THE 



MONTHLY MAGAZINE 



OF 



POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND THE BELLES LETTRES. 

 VOL. X.] JULY, 1830. [No. 55. 



GEORGE THE FOURTH. 



THE lamented death of his late Majesty occurred within so few hours 

 of the time when this publication must go to press, that we might be 

 easily excused from noticing it but by a paragraph. But we have been 

 anxious to do more, and, by whatever exertion on our part, to meet, in 

 some degree, the public interest natural to so grave and melancholy an 

 event as the demise of the Sovereign. 



George Frederic Augustus,, his late Majesty, was born on the 12th of 

 August 1762, the eldest son of their Majesties George the Third and 

 Queen Charlotte. As it was the desire of his royal father that he should 

 be master of all the knowledge and accomplishments necessary for the 

 future monarch of the most intellectual and influential nation of Europe, 

 the prince was put at an early age into the hands of tutors of acknow- 

 ledged capacity, the chief of whom were, Markham, late Archbishop of 

 York, and Cyril Jackson, afterwards distinguished as the Dean of Christ 

 Church, Oxford. There were some subsequent changes in the persons 

 about the prince, but his education was continued with a diligence which 

 made him no mean scholar, and imbued him with a degree of general 

 taste and literature probably equal to that of any sovereign of Europe. 



The prince, to those high advantages, united those of nature in a re- 

 markable degree. He was tall, well formed, his countenance handsome, 

 and his air, manners, and address princely, in the fullest sense of the 

 word. But it is one of the characteristics of English life that it shall be 

 mingled with politics. No man of rank can be suffered to escape the 

 general net of party, and of all men, the future master of the throne is 

 naturally the chief prize. To a prince of the heir-apparent' s time of life 

 'and buoyancy of spirits, there could be no comparison between the par- 

 ties which, on his coming of age, solicited his connexion. Pitt had com- 

 municated his own stern and reserved habits to his administration. The 

 Whigs exhibited the complete contrast to this solemn and matter-of-fact 

 school. They were the chief nobility of the land, the leaders of fashion- 

 able life, the men of wit, elegance, and taste ; their houses were the resort 

 of all that was brilliant in male ability and attractive' in female elegance. 

 Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Wyndham, with a crowd of inferior stars, .glit- 

 'tered in the Whig galaxy; while, on the other side, nothing was to be 

 seen but the frowning majesty of Pitt's genius, his retired virtue, and his 

 uncompromising scorn of the pliancy and moral laxity of his showy com- 

 petitors. Pitt's official subordinates were scarcely more attractive ; what- 

 ever might be their personal qualities, they were but instruments in the 

 hands of their great master, and the whole aspect of Toryism was clouded 

 and hardened by official severity. 



The prince instantly adopted the party which offered the stronger cap- 

 tivations to his unpractised and susceptible passions ; and the Foxite prin- 

 ciples, if principles they deserve to be called, were from that hour his po- 

 litical creed for years. 



M. M. New Scries. VOL. X. No. 55. B 



