lOO 



CHAPTER VIL 



GEORGE IV. 



*' Let the song that is borne on the echoes of June, 

 Whether sung by the Joneses or Coxes, 

 Still have this loyal burden, whatever the tune, 

 A good King ; Fleur-de-lis ; and good foxes." 



IT is not our intention to give more than an outline. 

 of the frivolous, unsatisfactory scenes amid which 

 the lot of " George Guelph" was cast, and which he 

 only too readily sanctioned. The historian will take 

 him as their reflex, and deal out a full and bitter 

 measure to him, for all that vice, heartlessness, and 

 flippancy which earned him his title of " Florizell." 

 Still, to give him his due, we are bound to mention 

 that the one man who had the best means of knowing, 

 steadily maintained the beHef that the public sadly 

 maligned a titled beauty with whom his name has 

 been so studiously connected ; and that whatever 

 might have been the pride he felt in seeing her grace 

 his court, the two were never even alone together. 

 We have now simply to deal with him in the one 

 character, in which he pre-eminently shone, that of an 

 English sportsman, and only regret that he had not 

 ridden at least ten stone lighter. The Turf will 

 always reckon him amongst its most devoted lovers, 

 although it would be remarkably difficult to say from 

 whom he inherited the taste. His father never did 

 much more for it than give lOO guineas, to be run for 

 annually by horses that had been hunted with his two 



