had inflicted an injury, by saying, that Colonel Lennox "had put up with language, unfit for any gentleman to bear ;" and did not deny having done so, while he refused to give up the author. This was doing a great injustice: the Duke said "Colonel Lennex might consider him as an officer of the regiment; it is not in those days to be borne, that mere family connexion with the sovereign, shall be a sanction for inflicting an injury upon any man of honour and spirit with impunity." The Duke felt that it must not be, and went out with Colonel Lennox, declining to fire at him; but his Royal Highness did not give any other satisfaction. When the affair was over, the Duke conducted himself like a gentleman, taking no more notice, than if the affair had never occurred. It was not so with the Prince of Wales. Colonel Lennox, a giddy man, soon afterwards attended a ball at court, where, as not more than a month had elapsed from the affair of honour, it was certainly bad taste to go. The Prince of Wales, seeing him present, as he was coming down to Colonel Lennox's place in the dance, instantly led his partner to the bottom of the room. The Duke of York followed next, and turned the Colonel without the least exception, as if nothing had ever occurred between them; but the Duke of Clarence followed the example of the Prince of Wales. The ball was broken up in consequence of the Queen's retiring with the Princesses only a single country dance having been gone down. The Prince of Wales had prejudices naturally enough on the side of his family, imagining, no doubt, that Colonel Lennox should have pocketed any affront from the brother of the heir apparent. If he did not so imagine, why was he angry? In the second place, whatever the Prince thought, the display of his temper on the injudicious appearance of Colonel Lennox, who had done no wrong, was not that of the man of thorough good-breeding. The Duke of York's conduct at the ball, on the other hand was brave and above all praise, though his royal Highness had reflected upon a man of honour, and had given no explauation of his conduct; he no doubt thought it very ill taste of Colonel Lennox to appear so quickly at Court. But his Royal Highness rea soned, that as a man of spirit, acting up to the fashion of the times, the Colonel had done right, in vindicating his own honour against any individual, however high his station; and having only done this, he was not to be marked out in society, for doing as any man would have done in his circumstances, however high that society might be. It is probable, that the presence of Colonel Lennox at the ball was expected beforehand, from the simultaneous act of the Prince and the Duke of Clarence; for the latter must have been very quick indeed, else, to penetrate the reason of the Prince's conduct and copy it almost in a breath. The Duke of Clarence had been absent, and therefore was not actively concerned in opposing Pitt's party. No long time afterwards he was honoured by his father's recognition, and even had a private audience before his Majesty's first levee after his attack of insanity. A story is related about this time of the Duke and Madame Schwellenberg, one of those German dependents of the Court that have always in goodly train followed the fortunes of their betters to this country. Queen Charlotte had given her a post in the royal palace-❝ placed her," as Peter Pindar sung, -"In a most important sphere, Inspectress-general of the royal gear." The poet doubts too whether ever one solitary grace had even in youth adorned her countenance. The Duke of Clarence entered where the nondescript lady was sitting, when she arose, and was retiring with great haste; then seeming to recollect herself, she returned, and attempted to apologise, by saying that she thought it was the Duke of York. "And suppose it was the Duke of York," said the Prince, giving old Schwellenberg a no very gracious look as she went off, adding, “—a round dozen before all the pages of the back stairs." This old German lady died at Buckingham House in 1787. It is to be observed, that the Prince did not make the speech, all of which is not given above, to the old lady's face, but just after her back was turned, in the way of comment on her conduct. About this time, being elevated to a peerage, it became needful to settle on his Royal Highness an allowance suitable to his rank, and the honour conferred upon him. Twelve thousand a year was therefore fixed as his allowance by Parliament. The King also granted him a table and covers for his own use, and that of his household in St. James' palace, the number of courses to be unlimited. The lodge in Richmond Park was given him for a country residence, furnished and kept up as a pendant to that in St. James's. The Duke had not been long in his country residence before a fire broke out in it, and as a good deal of injury was sustained in consequence, which the Duke had to make good. This lodge was the residence of his Royal Highness for many years, and he was particularly fond of it from the beautiful neighbourhood, and the easy access it afforded to the royal reaidences either at London or Windsor. The close friendship between the three elder brothers continued unbroken. They were to be seen in public together, they visited each other frequently, and in fact continued the appearance of separation which had begun in consequence of the differences on the Regency question. They thus became objects of attack from the papers which were in the interest of the King's party, or rather in that of the minister. They were slandered without mercy. Their most innocent actions were tortured into crimes. They were styled profligates, and the Prince of Wales in a particular manner was held up to public detestation. The most atrocious libeller in this way, and the printer of one of the most scurrilous of public journals, was one John Walter of "The Times" newspaper, which happened to see that its interest was best promoted by serving the enemies of the Prince of Wales. The slanderer was prosecuted in the Court of King's Bench for a libel on the Duke of York, and sentenced to stand an hour in the pillory at Charing Cross, to pay fifty pounds to the King, be imprisoned a year in Newgate, and find securities for his good behaviour for seven years, himself in five hundred, and two others in one hundred pounds. The sentence was a severe one, the judges of the time taking their tone from the model on which they framed, altered or amended their absurd libel law, the starchamber of the Stuarts. In these cases the juries were always packed, and the defendants, right or wrong, were sure of conviction. Few, however, had much pity for this John Walter If there were those, who thought the sentence inflicted upon the culprit too severe, still he deserved little of the public sympathy. The judges were faithful to that uniform dislike of the press, which, since they were somewhat curbed by Mr. Fox's libel act, determined them to shine in the reflection of their own severity whenever it was possible, and punished libellers worse than thieves, because they wanted to make their own dogmas absolute. Walter got of them another year in Newgate, and another hundred pounds fine for a libel on the Duke of York, and the Prince of Wales, conjointly. Lastly, though it was well-known that the Duke of Clarence had returned to England without orders, which was a breach of discipline, the judges who delighted to exemplify the maxim that "truth was a libel, and the greater the truth, the greater the libel, laid a third heavy fine upon Walter for stating the fact. The vindictiveness of these sentences disgusted the public all but the party of Mr. Pitt and the Court, whom Walter was serving by attacking the royal brothers. They affected great astonishment that the Prince who was of the popular party and belonged to the side that gave a constant support to the liberty of the press in their toasts, should seek satisfaction for injuries which true magnanimity might overlook. This might have been just were the offender the agent of a political party that sought to disparage as much as possible the character of the heir-apparent, as if his follies and indiscretions were not of sufficient charge against one, the paternal treatment of whom had been so injudicious, if not harsh. It was a rule with George III. to regard his children as minors, when they were men, and to disregard the most earnest appeals they made to him respecting anything in their treatment, which thwarted his own very narrow capacity. The Prince Edward, afterwards Duke of Kent, exhibited a proof of this. The King had kept him abroad," Germanizing" him, as he had done the Duke of York, who was kept in Germany eleven years. It was in vain that Prince Edward wrote and beseeched his father to allow him to return to England. It was the treatment that the fourth son received in this way, which attached him also to his three brothers, and divided the royal family against itself. Finding that his remonstrances were unavailing, Prince Edward set off for London, where he arrived on the 14th of January, 1790. As soon as he arrived, a messenger was despatched by him to his brother at Carlton-house. The Prince of Wales, in whom affection for his family was never wanting, whatever was his heartlessness in other respects, immediately went to the hotel and brought Prince Edward to Carlton House, where he remained, while the Duke of York went to St. James' to mediate in his brother's behalf. The mission was in vain. The King would be absolute, where he could be so; no feeling of affection, no dictate of reason, could atone for an act of disobedience, and Prince Edward was banished in a very few days to Gibraltar, where a regiment was stationed of which he had the command. It is a matter of history, that at this particular juncture, the three elder branches of the royal family, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence, stood at a very low degree in the opinion of the public, particularly the two former. To follow the former through his career of profligacy and extravagance, would be merely the repetition of a tale, at once odious and disgusting, nor would it have been considered necessary in this history to touch upon it at all, had not the illustrious individual who forms the subject of these memoirs been deeply implicated in the results which emanated from it. The Prince of Wales, as well as the Duke of York, appeared to be reckless of the consequences which their adherence to a life of profligacy and debauchery entailed upon them, nor did they appear to care as to whom might fall a victim to their vices. The severe lessons which are taught in the school of adversity, |