NOTES OF THE MONTH. 341 



which, subsequent to the death of his Royal Highness, were valued in the pre- 

 sence of the executors, at nearly 150,0001. These were carried to Windsor, by 

 desire of his late Majesty, but how they were disposed of has not yet been ascertained. 

 An inquiry is on foot touching certain debts said to be due by his late Majesty 

 to the Duke of York, upon which it is expected evidence will be obtained from a 

 lady now residing at Brighton, whose intimacy with the transactions between 

 the royal brothers will no doubt enable her to throw a light on the subject." 



The Examiner rightly prints the above paragraph at the head of its 

 " Accidents and Offences/' of both of which the occurrence therein nar- 

 rated strongly smacks ; of an accident, a great national accident, that any 

 man should be enabled, with impunity, to bring the families of tradesmen 

 to the verge of ruin for many of the creditors are, we understand, in 

 the most distressing circumstances ; of an offence, that he who stood next 

 to the crown of England should have been so wanting in the common 

 principles of honesty, that he would recklessly stake that money on a 

 card, which was the lawful property of the defrauded creditor. We 

 pride ourselves, that in this journal, we have not one vocabulary for 

 the inmates of a palace, and another for the denizens of a hovel. We 

 are, happily, approaching the time when men muffled up in their 

 velvet and ermine, shall not be suffered to cry "privilege" for acts, 

 which, perpetrated by the wearers of rags, would consign them to 

 punishment and reproach. The Duke of York had a princely fortune: 

 he unblushingly took thousands a-year for paying a visit, once a quar- 

 ter, to his old, blind parent: he played fantastic tricks before high 

 heaven, as a bishop: he was commander-in-chief : in fact, state profit 

 held forth to him its Briarean hands, and in every hand a purse. He 

 died; the theatres were closed ; general mourning was ordered ; he 

 was eulogised as the frank and good ; monodies were spouted to his 

 memory ; and he appeared in the print-shops, with wings peering above 

 his field-marshal's coat. And now his memory and his virtues are 

 enshrined in debts, which sink him to the level of the most wanton 

 spendthrift at present incarcerated in any of his Majesty's gaols. As 

 for the jewels worth 150,000, we have our doubts. If, too, they fell 

 into the hands of George the Fourth, farewell to them. We would as 

 soon trust a New Zealander with Birmingham buttons, as his late revered 

 Majesty with pearls and diamonds. He was, in truth, a right royal 

 ostrich for digesting precious stones. 



The terrors of the law are resorted to upon great occasions. As men 

 are sometimes frightened out of an ague, so it is deemed expedient to 

 scare treason and disaffection out of the remaining trunk of an old, cracked 

 seaman. To this end, the learned judge drew forth a more than usually 

 sable black cap, and with deep bathos pronounced the sentence of the 

 law upon Dennis- Collins. 



" I have now nothing left but to pass the sentence of the law upon 

 you ; that you be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution, and 

 being hung by your neck until you are dead, your head to be afterwards 

 severed from your body, and your body divided into four pieces, and 

 disposed of as his Majesty shall think fit." 



How the old man must have hitched up his trowsers and arranged his 

 quid at this announcement. " Shiver my timbers !" thinks he, " but 

 this is a strange proceeding." It must have thrilled to the very extremity 

 of his wooden leg. To cut capers in the air is bad enough ; to be con- 

 verted, as it were, into a tight-rope dancer : but the arithmetical sums 



