1831.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



337 



splendour. Meanwhile the monarch 

 himself goes in search of the 20,000 



pocritical in conduct. " Charles the 

 First was a good king, a very good king, 



captives, and, after a long search, finds but he did not know how to govern by 



them again devoted to the basest super- 

 stition, and under the control o*f the 



a parliament," was a frequent remark 

 of his, with a complacent reference to 



old priest's crafty agents. The career himself; while his grand maxim was, 



of their fanaticism is largely described, according to Watson, that the king, who 



and at equal length the monarch's exer- does not know how to dissemble, does not 



tions to bring them back to the pale of know how to reign. Much of the royal 



common sense. Among the questions pertinacity is attributed, and with ap- 



that stirred up disunion and ill feeling parent reason, to latent insanity three 



among these devotees was that of dress. 

 The chief of the hierarchy wore a man- 

 tle, which was to be adopted generally ; 

 but he was far away, and disputes 

 arose as to its shape and colour. It was 

 crimson, and square scarlet and round- 

 ed rounded and crimson scarlet and 



pretty unequivocal attacks are believed 

 to have occurred before the acknow- 

 ledged one of 178. " The lurking infir- 

 mity, indeed," says the writer, "'may 

 be traced in the review of his transac- 

 tions for many years, with parliament, 

 his ministers, and his eldest son in his 



with whom he had intercourse: and in 

 his peculiar traits of dissimulation and 



square. Each had their advocates, who jealousy of his power and prerogatives 



fiercely contended for the correctness of .his distrust and deception of those 

 their opinions. By and by rose up 

 quite a new sect, who affirmed the true 



colour was purple, and the true shape finesse" and, it may perhaps be added, 



oblong; and the "cloak" became the in his fear of Mr. Pitt, and submission: 



appellation of the new party, ranged in he had certainly no affection for him. 



onen hostility against all the factions of The prince's extravagances and dis- 



tne " mantle." Not content with these sipations though attributed without 



divisions, new differences soon arose, scruple to the miserable domestic ma- 



which split each faction into two and nagement of the king, who reined up 



that upon the principle on which these 

 several dogmas should be maintained 

 whether, on the one hand, on the ground 

 of historical evidence and matter of fact ; 

 or, on the other, on that of reason, ana- 

 logy, and symbolical fitness. The most 



the youth, till he took the bit in his 

 mouth and ran his own mad course 

 are repeatedly palliated, but not immo- 

 derately, while the sharpest censure is 

 cast upon his manifest disposition to 

 sacrifice all to selfish gratifications. 



virulent animosities ensued ; but the Among his early liaisons, Mrs. liobinson 



reader sees what the author has in his 

 eye not any attack upon religion 

 quite the contrary but upon the selfish 

 interests of its professors and would-be 



of course figures her romance is de- 

 servedly laughed at, but in throwing 

 her off, and shrinking from the fulfil- 

 ment of his engagements, he shewed 



controllers of opinion upon all who precisely the same sort of cold and cal- 



mistake the forms for the essence. But 

 Swift is matchless in this department. 



lous feeling which characterized him 

 through life, and made the dismissal of 

 mistress, a wife, a companion, or a 



Cabinet Library. Vol. II. The First friend, a matter of equal "indifference. 



of George IV. -~ Though a determined His debts, his intrigues, his follies, his 



partizan of Whiggism, the author has profligacies, his gaieties, fill perhaps too 



thrown his heart perhaps too much of conspicuous a place in the history but 



it into the narrative, and produced a 

 spirited volume, that any body of any 



what else was there to tell for three- 

 fourths of his life? The inglorious 



party may read except the last re- story is brought in this first 'volume 

 mains now all but gone, for their oc- nearly to the year 1799. 

 cupation is gone, or going. of the 

 " king's friends." They will be shocked 



at every turn, for the author has lost 



The Persian Adventurer, By J. B. 

 Frazer, Esq., Author of " A Tour to the 



all respect for the " good old king," Himala Mountains,"" " Travels in Per- 

 and his magnanimous consort. The sia," c. 3 vols. 12mo. This is a sequel 

 story begins with the birth of the and the conclusion of the author's spi- 



rited sketch of oriental scenes and man- 

 ners, commenced some time ago, under 

 the questionable name of Kuzzilbash. 



J^d , 1 A 1 / 1 1_ * ^-1 



prince, and involves the whole reign 

 of his father. In the writer's estimate, 

 George the Third was not the kind 



father some are fond of representing Certainly the name of a book may justly 

 him ; but first an injudicious, and then be expected to convey some indication 

 a harsh one partaking of the heredi- 

 tary jealousies of his grandfather and 

 great-grandfather towards their sons ; 



of its contents ; and not one in a thou- 

 sand strangers to the East could di- 

 vine that Kuzzilbash was the appella- 

 and" as to his kingly qualities, he tive of a red-cap Persian soldier. The 



represents him not without proof as book in fact was mistaken for a cookery- 

 despotic in principle, and false and by- book by some bon-vwant, who took the 



Series VOL. XL No. 63. 



2 X 



