342 History of the English Landed Interest. 



sombre scene of Young, blind, old and infirm — the centre of 

 a small group of Bradfield villagers to whom lie is preacliing 

 religion. "We prefer to leave him in the zenith of his useful- 

 ness, a public servant of the Government, co-operating with Sir 

 John Sinclair in fresh devices for the promotion of husbandry, 

 collating the county surveys for the Board of Agriculture, and 

 instructing the youth of seven different nations in the rudi- 

 ments of that industry which is both the most primitive and 

 the most universal of any. "We prefer to bid him good-bye be- 

 fore that abnormal energy of his had begun to wane, when the 

 gold snuff-boxes and ermine cloaks are being showered upon 

 him, and while he is still vested with the dignity of a public 

 and a popular man. 



GEORGE III. 



Highest in the social scale and probably second only to 

 Young in the extent of his influence was the King himself. If 

 anything could have reconciled the country squires of the 

 period to accept v/ith resignation a substitute for their beloved 

 Stuarts, it would have been a monarch who was above all a 

 farmer, George I. had not possessed one redeeming quality in 

 the e^-es of the English squirearchy to wean them from their 

 earlier allegiance to the fallen dynast}'. If he had been a good 

 husband or a good Churchman, they might have been more 

 able to forget that he was a foreign usurper. But he was 

 neither the one nor the other, and like his son, George II., he 

 had none of the qualities, save courage, that could attract the 

 hearts of Englishmen. During these two reigns, Tory country 

 gentlemen shunned the capital even at its gayest period, cele- 

 brating their minor festive seasons at York, Newmarket, 

 Norwich, Bath or Shrewsbury, and rather than come into 

 contact Avith Whigs and courtiers, providing for themselves 

 amusements nearer home. The dilapidated old assembly rooms 

 in many a market town bear witness to the truth of this as- 

 sertion at the present day, as also does the fact that most of 

 the eighteenth-century London clubs, still in existence, date 

 from a period subsequent to the death of George II. 



The third successor of the House of Brunswick was not 



