tics of the British army did not escape his Royal Highness's sedulous care and attention. Formerly, every commanding officer mancuvred his regiment after his own fashion; and if a brigade of troops were brought together, it was very doubtful whether they could execute any one combined movement, and almost certain that they could not execute the various parts of it on the same principle. This was remedied by the system of regulations compiled by the late sir David Dundas, and which obtained the sanction and the countenance of his Royal Highness. This one circumstance, of giving a uniform principle and mode of working to the different bodies, which are, after all, but parts of the same great machine, was in itself one of the most distinguished services which could be rendered to a national army, and it is only surprising that, before it was introduced, the British army was able to execute any combined movements at all.

We cannot but notice the duke of York's establishment near Chelsea for the orphans of soldiers, the cleanliness and discipline of which are a model for such institutions; and the Royal Military school, or college, at Sandhurst, where every species of scientific instruction is afforded to those officers whom it is desirable to qualify for the service of the staff. The excellent officers who have been formed at this institution are the best pledge of what is due to its founder. Again we repeat, that if the British soldier meets his foreign adversary, not only with equal courage, but with equal readiness and facility of manoeuvre-if the British officer brings against his scientific antagonist, not only his own good heart and hand, but an

improved and enlightened knowledge of his profession, to the memory of the duke of York the army and the country owe them.

The character of his Royal Highness was admirably adapted to the task of this extended reformation, in a branch of the public service on which the safety of England absolutely depended for the time. Without possessing any brilliancy, his judgment, in itself clear and steady, was inflexibly guided by honour and principle. No solicitations could make him promise what it would have been inconsistent with these principles to grant; nor could any circumstances induce him to break or elude the promise which he had once given. At the same time, his feelings, humane and kindly, were on all possible occasions accessible to the claims of compassion; and there occurred but rare instances of a wife widowed, or a family rendered orphans, by the death of a meritorious officer, without some thing being done to render their calamities more tolerable.

As a statesman, the duke of York, from his earliest appearance in public life, was guided by the opinions of Mr. Pitt. But two circumstances are worthy of remark. First, that his Royal Highness never permitted the consideration of polities to influence him in his department of commander-inchief, but gave alike to Whig as to Tory, the preferment their service or their talents deserved. Secondly, in attaching himself to the party whose object is supposed to be to strengthen the Crown, his Royal Highness would have been the last man to invade, in the slightest degree, the rights of the people. The following anecdote may be relied upon. At the table of the

years since, a young officer entered into a dispute with lieut.-colonel , upon the point to which military obedience ought to be carried. "If the commander-inchief," said the young officer, like a second Seid, "should command me to do a thing which I knew to be civilly illegal, I should not scruple to obey him, and consider myself as relieved from all responsibility by the commands of my military superior.""So would not I," returned the gallant and intelligent officer, who maintained the opposite side of the question. "1 should rather prefer the risk of being shot for disobedience by my commanding officer, than hanged for transgressing the laws and violating the liberties of the country."-" You have answered like yourself," said his Royal Highness, whose attention had been attracted by the vivacity of the debate; "and the officer would deserve both to be shot and hanged that should act otherwise. I trust all British officers would be as unwilling to execute an illegal command, as I trust the commander-in-chief would be incapable of issuing

one."

The religion of the duke of York was sincere, and he was particularly attached to the doctrines and constitution of the Church of England. In this his Royal Highness strongly resembled his father; and, like his father, he entertained a conscientious sense of the obligations of the coronation oath, which prevented him from acquiescing in the further relaxation of the laws against Catholics. We pronounce no opinion on the justice of his Royal Highness's sentiments on this important point, but we must presume them to have been sincere

pressed at the hazard of drawing down upon his Royal Highness an odium equally strong and resentful.

In his person and countenance, the duke of York was large, stout, and manly; he spoke rather with some of the indistinctness of utter ance peculiar to his late father, than with the precision of enunciation which distinguishes the king, his royal brother. Indeed, his Royal Highness resembled his late majesty perhaps the most of any of George 3rd's descendants. His family affections were strong, and the public cannot have for gotten the pious tenderness with which he discharged the duty of watching the last days of his royal father, darkened as they were by corporeal blindness and mental incapacity. No pleasure, no business, was ever known to interrupt his regular visits to Windsor, where his unhappy parent could neither be grateful for, nor even sensible of, his unremitted attention. The same ties of affeetion united his Royal Highness to other members of his family, and particularly to its present royal head. Those who witnessed the coronation of his present Majesty, will long remember, as the mast interesting part of that august ceremony, the cordiality with whic his royal highness the duke of York performed his act of hommage, må the tears of affection which were mutually shed between the royal brethren. We are aware that under this heavy dispensation, his Majesty will be chief mourner, not in name only, but in all the sincerity of severed affection. The Kings nearest brother in blood was also his nearest in affection; and the subject who stood next to the

throne, was the individual who would most willingly have laid down his life for its support..

In social intercourse the duke of York was kind, courteous, and condescending general attributes, we believe, of the blood royal of England, and well befitting the princes of a free country. It may be remembered, that when, in days of youthful pride," his Royal Highness had wounded the feelings of a young nobleman, he never thought of sheltering himself behind his rank, but manfully gave reparation by receiving the well-nigh fatal) fire of the of fended party, though he declined to return it..

We would here gladly conclude the subject, but to complete a portrait, the shades as well as the lights must be inserted, and in their foibles as well as their good qualities, princes are the property of history. Occupied perpetually with official duty, which, to the last period of his life, he discharged with the utmost punctuality, the duke of York was peculiarly negligent of his own affairs, and the embarrassments which arose in consequence, were considerably increased by an imprudent passion for the turf, and for deep play. Those unhappy propensities exhausted the funds with which the nation supplied him liberally, and sometimes produced extremities which must have been painful to a man of temper so honourable. The exalted height of his rank, which renders it, doubtless, more difficult to look into and regulate domestic expenditure, together with the engrossing duties of his Royal Highness's office, may be admitted as alleviations, but not apologies, for their imprudence.

A criminal passion of a different VOL. LXIX.

Make whips to scourge us

The Duke of York married to Fredrica, Princess Royal of Prussia, Sept. 29th, 1791, lived with her on terms of decency, but not of affection; and the Duke had formed, with a female called Clarke, a connexion justifiable certainly neither by the laws of religion nor morality. Imprudently he suffered this wo man to express her wishes to him for the promotion of two or three officers, towhose preferment there could be no other objection than that they were recommended by such a person. It might doubtless have occurred to the Duke, that the solicitations of a woman like this were not likely to be disinterested; and, in fact, she seems to have favoured one or two persons, as being her paramours-several for mere prospect of gain, which she had subordinate agents to hunt out for and one or two from a real sense of good nature and benevolence. The examination of this woman and her various profligate intimates before the House of Commons occupied that assembly for nearly three months, and that with an intenseness of anxiety seldom equalled. The Duke of York was acquitted from the mo tion brought against him by majority of 80; but so strong was the outcry against him without doors, so much was the nation con2 H

vinced that all Mrs. Clarke said was true, and so little could they be brought to doubt that the duke of York was a conscious and participant actor in all that person's schemes, that his Royal Highness, seeing his utility obstructed by popular prejudice, tendered to his Majesty the resignation of his office, which was accepted accordingly, March 20th, 1809. And thus, as according to Solomon, "a dead fly can produce the most precious unguent," was the honourable fame, acquired by the services of a life time, obscured by the consequences of what the gay world would have termed a venial levity. The warning to those of birth and eminence is of the most serious nature. This step had not been long taken, when the mist in which the question was involved began to disperse. The public accuser, in the House of Commons, colonel Wardle, was detected in some suspicious dealings with the principal witness, Mrs. Clarke, and it was evidently expectation of gain that had brought this lady to the bar as an evidence. Next occurred, in the calm moments of retrospect, the great improbability that his Royal Highness ever could know on what terms she negociated with those in whose favour she solicited. It may well be supposed she concealed the motive for interesting herself in such as were his own favoured rivals; and what greater probability was there, that she should explain to him her mercenary speculations, or distinguish them from the intercessions which she made upon more honourable motives? When the matter of accusation was thus reduced to his Royal Highness's having been, in two or three instances, the dupe of an artful woman, men began to

see, that when once the guilt of entertaining a mistress was acknowledged, the disposition to gratify such a person, who must always exercise a natural influence over her paramour, follows as a matter of course. It was then, that the public compared the extensive and lengthened train of public services, by which the Duke had distinguished himself in the management of the army, with the trifling foible of his having granted one or two favours, not in themselves improper, at the request of a woman who had such oppor tunities to press her suit; and, doing to his Royal Highness the justice he well deserved, welcomed him back, in May, 1811, to the situation from which he had been driven by calumny and popular prejudice.

In that high command his Royal Highness continued to manage our military affairs. During the last years of the most momentous war that ever was waged, his Royal Highness prepared the most splendid victories our anuals boast, by an unceasing attention to the character and talents of the officers, and the comforts and health of the men. Trained under a system sø admirable, our army seemed to increase in efficacy, power, and even in numbers, in proportion to the increasing occasion which the public had for their services. Nor is it a less praise that, when the men, so disciplined returned from scenes of battle, ravaged countries, and stormed cities, they re-assumed the habits of private life as if they had never left them; and that of all the crimes which the criminal calendar presents (in Scotland at least), there are not above one or two instances in which the perpetrators have been disbanded soldiers. This

is a happy change since the reduction of the army, after peace with America in 1783, which was the means of infesting the country with ruffians of every description; and in the prison of Edinburgh alone, there were six or seven disbanded soldiers under sentence of death at the same time.

This superintending care, if not the most gaudy, is amongst the most enduring flowers which will bloom over the duke of York's

tomb. It gave energy to Britain in war, and strength to her in peace. It combined tranquillity with triumph, and morality with the habits of a military life. If our soldiers have been found invincible in battle, and meritorious in peaceful society, when restored to its bosom, let no Briton forget that this is owing to the paternal care of him to whose memory we here offer an imperfect tribute.Edinburgh Weekly Journal.

1801.

The papers, marked 1, 2, 4, 5, are printed from originals in the hand-writing of his late majesty ; 3 and 6 from originals in the handwriting of the late lord Kenyon; A, B, C, D, E, are from copies taken, on the 15th of February, 1801, by the present lord Kenyon, from originals communicated to his father on that day by the late King.

No. 1. To the LORD KENYON. Queen's-House, March 7, 1795. The question that has been so improperly patronized by the lord - lieutenant of Ireland in favour of the Papists, though certainly very properly silenced here, yet it seems not to have been viewed in what seems to me the strongest point of view, its militating against the Coronation Oath and many existing statutes. I have, therefore, stated the accompanying queries on paper, to which I desire the lord Kenyon will, after due consideration, state his opinion in the same

No. 2.-The Queries referred to in No. 1. [Written by the King's hand.]

The following queries on the present attempt to abolish all distinctions in religion in Ireland, with the intention of favouring the Roman Catholics in that kingdom, are stated from the desire of learning whether this can be done without affecting the constitution of this country; if not, there is no occasion to view whether this measure in itself be not highly improper.

The only laws which now affect the Papists in Ireland are the acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, the Test Act, and the Bill of Rights. It seems to require very serious investigation how far the King can give his assent to a repeal of any