CHAPTER XLIV. THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright, Duchess of Malfi, iv. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned, And Time that gave doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, And delves the parallels in Beauty's brow, Feeds on the rarities of Nature's truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow. SHAKSPEARE's Sonnets, No. LX. It were hard to determine whether Atheism and Infidelity amongst professed Protestants, or Superstition and Idolatry amongst the Papists, have more increased throughout this land in later years.-T. JACKSON's Works, i. 218, folio. As we have seen, George I. died suddenly on June 11. The news reached London on the 14th, and George II. was proclaimed the next day, then in the forty-fifth year of his age. The bearer of the news was nɔ less a person than the celebrated Sir Robert Walpole, and he it was that presented Lord Townshend's dispatch to the new George at Richmond, where, at the time of his arrival, he was taking his afterdinner nap, and from which he never liked to be disturbed. On Sir Robert's breaking the matter to him, he is said to have exclaimed, 'Dat is one big lie!' evidently doubting if the news could be true. Within nine days the accession was proclaimed in the Old Town, and the news was soon brought to Hanwood; but it seems to have occasioned little interest either in town or county. As for Shrewsbury itself, it, just at this time, was much busied in matters of Welsh cloths and flannels, and the little Welsh ponies (before spoken of in these pages) were seen to be constantly coming and going with their loads. It was one of these cloth-dealers from Montgomery which bought Miles Ford's pony, which he knew well. It is quite worth the reader's while to consult our historians on this point, who will tell him how, up to 1649 on every Friday, and after that date on every Thursday, 'the central parts of the town were all life and bustle,' and how troops of hardy ponies, each with a halter of twisted straw and laden with two bales of cloth, poured into the marketplace in the morning, driven by stout Welshmen in their country coats of blue cloth and striped linsey waistcoats,' quoting the lines from Dyer's 'Fleece,' which have been quoted before. As my Talking Friend constantly referred to the visits of the Welshmen from Montgomery, Newtown, and Welshpool, and as he was well acquainted with many of them, who had drunk 'cwr dha' under his branches, I will venture to give the following passage in full. The fathers of the eminent historians must have seen it all-and probably the writers themselves. 'After dinner, i.e. at two o'clock, the drapers, with their clerks and shearmen, assembled under the market-house and proceeded upstairs in seniority, having, by ancient usage, the right of pre-emption in that order. The market being over, drays were seen in all directions conveying the cloths to the several warehouses; and more than 600 pieces of web have been sold n a day. The whole was a ready-money business, and as the Welshmen left much of their cash behind them in exchange for malt, groceries, and other shop goods the loss of such a trade to the town may be easily conceived. The first blow levelled at the market may be dated from about the year 1790, when, or soon after, individuals, not members of the Drapers' Company, began to travel into the counties where these goods were made (Merionethshire and the vale of the Dee above Llangollen) and taught the farmers that they might find a mart for their manufactures at home without the trouble and expense of a journey to the vales of Amwythig," ex illo retro fluere." About 1795 the market was most materially impaired, and almost ceased with the century. Till at length, in March 1803, the company relinquished the great room in which they had so long carried on their business; and, though much business in this branch is still carried on within our valley, the town has entirely lost the advantage which it derived from the weekly visits of the Cambrian farmers, which produced so much emolument to the drapers and raised so many families who now shine in the foremost ranks of our gentry.' As the old homestead at Meole was a part and parcel of the old Drapers' Guild, my Talking Friend would have been ill-satisfied without this statement. He had many times seen droves of Welsh ponies, as many as twenty or thirty in number, passing onwards to Shrewsbury. Whom we know well The world's large spaces cannot parallel. But to return to George II. He, like his father, still preferred Hanover to England, and was always going backwards and forwards there whenever he could release himself from the cares of Parliament and the Court at home. As Walpole relates in his 'Reminiscences,' he spoke English correctly, but with a bluff Westphalian accent.' His sudden bursting out with 'Dat is one big lie!' above mentioned, will not contradict this, for his Majesty spoke under some excitement, and he was hardly full awake, and was flurried by the sudden intelligence. He did not want courage, as was seen at Oudenarde, where he served as a volunteer, and was admitted to be a good and brave soldier by Eugène and Marlborough. Indeed, he never forgot that fight, but on high days and holydays wore the hat and coat he had on there. And the people smiled at his small vanities, and would call him humorously 'Dapper little George. And yet they never could separate Sauerkraut and sausages from Hanover-so says Thackeray. He married Caroline of Anspach, as good a wife as ever king was possessed of, and so far even eulogised by the author of the 'Four Georges,' though he is still the cynic in his account of her. Perhaps Lord Mahon's words will hardly be disputed Her character was without a blemish, and her conduct always marked by judgment and good sense;' to which he adds: 'With the nation she was more popular than any other member of the family till George III.,' and this is saying much. But there are drawbacks, and nothing can be more painful than the hollowness of the Court in those days, and all that has come to light since only darkens the sad picture. Thackeray, of course, takes hold of this: 'Show me some good person about that Court; find me, among those selfish courtiers, those dissolute, gay people, some one being that I can love and regard,' &c. Within-it is sixty years sincewe have seen sad things in our own days, but we may doubt if the orgies of the fourth George's reign exceeded the melancholy spectacles which might have been seen now, or if the grade of principle was lower. And, worse than all, if report be square with the details we could wish to turn from, the bishops and the clergy under the Hanoverian Succession and in the times of the second George rustled in their cassocks on the backstairs of the ladies of the Court, as if there were no such thing as HOLY, but only political, ORDERS. It was time for a Wesley and a Whitefield to arise! Still it is to be remembered that the Queen herself endeavoured to do what she could, although the world was bowed to 'in the house of Rimmon,' and even if she loved dissipation and argument, leading some to suppose 'that her own faith was wavering. But no doubt,' continues Lord Mahon, 'can exist as to her discerning and most praiseworthy patronage of worth and learning in the Church: the most able and pious men were everywhere sought out and preferred, and the Episcopal Bench was graced by such men as Hare, Sherlock, and Butler. Even to her enemies she could show favour if they could show merit,' and did so. Running in couples with the same low grade of principle is what Smollett says of Sir Robert Walpole: 'He perceived the bulk of mankind were actuated by a sordid thirst for lucre, and had sagacity enough to convert the degeneracy of the times to his own advantage, and in this, and in this alone, he pervaded the whole superstructure of his subsequent Administration.' This is said with Smollett's one-sided view, though there is much truth in the words; and it cannot be wondered at that the King should say of him, 'Walpole can turn stones into gold!' It is to be hoped that the historian above alluded to looked to the worst side of things when he stated that about this time England was infested with robbers, assassins, and incendiaries, the natural consequences of degeneracy, corruption, and the want of police in the interior government of the kingdom. 'This defect,' he says, 'in a great measure arose from an absurd notion that laws necessary to prevent those acts of cruelty, violence, and rapine would be incompatible with the liberty of British subjects; a notion that confounds all distinctions between liberty and brutal licentiousness, as if that freedom was desirable in the enjoyment of which people find no security for their lives or effects. The peculiar depravity of the times was visible even in the conduct of those who preyed upon the commonwealth. Thieves and robbers were now become more desperate and savage than ever they had appeared since mankind was civilised. In the exercise of their rapine they wounded, maimed, and even murdered the unhappy sufferers through a wantonness of barbarity. They circulated letters demanding sums of money from certain individuals on pain of reducing their houses to ashes and their families to ruin, and even set fire to the house of a rich merchant in Bristol who had refused to comply with their demand. The same species of villany was practised in different parts of the kingdom, so that the Government was obliged to interpose and offer a considerable reward for discovering the ruffians concerned in such execrable designs.' It is to be hoped that this is overdrawn. If not, it is only to be compared with certain passages in Juvenal's 'Satires,' which every Shrewsbury boy heard applied to the worst of times by dear old Bishop Butler. Still the fact is not to be denied, and Walpole himself could not rate the venality of those in office even too low, who |