the conduct of his two elder brothers, were never laid to his door. Then there was his blunt, open, plain-speaking way, which from having little of the smooth and graceful pliancy and address of the varnished courtier, obtained him no friends among them at court, and helped out the neglect he unmeritedly experienced. The neglect of a court in England is the neglect of the fashion. In England the claims of merit and the dictates of reason are nothing before the goddess of folly. His Royal Highness seemed not to receive the smallest notice for some years, though he had done nothing to deserve the neglect in which he had been left. On his duty at sea, he would not have failed so egregiously as his brother the Duke of York failed as a soldier. He was attached to the service; his acquirements were before those of many good officers. He had the manners that take with a seaman in a commander, who must be very differently acted upon from the soldier to attach him to his officers. The Duke of Clarence was an ardent lover of his profession. Yet all did not avail either with his father or the public to obtain for him his wishes. His Royal Highness stated in Goldsmiths' Hall, on that body presenting him with their freedom, that it was the first honour of the kind he had ever received from the citizens. The tide turned at last, however, and he who had been neglected by the public, and thwarted by the obstinate adherence of his father to whatever caprice he adopted, escaped his false position, and lived to be the most popular individual in the dominions he governed. The last years of his life cast a halo of glory round his name that time may dim, but not destroy.

The loss of his sister the Princess Amelia, in 1810, very much affected the Duke of Clarence. She was the youngest of his sisters, and greatly loved by all who knew her, and she was decidedly the favourite daughter of the King. The funeral took place in the night by the light of torches, on the 13th of November. It was attended by the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence. All were much affected; but the Duke of Clarence wept during the whole performance of the last sad rite of humanity. There was the

youth and beauty of the Princess, and many sad incidents to deepen the painful emotions experienced by her royal relatives. Almost her last dying act had been to place a ring on her father's finger made of her own hair, and to articulate to his ear, "Remember me." After this melancholy act, the thin film, which had divided reason from the influence of disease, in the King's organization parted, and his mind became a dead blank, never again to be reinstated in its functions.

At the close of the year 1810, it was generally known that the exercise of the royal functions was suspended, by a recur. rence of that malady with which his Majesty had been afflicted in 1788.

Although his Majesty had prorogued the Parliament to the 1st day of November, 1810, it was understood and well known that this was not the period intended for the commencement of business, but that a further prorogation was determined on, of which, indeed, notice had been given in the Gazette. This, however, could only be effected by a commission signed by the King; and when the moment arrived, his Majesty was so much indisposed as to be unable to affix his signature; accordingly, exertions were made to obtain as large an attendance as possible in both Houses. On the meeting of the House of Lords, the Lord Chancellor stated, with great concern, that the personal indisposition of his Majesty was such at the present time, that he did not think it his duty, under the circumstances, to proffer to his Sovereign a commission to receive the sign manual; and he concluded by moving that the House, at its rising, should adjourn to the 15th day of November.

The House of Commons was, on the same day, placed in the unprecedented situation of proceeding to business, although an official notice of a prorogation had been given; but no commission having been signed for that purpose, the Speaker was obliged to take the chair. A similar motion for adjournment to that made in the House of Lords was made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and being seconded by Mr. Sheridan, the motion was carried.

On the 15th the two Houses met, pursuant to the adjourn ment, when a motion was made for a further adjournment to the 29th, which motion, after some slight objections from the Opposition, was ultimately carried. On the question of the second adjournment, Mr. Sheridan, however, to the utter surprise of his own party, turned round and voted with the majority. Mr. Sheridan was known at that time to be the organ of the Prince in the House, and deductions were drawn from the conduct of Sheridan, in regard to the temper and views of the Prince with respect to the regency.

On the meeting of parliament, on the 29th, Lord Camden stated, that examinations had taken place before his Majesty's Privy Council of the physicians who attended the royal person, and the result of these examinations was, that it was the unanimous opinion of all his Majesty's physicians, that though his Majesty was incapable of coming to parliament, or of attending to public business, yet they entertained the most confident hopes of his recovery, but were unable to state at what period he might become convalescent.

This statement was followed by a motion for the adjournment of the House to the 13th of December, which met with considerable opposition, but was ultimately carried. On this occasion the Lord Chancellor made the following most extraordinary remarks, which although, strictly speaking, they may be considered as truly constitutional, yet they tended, in a great degree, to open the eyes of the Prince's party to the ulterior views of ministers as connected with the establishment of a regency, and to the conditions which were to be annexed to it. The Prince of Wales, according to the showing of the Lord Chancellor, was not to be invested with any powers arising from the incompetency of the sovereign, but merely as an individual, acting under the control and responsibility of the ministers.

It was in reply to some strong remarks made by Lord Grenville, on the unconstitutional power of ministers, acting independently of the crown, that the Lord Chancellor said, that according to the spirit of our laws, the Sovereign is King in infancy,

in age, in decrepitude. If you take away what the law gives him, you change the name and authority of the King, by the sanction and authority of which name you can alone rightly act. The King's political capacity, he would again repeat, continues the same in infancy, in sickness, in age, and in decrepitude. No subject can be considered in the same light, God forbid that the two Houses should declare the King incompetent. Much might be said on a question of this nature, but it never was to be allowed that such a power rested in the Privy Council.

By this memorable exposition of the powers of the Sovereign, the Privy Council, at whose head the King is supposed to sit in person, and from whose decisions issue some of the most important enactments by which the jurisprudence of the country is supported; this same august body, second to none in the empire, were told that they had no power to declare the incompetency of the individual who presided at their head; and that they could act with the same legality and authority, in the event of such incompetency, as if no such calamity had befallen the individual, and that no suspension whatever existed to the exercise of the royal functions. It was a startling doctrine, and made that lively sensation (as our neighbours the French would call it) at Carlton House, which, in the end, threw many obstacles in the adjustment of those points which the extraordinary case required.

The question of a regency, in an hereditary monarchial government, is at all times a dangerous subject for the statesman to handle. It carries with it the pre-supposition, that a King, in the abstract sense, can be represented as well by the log as by the stork which Jupiter sent to the frogs; or that it is only setting up one person in the place of another, and calling him a King-and a King he is. Some strong insinuations of this kind were broached in the House of Commons in the various debates on the regency question, particularly by Mr. Whitbread, who, being in opposition to the measures of ministers, unequivocally declared, that the acts of ministers went to show, that the affairs of the country could be equally

well managed, although the monarch was in a state of positive incompetency.

Before, however, we enter upon the immediate question of the regency, as connected with the proceedings in Parliament, it may not be improper, nor without its use, for the better recollection and understanding of the subject in all its parts and relations, to state shortly the principles on which those who brought forward and carried the restrictions on the Regent, and those who opposed them, severally founded and supported their doctrines and opinions.

The minister and his adherents set out with this short and simple maxim, that a regent is not a king; that in every respect and point of view, whether considered relatively to common sense, to justice, or to the fundamental and essential doctrines of the British constitution, each condition is, and ought to be, radically distinct; that whereas the powers of the King were full, complete, and his own, so far as by the exercise of them he sought after, and secured the good of the people over whom he reigned-a Regent was merely a person appointed to act for another, to whom ought to be granted all those authorities, powers, and prerogatives, which were necessary to enable him to supply the place and perform the duty of his principal; but from whom ought carefully and sacredly to be kept every kind of authority, power, or prerogative, which could possibly be exercised in such a manner by the Regent as might endanger the easy and full resumption by his principal of his legitimate rights, or tend in the smallest degree to embarrass or weaken the exercise of them when actually resumed. Besides this grand and leading principle, on the strength and justice of which they contended, that the royal prerogative of creating peers more especially should be cut off from the powers vested in the Regent,-ministers and their adherents maintained, that not a little was due to the personal feelings and comfort of the King; that, however, abstract reasoning might underrate to hold in contempt such an idea, yet it was neither possible, nor if possible, would it have been consonant to common justice or humanity, to throw