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public, as a consequence of the death of the old king. There, in the days of the last century, he used to walk, with his young family around him, in the presence of a crowd of gazing subjects. There, in his latter days, he walked, blind, secluded, and with benighted mind; so that for him the sun seemed not to shine, and the glorious landscape stretching below might as well have been blotted out. Now, the place was again opened to the public; but not, as formerly, for loyal subjects to greet their king. George IV. could not submit to the observances of royalty which required his meeting his people. He secluded himself more and more, from morbid feelings of indolence and self-indulgence. From a letter of Lord Eldon's we learn how his ministers disliked and disapproved of this growing indolence: There was what is called a grand review in Hyde Park yesterday (July 10, 1824). The Duke of York was, I hear, very popular, and prodigiously cheered. My royal master was in Carlton House—that is, within half a mile of this scene-but did not approach it. It is astonishing what is lost by this sort of dealing, and it is grievous that popularity, which might be so easily earned, and acquired at so small an expenditure of time and trouble, should not only not be secured, but a feeling of disgust and reproach be engendered towards a person with respect to whom a very different feeling most easily might and ought to be created.' While the king was thus negligent of his personal popularity, his ministers and parliament did an act which secured, among some eminent families, a grateful attachment towards the House of Brunswick. By a reversal of attainders, five families were, in 1824, restored to their ancestral honours, forfeited by rebellion in the last century-the Jerninghams, Erskines, Gordons, Drummonds, and Nairns; and in 1826, acts were passed restoring the peerages of Earl of Carnwath, Earl of Airlie, Lord Duff, Lord Elcho, and the baronetcy of Threipland of Fingask.

It was during the period under notice that musical festivals expanded into their full dimensions, though Birmingham has for some time exhibited them as an institution. This expansion, and every other signal advance in the love and practice of art may be regarded as direct

consequences of the peace. The opening of the continent gave a vast stimulus to the artistic mind of England; and the choral music of Germany was as striking a revelation of the power of art to qualified travellers, as the picturegalleries of that country, France, and Italy. By the festivals of York, Norwich, Birmingham, and Worcester, music of a high order was offered to multitudes of the middle classes, some time before London could yield music which, in the mass, could be compared to it; and subsequent times have shown that thus was awakened in the English people a dormant faculty, whose training is a most important auxiliary to true civilisation. If we now observe anywhere among our people a tendency to musical pursuit, stimulating the intellect, and softening the manners, like the musical faculty of the Germans, we must date its rise from the multiplication of musical festivals after the peace-though these could never, of themselves, have effected what has been done since by efforts of another kind, for the popular musical education of England. The funds raised by these gatherings for the support of charities are an important benefit; but it is perhaps a greater that music of an elevating character has been carried into thousands of English homes.

The king, on his accession, favoured the institution of a Royal Society of Literature, to serve as a rallying-point for concentrating and diffusing information, by a union of persons of similar tastes and pursuits; and for purposes of literary patronage. The king declared his intention. of devoting a thousand guineas a year to pension ten associates of the society; and the society agreed to contribute a similar sum to pension ten more. These associates were to be men of eminent literary ability and good character, the poverty of whose circumstances would make the allowance of one hundred guineas a year acceptable to them. The society was also to promote the publication of inedited remains of ancient literature, and of works of a valuable but not popular character; to reward literary merit by honorary tokens; to establish a correspondence with men of letters abroad; and in every way to promote the character and progress of literature, The scheme advanced slowly; so that it was June 1823

before the first general meeting of the society was held, when its objects and constitution were declared to the world by some of the first men of the day.

Two curious discoveries were made in the State-paper Office in the years 1824 and 1826. It appears that while Milton was secretary to Cromwell, he must have deposited or left in this office the MS. of his Latin treatise on Christian Doctrine, which had been known to exist, but could never be found. It was now brought to light by Mr. Lemon of that office. It was contained in an envelope, addressed to Cyriac Skinner, merchant. Of course, it immediately fixed the attention of the learned, and it was soon published; but its contents, set forth in the great poet's bold and free style, were too heterodox for the taste of the learned of the modern time; and on account of the Arianism of the doctrine, and some startling views on divorce and other subjects, it was consigned, as far as was possible, to neglect. The other discovery was of some autograph MSS. of Queen Elizabeth, and of her secretary. These consisted of an entire translation of Boethius, and poetical versions of Horace, by the queen. With these came to light a mass of documents relating to the reign of Henry VIII.; and especially his proceedings in regard to his divorced wives.

While a new work of Milton was presented to his countrymen, his great poems were introduced to the homes of a far-distant people--the dwellers in a remote island, 'far, far amid the melancholy main.' The long winters of Iceland are cheered by literary enjoyments, like the milder seasons of southern lands; and at this time, while the new volcano was pouring out flames, and covering the reeking plains of Iceland with ashes, the harmless and genial flame of Milton's genius was beginning to kindle hearts within a thousand households. This, indeed, is fame! The translator of Paradise Lost into the Icelandic tongue was Thorlakson, a native poet, who died at Copenhagen in 1820.

The losses of our country by death were very great during the seven years of this period. Besides the statesmen whom we have seen to disappear in the course of our history, there were others who dropped quietly away,

from being at the time not engaged in the public view. The old Lord Malmesbury, who has told us so much of the events and details of British policy during the last century, and who wooed the unfortunate Caroline of Brunswick for the Prince of Wales, died towards the close of 1820. Lord Erskine died in 1823, leaving behind him the remembrance and tradition of an eloquence which his admirers believed to be absolutely singular. In the same year departed an old admiral, whose mere name seems to carry us back to the naval warfare of a preceding century-Earl St. Vincent, who nearly reached the age of ninety.

Of philosophers, there died the great Herschel, who in middle life passed over from his passionate love of music to attend to the finer harmonies of the stars in their courses. He learned many secrets of the heavens, and made them known to men; and in acknowledgment his name is written in light in the heavens themselves. One of the remotest known planets of our system is symbolised by the initial of his name. He left us not only his knowledge, but the means of gaining more. His great telescope at Slough was the wonder of his time; and it will continue to be so, however science and art may enable men to improve the powers of the instrument. He died in 1822, in his eighty-fourth year.-Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, died in 1820, after a long and useful life spent in seeking and diffusing the knowledge of nature, and in encouraging in others the pursuit of natural science. In the same year died one whose pursuits class him at once among the philosophers and the travellersArthur Young, the great master in agriculture. His researches in agriculture led him to observe much of the political and social condition of the people of every country in which he travelled; and it is remarkable that he published, in 1769, a work on the expediency of a free importation of corn. Whatever he said was attended to by some of the sovereigns of Europe, as well as peers and commoners; and his power was great, in his day, over the practice of agriculture, from Russia to Spain, and over the imposition of taxes at home which are in any way related to agriculture. While he was burned in effigy in one place, he was receiving honorary medals in another. He

might be sometimes mistaken, and somewhat apt to exaggerate methods and advantages which presented themselves strongly to his mind; but no one questioned his influence, or his innocent ardour in a most important pursuit. He held, at the time of his death, the office of secretary to the Board of Agriculture, though he had been blind for ten years. He was in his eightieth year.

The country had a great loss in the death of David Ricardo, who died, not in the ripe old age of the philosophers we have been registering, but in his fifty-sixth year; and just at a time (1823) when his influence in parliament was beginning to manifest itself in the changed spirit of legislation on economical subjects; and when, moreover, the new men who had entered the cabinet were those who could give wide practical effect to his philosophy. He did all that an independent member could do, and more than it could have been anticipated that any independent member could do, to accelerate the progress of enlightened legislation during his short parliamentary career; and his writings effected even more outside the walls of parliament than his influence within. He was missed and lamented for many years, by ministers, parliamentary comrades, and the public; and especially during the bank follies and crash of the years immediately succeeding his death. If any one could have made sound doctrine heard, and have checked the madness of the time, by keeping the House of Commons in its senses, it was he; but he was gone, and our world was sorely the

worse.

The travels of Dr. Edward D. Clarke were read with avidity in their day; and they answered some good purposes in arousing the curiosity and stimulating the imagination of the English reading public, whose faculties had been kept too much at home by the long protraction of the war. These books opened new regions to the fancy, and acted in some degree as works of the imagination do. And so they might; for they were truly works of fiction to a considerable extent. Since those days, scientific travelling has become something which the world was not then dreaming of; and certainly Dr. Clarke never dreamed

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