1830.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



699 



party, apparently exerted for his benefit, 

 formed a new tie, and in the following 

 year their attempts to grasp for him the 

 regency, rivetted it still more closely. 

 Politics from that period were for a time 

 abandoned in disgust ; and profligacy 

 and extravagance reigned unchecked but 

 by accumulating embarrassments of debt, 

 till in the year 1795, in an evil hour, the 

 prince compromised his character for 

 honour and elevation of spirit, by com- 

 pounding with the minister for the pay- 



, t. _A*I_?_ _i _ i A. _ i A. i_?__ __ _ ?/- r> 



a change, in this respect, appears even 

 to have been contemplated. This un- 

 accountable neglect was finally visited 

 upon the whigs. When the restrictions 

 on the regent terminated power, abso- 

 lute power, seemed to be theirs of right 

 thev would listen to no terms they 

 proclaimed their intention of riding 

 rough-shod through Carlton-House ; and 

 the gates were deservedly closed against 

 them. The death of the poor old af- 

 flicted king gave the sceptre to the re- 



ment of his debts by taking a wife of gent, and a few months brought over his 

 his, or at least of others' selection. It insulted wife. She insisted upon her 



re^al rights ; the king was resolute in 

 refusing them ; he took passion and 

 pride for his counsellors; he subjected 

 her to a trial, and was, as he deserved 

 to be, thoroughly baffled. Mr. C. throws 

 all upon Lord Liverpool and his imbeci- 

 lity. ' alwaj's, hitherto, a feeble, unpur- 

 posed, and timid minister, he now put on 

 a preposterous courage, and defied this 

 desperate woman. "He might better 

 have taken a tiger by the beard,' &c. 

 But the truth is the King was impera- 

 tive Lord Liverpool, to be sure, had 

 his alternative but that alternative was 

 resignation ! 



The volume, as the time will tell, is 

 hastily got up, but vigorously written 

 the dictate of moral scorn perhaps too 

 exclusively launched at the hapless 

 whigs. Their story will be thought to 

 be too prominently told, but it is an 

 instructive story, and may well plead a 

 justifiable excuse. Mr. Croly's animated 

 eloquence is well known, and he falls 

 short, in this effort, of nothing which 

 he has ever accomplished. 



The Water Witch, or the Skimmer of 

 the Seas, a Tale, by the Author of " The 

 Borderers," <$r. fyc. ; 3 vols., 12mo. 

 The novelist of the seas produce what 

 he will in the shape of tales must 

 always be readable ; not that he ever 

 makes a good tale, but because he paints 

 his own element, and all that floats upon- 

 it, so admirably. The Water Witch, 

 the name of a smuggling vessel, is but 

 another Red Rover, in the beauty of its 

 construction, and the facility, and all 

 but intelligence, of its movements. The 

 commander, the Skimmer of the Seas, is 

 again the identical Skipper of the Rover 

 the same bold and reckless character, 

 with the like generous and seaman-like 

 qualities. The Skimmer is apparently 

 nothing but a smuggler, while the other 

 is wholly a pirate ; but the marking 

 difference in the Water Witch is the 

 introduction of some mechanism and 

 mummery to attach the crew to his 

 person and interests by the chains of 

 their superstitions. The scene of the 

 tale is almost entirely confined to the 

 waters of New York the intricacies of 

 which with the land, though laid down 



was truly a heartless business, and Mr. 

 Croly, though a ready apologist, ex- 

 presses in manly terms his disgust as 

 well at the motives for the marriage, as 

 the sources of the early separation. The 

 immediate occasion is attributed, with- 

 out reserve, to Lady Jersey, who, by 

 intercepting the princess's confidential 

 letters to her family, inflamed the in- 

 dignant lady finally to insist upon a 

 formal separation. The prince's own 

 embarrassments at the time are amus- 

 ingly told. 



The princess had no hesitation in requiring 

 Lady Jersey's dismissal from the household. Her 

 first demand was that this woman should not be 

 suffered to appear at the table, when the prince 

 was not present. The request was not complie 

 with. The princess next applied to the king. 

 His majesty immediately intefered, and directed 

 that Lady Jersey should " come no more into 

 waiting," and should be given up. Half of this 

 order was complied with: her ladyship was dis- 

 missed from her waiting ; but she was not given 

 up. 



Never was there a more speaking lesson to the 

 dissipations of men of rank, than the prince's 

 involvements. While he was thus wearied with 

 the attempt to extricate himself from Lady Jer- 

 sey's irritations, another claimant came; Mrs. 

 Fitzherbcrt was again in the field. Whatever 

 might be her rights ; since the royal marriage, 

 at least, the right of a wife could not be included 

 among them; but her demands were not the less 

 embarrassing. A large pension, a handsome out- 

 fit, and a costly mansion in Park-lane, at length 

 reconciled her to life ; and his royal highness 

 had the delight of being hampered with three 

 women at a time, two of them prodigal, and 

 totally past the day of attraction, even if attrac- 

 tion could have been an excuse; and the third 

 complaining of neglects, which brought upon him 

 and his two old women a storm of censure and 

 ridicule. But the whole narrative is painful, and 

 cannot be too hastily passed over. 



From this period pleasure was again 

 the business of life, and scarcely does 

 Mr. Croly find any thing to record re- 

 lative to the prince save the celebrated 

 inquiry in 1806 till the regency. 

 Through the revolutionary wars the 

 prince's repeated importunities for pub- 

 lic employment were coldly repulsed ; 

 and even under the coalition ministry, 

 when Fox was in power, no attempt at 



