Page:Memoirs of a Trait in the Character of George III.djvu/290

NO. 8. ingratitude to the best of Sovereigns?—As to Wolcot, who bears the same relation to Junius that the squire does to the knight (if the comparison may pass, for nothing could be more opposed to the generosity of chivalry than the unfounded aspersions of both) a few words after the Socratic method would have shown him specially entitled to be exhibited "in close catasta pent." For with all his affected detestation of flattery, and "He never drank at adulation's spring;" no dignatory in the church or state ever was, or will be, more coarsely lubricated with the goose-grease of fulsome encomiums than "young Augustus" or the Prince of Wales; who is endowed with every attribute that could be thought of to command our esteem and admiration, while no merit whatever is Conceded to George 3rd, except that of having given the world such a Prince.—The sequel of these gallimaufiry flights was consummately ridiculous; for while Peter was prancing on his long-eared poetical nag, so much to his own delight, and that of numerous readers in—St, James's, we hope not, but at St. Giles's, to wit, be entirely forgot that the good taste, for which among other shining qualities he extolled his highness so lavishly (and a large portion of which he possessed) would show him despising the literary Parasite, whose real object was of sterling import. Such was the overweening self-sufficiency of this man, that you gather from his swaggering hints he actually expected to be handsomely provided for, when the Regent should succeed to power: but being wholly disappointed in these golden dreams, he veered round with characteristic effrontery, and, like Pope's magpie, bestowed almost verbatim on the Son the same language with which he had before vilified the Father: of which "England's golden calf" may be thought a sufficient specimen.

To show the utter recklessness of this man to what impeached his veracity, he got hold of it as a good thing to turn the penny by, that the British Ambassador at the court of Pekin, had duly conformed to the ceremony called Ko-tou, so