THE first important event which diversified the present year, was one which, even as occurring to an individual long since dead to himself and to the world, caused a deep emotion in the public mind. For many years, the monthly bulletins had continued regularly to announce, that his Majesty was in good health and spirits, but that his disorder continued unabated. The public having ceased to read these bulletins, it had scarcely been observed that the last one had stated some change to have taken place. It burst, therefore, as a complete surprise upon the nation, when an official bulletin announced the extinction of all that yet survived of this aged and revered Monarch. Small as this event now was, it awakened in every thinking mind a crowd of interesting and solemn recollections. All the ideas of royalty and of kingly power, as originally formed in the mind of almost every Briton now li

ving, had been intimately associated with the name and person of George III. All the revolutions which, during more than half a century, had agitated the world, and changed its aspect; wonderful mutations in the external and internal state of the empire-in its relations with the neighbouring states, and with all the rest of the world;-a new tone infused into human thought, and into the whole frame of society;-these were the objects which at once presented themselves, on comparing the commencement with the close of this long reign. The train of contemplation into which we are thus drawn, divides itself naturally into two leading branches-the age, and the character, of George III.

It has been said, that every age considers the events which have distinguished it, as more wonderful than any other. Admitting fully this proneness to exaggeration, and that the