pride and dignity, and he issued his commands for the immediate admission of the fair visitant. His Majesty was in the house inspecting his Giraffe when the lady made her appearance at one of the outer gates, but the King no sooner caught a glimpse of her person, than he ordered her to be detained until he had taken his departure, and he hurried to his ponychaise, and drove towards the castle. This lady had been long one of his most acknowledged favourites; but she is now the wife of a most deserving and amiable officer, and for that reason we will not wound his feelings by the mention of her

name.

With the year 1823-4, the King discontinued his visits to Brighton, and took up his residence at the cottage in Windsor park. In the former year, he held his first court at Windsor castle, and 300,000l. was voted by Parliament for the repairs and embellishments of that splendid edifice. His retirement from Brighton has been attributed to various causes; but the most authentic is a deep resentment which he felt at some personal affront which was given to the LADY STEWARD, by some of the inhabitants of the town, and which he considered as almost given to himself. In fact the extraordinary ascendency which that lady had obtained over the royal mind, was now so apparent in all his actions, that he may literally be said to be a King governed by one subject, and that subject more influential and powerful in her authority, than the first minister of the state.

The royal amusements of the cottage partook of all the elegant refinements which distinguished the latter part of the King's life. Virginia Water, with its picturesque scenery of forest, lake, cascade, and landscape-garden, was one of the King's most favourite retreats. Here, under his own superintendence, he caused a fishing-temple to be erected, and another in the Chinese taste, which now stand, in their desolate beauty, the monuments of his eccentric taste and his expensive habits. With the substantial glory of Windsor Castle, towering in the distance, and the poetical associations of the forest in the vicinity, some surprise may be expressed at the inharmonious introduction of these fantastical buildings, amidst the natural luxuriance of the spot. Aquatic excursions were his Majesty's

favourite amusement in the summer months; and his superb yacht, freighted with royalty and noble and ignoble beauty, upon, with one exception, the finest artificial water in the kingdom, must indeed have been a voluptuous scene, Temporary pavilions, marquees, &c., were, on such occasions, put up with magic celerity; whilst music, with its silver sounds, floated on the surface of the lake, or sighed with the breeze through the surrounding foliage, the royal band being a constant accompaniment in the lake excursion. Such a species of splendid seclusion might well win the sovereign from the cares of state and political perplexities; but still there was something in that seclusion so decidedly anti-national, so openly at variance with what the English people have a right to expect from their sovereign, that their murmurs began to be expressed in no very measured language, and which, had not his feelings been well cauterized by an habitual contempt of public opinion, would have often interrupted his voluptuous moments by a solemn warning as to the consequences which have often befallen royalty, from a neglect of its political and national duties.

To the contemplative observer, the view of Virginia Water is an object of the most serious reflection, and of reminiscences which carry him back to the days of its glory and its pride, when all that art could accomplish was lavishly expended to render it a fairy scene, such as some great magician would raise by his potent wand, to give to mortals a foretaste of a heavenly paradise: and now to view it-hushed are the sounds which floated around it in silvery sweetness, filling the heart and soul with those extatic feelings which bring humanity into closer connexion with the Deity:-desolate are the halls which once rang with revelry, and where the eye of female beauty shot its glances around in all their bewitching pride, in all the mastery of their resistless power-where the silken flag of royalty once waved over the stillness of the waters, now glides the lonely water-fowl, fearless of intrusion, or the annoyance of man. The contemplatist may now sit, where loyalty once sat in its exclusive dignity, and which, in a few years, was to be spoken of as some passing wonder, and to be forgotten to make room for the deeds and actions of his successor. The plans and edifices of monarchs crumble into dust, and posterity