim the Royal umpirage when their mutual conflicts cannot be settled by mutual concessions; and unless the whole notion of a mixed monarchy, and a balance of three powers, is a mere fiction and a dream, the royal portion of the composition must be allowed to have some power, to * A hog to be fatted at the rate of £120,000 a-year.

produce some effect upon the quality of the whole. It is not denied that George III. sought to rule too much; it is not maintained that he had a right to be perpetually sacrificing all other considerations to the preservation or extension of his prerogative. But that he only discharged the duty of his station by thinking for himself, acting according to his conscientious opinions, and using his influence for giving these opinions effect, cannot be denied unless by those who, being averse to monarchy, and yet dreading a commonwealth, would incur all the cost, and all the far worse evils, of a form of government which they think the worst, rather than seek for a better, and would purchase the continuance of the greatest evils at the highest price, rather than encounter the risk of a change. The example is worthy of imitation in all times, which he set, in refusing to be made a state puppet in his minister's hands, and to let his name be used either by men whom he despised, or for purposes which he disapproved. Nor could any one ever charge him with ruling by favourites; still less could any one, by pretending to be the people's choice, impose himself on his vigorous understanding. He had intimate friends, with whom much of his time was passed, but they were under his influence in all things, and influenced him in none. Favour in other quarters, whether pretended or really enjoyed, was the sure preventive of any favour from him.

That this Prince in his private life had many virtues, we have already stated, with the qualification annexed of these being always, even as regarded his strong domestic affections, kept in subjection to his feelings as a sovereign. With regard to his general disposition, it must be added that he belonged to a class of men, not by any means the worst, but far beneath the best, in the constitution of their hearts, those who neither can forget a kindness nor an injury. Nor can this sketch be more appropriately closed than with

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