and partially despondent army. Preston, Wigan, and Manchester were reached, and at Derby the southward march was ended. The leaders saw that the expedition had failed, and a retreat was decided on. Cumberland was advancing with a large army, including many veterans of Dettingen and Fontenoy, and Marshal Wade was on the move. The retreat began with some appearance of order, but soon assumed the character of a disastrous flight. The Highlanders robbed villages and farmhouses, and there were many small fights between them and the country people. Major-General Oglethorpe, with a detachment of Wade's army, harassed the fugitives; and Cumberland was in full pursuit. On the 20th of December, the Prince, with a fragment of his army, a mere rabble, crossed the Esk and was once more in Scotland.

Then followed the fight at Falkirk, the Prince's troops having been strengthened and probably re-organized,-in which General Hawley, the English commander, was shamefully defeated-" ran away," say the Jacobite song writers and anecdotists; the retreat from Stirling, and at length the culminating disaster. The resolute, pitiless Cumberland was on the trail; and at Drummossie Moor, better known as Culloden, near Inverness, on the 16th of April, struck a blow which ended the rebellion. Of the friends of Charles there perished on that terrible day, either in action or in the pell-mell retreat, nearly 2,500. The fugitives were hunted down like wild beasts, the wounded were massacred in cold blood, women and children were killed, and for three months there was a "war of extermination."

THE YOUNG CHEVALIER A FUGITIVE.

Charles Edward himself, no more a gallant Prince at the head of an enthusiastic army, but a miserable fugitive, wandered for five months, trusting to the fidelity of his friends for concealment and safety. He hid for some time amid the little islands of the Hebrides, at times almost starved, and suffering terrible privations; and when English ships appeared off the islands, and English soldiers landed to search for the fugitive, he escaped, disguised in woman's clothes, with the aid of a brave young lady, Flora Macdonald, whose name lives in legend and song. He reached Skye in safety, but the generous Flora was captured and taken prisoner to London. The Prince reached the mainland, was hidden for a time in a cave on the great mountain of Corado, between Kintail and Glenmoriston, protected by Highland sheep-lifters," thieves by profession, but not one unfaithful to his trust.

ESCAPE TO FRANCE.

At length, on the 13th of September,

Charles Edward left the cave, having received a message to the effect that two French frigates were off the coast. Several of his old friends had also been communicated with; and on the 20th of the month, he, with Lochiel, and about a hundred others, embarked at Lochnanaugh, the very spot where fourteen months before he had landed so full of ambition and hope. He reached Paris and was well received; but the cause of the Stuarts had received its deathblow. Some of his adherents were beheaded on Tower Hill, others of meaner sort were hanged. Feeble attempts to revive the Stuart cause were made from time to time, but the gallant young Chevalier soon became almost a legendary hero. Stuart selfishness, Stuart duplicity, Stuart profligacy, developed in his character. His friends fell away. English gentlemen would not risk their lives for a man who would not dismiss a mistress who had intimate relations with the Court of King George. It is believed that he more than once visited London secretly; indeed, Dr. King, a warm adherent of the Stuarts, has left it on record that he met him in private at the house of a lady of rank. Some writers have averred that he was present at the coronation of George III.; and the King himself was able to inform his Ministers, some years afterwards, that the young Pretender was in London. "Leave him to himself," added the monarch, "and when he tires he will go back again.”

"Let us," wrote Scott in the Quarterly, "be just to the memory of the unfortunate. Without courage, he had never made the attempt; without address and military talent, he had never kept together his own desultory bands, or discomfited the more experienced soldiers of his enemy; and finally, without patience, resolution, and fortitude, he could never have supported his cause so long under successive disappointments, or fallen at last with honour, by an accumulated and overwhelming pressure." The story of Charles Edward has almost created a literature. The Jacobite songs, unsurpassed for fire and enthusiasm, form a volume in themselves; and to "The Forty-five," we owe the Waverley Novels.

There died at Florence, on the 31st of January, 1788, in his 68th year, a bloated, brutal, profligate man, an habitual drunkard, who had beaten and ill-treated his young wife, a Princess of Stolberg Guendern, and who seemed capable only of exhibiting affection for one person, his illegitimate daughter, whom he styled Duchess of Albany. That unhappy man, who attracted no friends, a reprobate and a sot, was the last Stuart who claimed the throne of England-" Bonnie Prince Charlie."

G. R. E.

A GREAT DIPLOMATIST AND AN IMPORTANT

MEETING.

HAT fussiest and most indefatigable of men in the managing of small affairs, James Boswell, Esq., of Auchinleck, devotes a number of pages of his "Life of Johnson" to the relation of a piece of diplomacy on which the goodnatured follower of "My illustrious friend" evidently prided himself not a little, and the success of which he seems to regard as the Machiavellian triumph of his life. Boswell, who ran after every one who was famous or even notorious, and was equally proud of being "the friend" of Paoli and "the friend" of Johnson, had conceived the idea that the Doctor, monarchist and high churchman as he was, and given to declare in thunderous tones, "The Crown has not power enough, sir," might yet be induced to find something congenial in the man who was, or at least had been, considered the chief dema

gogue of his time, and the most formidable opponent of the Crown,-Mr. John Wilkes, or as the Doctor was accustomed less ceremoniously to dub him, "Jack Wilkes." He according devised a notable scheme to bring the two men together. First, by insinuating a doubt whether Johnson would. not be offended at being asked to meet people he disliked at the table of a friend, he artfully entrapped the Doctor into a boisterous declaration that a man had a right to invite anyone he pleased to his table, and. that he, Johnson, would never question that right or call his host to account for using it; then he went off and proposed to Mr. Dilly, the bookseller of the Poultry, that he should ask Johnson and Wilkes to dinner on the same day. "Dr. Johnson would never forgive me," cried the startled bibliopole. But Boswell persevered, and magnanimously offered to take all the consequences on himself. He conveyed a respectful invitation

from Mr. Dilly to the sage, who complacently replied: "Sir, I am obliged to Mr. Dilly. I will wait upon him." But when the day came, Johnson had forgotten all about Dilly and his dinner, and Boswell calling for him, found him literally in the clouds, for he was vigorously dusting his books; and on being reminded of his engagement, replied doubtfully that he had promised to dine at home with blind Mrs. Williams. But Boswell was not to be put off. He boldly promised to win over the lady to consent; and by piteously pleading the disgrace he should suffer if the chief guest did not put in an appearance at Mr. Dilly's dinner, he softened Mrs. Williams into yielding; whereupon the sage, not ill-pleased, perhaps, with the change in the day's programme, roared out to Frank Barber for a clean shirt, and was presently carried off by Boswell, who describes his own elation as equal to that of a fortunehunter who had secured an heiress to make a trip with him to Gretna Green.

He then tells how disturbed Johnson was when, on arriving at Mr. Dilly's, he found that a certain gentleman in lace "was no other than Mr. Wilkes ;" and how he was fain to take up a book and pretend to read, to hide his discomfiture; but, mindful probably of his own words a few days before, said nothing; how the announcement of dinner came as a welcome relief to the awkwardness of the situation; how the artful Mr. Wilkes, boldly taking his seat near Johnson, was assiduously bent on attacking him through one of the Doctor's weak points, his appreciation of his dinner; perseveringly pressing upon him an especially good dish of veal with a dash of lemon or orange-until the sage, who had intended to wrap himself up in "surly virtue," was induced to respond with, Sir, sir, you are very obliging, sir;" and the ice having been once broken, they got on remarkably well together, and separated mutually pleased with each other, to the delight and triumph of diplomatic Boswell.

JOHN WILKES, THE BEST-ABUSED PUBLIC MAN OF HIS TIME.

The person who managed to conquer the sage of Bolt Court was certainly during a part of his career, and even to some extent after his death, the best-abused man in England. Macaulay, while acknowledging the illegality and foolishness of the persecution to which he was subjected at the hands of George III. and His Majesty's Ministers, yet speaks of him as "that worthless demagogue, Wilkes." Lord Brougham has treated him with no more courtesy or consideration; and Earl Russell has cast the heaviest of stones at his memory. The terrible caricature by Hogarth, in which he

is depicted in squinting hideousness, has dwelt in men's meinory, and has caused him to be set down as a monster whose external ugliness was a true indication of his mind; and very few have been disposed to give him any credit for the real and meritorious service he did to the nation at large, in standing up for personal freedom and the liberty of the press at a time when both were seriously jeopardised. The homely proverb concerning giving a dog a bad name and hanging him, never had a truer illustration than in the case of this man, whose strange fate it was to be successively a borough member, High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire and colonel of militia, a prisoner in the Tower, an outlaw, a prisoner again, alderman of the ward of Farringdon-without, Lord Mayor of London, sheriff, knight of the shire for Middlesex, and chamberlain of the City. Time, that effaces many prejudices, and puts forward men and things in their true colours at last, has done something towards awarding justice to Wilkes; and it may not be uninteresting to our readers, if we put before them briefly the facts that rendered the exmember for Aylesbury for a series of years one of the most conspicuous men in the country; his name being so much in everybody's mouth, that Horace Walpole records how a member of a mercantile firm inadvertently began a business letter with the extraordinary exordium, "We take the Wilkes and liberty of informing you,” etc., instead of the usual opening sentence.

STATE OF AFFAIRS AT THE END OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE 11.

The reign of George II. closed in a blaze of triumph in England. William Pitt, "the Great Commoner," as the people affectionately called him, who had won the foremost place in the councils of his country without the aid of high birth or strong family connection, was at the height of his power and popularity. The armies and fleets of England had been everywhere successful, and the misfortunes and tragic death of poor Byng had been forgotten, effaced in the glorious successes of army and navy in Canada, and on the French coast, and in distant India. "May our commanders have the eye of a Hawke and the heart of a Wolfe!" was a favourite toast, in punning allusion to the names of two of the greatest leaders. The nation was more than content, and cheerfully paid even the annual subsidy for the army of the great Frederick of Prussia, who was then in the very midst of the gigantic struggle of the "Seven Years' War." Prosperous in commerce, and successful in war, with an old king who wisely "let well alone," and left the popular ministry to do its best, all went well till the death of George II. placed his

grandson on the throne, and a new epoch began in the history of England.

For the first time since the Revolution of 1688, royal prerogative began to assert itself against popular liberty in England. With the exception of Queen Anne, who, though at heart a Tory, was compelled by her position to govern chiefly with a Whig Ministry and on Whig principles, every monarch in England since 1688 had been a foreigner, and as such compelled scrupulously to keep within the strict limits traced by the the Constitution and the Declaration of Rights. The first and second Georges had preferred Hanover to

THE NEW KING AND HIS IDEAS OF ROYAL PREROGATIVE.

But when George III. came to the throne, his position was very different. He was able to announce to the nation immediately after his accession that "he gloried in the name of a Briton," and to point to the fact that he had been born and bred in England. Since his father's death, nine years before, he had been brought up in almost entire seclusion, under the care of his mother, the Princess Dowager of Wales, who has been credited, rightly or wrongly, with instil.

ling into her son those aspirations towards arbitrary power which he began to display almost from the day of his accession. His hostility towards the Ministry began to manifest itself from the very first; and one by one the members of that Ministry were compelled to resign their positions, the great Commoner himself forming no exception; though in his case his fall was softened by expressions of appreciation on the part of the young king for the great things he had done, and by substantial marks of the royal favour, such at the bestowal of a peerage on the wife of the retiring minister. The Duke of Newcastle, the nominal head of the administra

tion, clung to office with the tenacity of servile, all-enduring ambition,-a persistence that recalls Dickens's picture of one of the Barnacle family "sticking to a post." He endured mortification and humiliation of various kinds from which the haughty spirit of Pitt would have instinctively shrunk, allowed himself to be insultingly reminded of the days "when he had the power" to promote a supporter, and to the great detriment of his self-respect put off the evil day of resignation to the very last, with no result, however, but that of lengthening out his mortification and grief; he had to acknowledge at last that the game was lost, and to retire from a position that even to the most meek-spirited of men would have been unendurable.

For the King had determined that none but his own "friends," men raised by his favour to power and dependent upon his good-will for the continuance of their offices, should hold great places in the Government. He was the resolved to emancipate himself from the thraldom in which he considered his grandfather and great grandfather to have been held; and especially put forward a favourite of his own for the position of First Lord of the Treasury.

A KING'S FAVOURITE; AN UNUSUAL
PRIME MINISTER.

This favourite was John, Earl of Bute, a Scottish nobleman, who had been groom of the stole in the service of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and had continued to occupy a high place in the confidence, indeed, scandal said, the highest place in the affection, of the Princess Dowager after her husband's death. Lord Waldegrave, in his "Memoirs," has placed on record the sarcasm quoted by Macaulay, in which the Prince pronounced his opinon that Bute was the very man to be minister at some German Court, where there was no business to transact ;-hardly the man, one would think, to take the foremost place in an English government. And yet to the foremost place was Bute promoted; for, on the fall of Newcastle, he was made Prime Minister.

The appointment seemed at first like a jest, and a very sorry one; and the public, in its amazement, could scarcely believe the news to be true. Of experience in parliamentary life, Bute had actually none. He delivered his maiden speech from the Treasury bench as Prime Minister, acquitting himself, indeed, with more dignity and self-possession than his hearers had expected, though his utterances were marred by the pomposity which Lord Waldegrave describes characteristic of him on every occasion important or unimportant; and a wit, amused by the long theatrical pauses he made in his sentences, called out, “Minute guns!" The

as

amazement was soon converted to indignation by the system adopted, in deference to his master's wishes, by the new Prime Minister.

George III. had already given undoubted proofs of that hatred of the Whigs which continued to be his prevailing characteristic so long as life and reason remained to him. A system of persecution began, which after a time extended to all of that party-from the Duke of Devonshire, to whom the King sent so insulting a message by a page, that the indignant nobleman tore off the golden key he wore as chamberlain, and flung it on the ground, down to the custom-house officers, messengers, and housekeepers who had been appointed by his predecessors. It was wittily observed that Bute turned out everybody who owed his place to the Whigs, except the King. It quickly became manifest that High Tory principles were indispensable for the securing of court favour and patronage; and when it appeared that, in addition to this qualification, unbounded servility was required, and that Scottish extraction was almost as necessary, the public indignation against the Minister became intense, and Bute could hardly appear in the streets for fear of insult or even personal injury.

A LESSON TO ROYALTY; THE MINISTER AND HIS NOVEL POLICY.

One instance is particularly recorded, in which George III. received an unmistakable indication of the direction public opinion was taking. Not long after the dismissal of Pitt, the King, who had recently married, came with the Queen to dine with the city magnates at Guildhall. The people took this opportunity to give the Court a piece of its mind in the shape of a tremendous ovation to Pitt, the fallen minister; while Bute was hooted as his carriage passed through the streets, and the King and Queen were almost unnoticed. The policy of the Prime Minister, too, was not calculated to win confidence and good-will. He hastened to undo, with most injudicious promptitude, all that his predecessors in office had done. The subsidy paid to the King of Prussia was suddenly withdrawn, and Frederick was abandoned to his fate, in the very midst of his struggle with Austria and the Powers in league with her. Peace was to be made with France and Spain, though Canada won from the former, and Havannah and the Philippines wrested from the latter, Power, had made the war a most popular one in England; but these successes had been gained under a Whig administration, and the war was a part of the Whig policy, and consequently distasteful at court. Pitt had declared that while he was in power England should never make a treaty