Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/284

NO. 7. by his companion, to avoid, in conversation, two subjects which would be sure to produce discord. The first of these (which was something about Sir John Pringle) was passed by, but the other soon led to an acrimonious altercation, which could only be stopped by an appeal to the rights of hospitality; which luckily his host was scrupulous of. So extravagant was the petulance of an author, with whose learned lucubrations we are so much entertained, that, being partial to late hours himself, he has been known to say, a man was a scoundrel that went to bed before twelve o'clock!

There was this enormous difference between the early lives and prospects of these contrasted characters; that the scholar might have apostrophized adversity in the language of Gray— Daughter of Jove! relentless pow'r! Thou tamer of the human breast; Whose iron scourge, and tort'ring hour The bad affrights, afflicts the best. Bound in thine adamantine chain, The proud are taught to taste of pain—

He had tasted deeply the cup of bitterness, yet it imparted no humility to address in after-life, which was the fruit to have been expected from those lessons.—Now we see, George 3rd when only a boy of twelve (a sensible boy, says Lord Chesterfield) became heir apparent to the crown of these realms, with a probability of succeeding to it in the prime of youth—a circumstance so unfavourable to suavity of manners and command of temper, that if an impatience of contradiction had been noticed, and an everlasting dictum heard from him, we could scarcely have quarelled with effects corresponding with their causes.

Mr. Croker, whom we believe greatly to respect the memory of this Monarch; who is assuredly well entitled to the regard of any literary person that visits the royal library now adorning the British Museum, will excuse us, if we observe that the hint in the minutes of the Board of Longitude alluded to, which it happened he passed by, would, with a little attention, have