exposure to the nation. The king reproached himself that he had not fearlessly avowed the only wife of his affections; the queen, because she feared an explanation that the king was guilty of bigamy, and thereby her claim, as also that of her progeny (if she should have any), would be known to be illegitimate. It appears as if the result of those reflections formed a basis for the misery of millions, and added to that number millions yet unborn."

This probably is solemn nonsense, as it is certainly indifferent English. We get back to comic truth at least in an anecdote told by Cumberland, of Bubb Dodington, who, "when he paid his court at St. James's to her majesty upon her nuptials, approached to kiss her hand, decked in an embroidered suit of silk, with lilac waistcoat and breeches, the latter of which, in the act of kneeling down, forgot their duty, and broke loose from their moorings in a very indecorous and uncourtly manner."

Between the wedding drawing-room and the coronation, the king and queen appeared twice in public, once at their devotions, and once at the play. On both occasions there were crowds of followers and some disappointment. At the Chapel Royal, the preacher, the Rev. Mr. Schultz, made no allusion to the august couple, but simply confined himself to a practical illustration of his text, "Provide things honest in the sight of all men.” It was a text from the application of which a young sovereign couple might learn much that was valuable, without being preached at. But the crowd who went to stare and not to pray, would have been better pleased to have heard them lectured, and to have seen how they looked under the infliction. The king had expressly forbidden all laudation of himself from the pulpit, but the Rev. Dr. Wilson, and Mason, the poet, disobeyed the injunction, and, getting nothing by their praise, joined the patriotic side in politics immediately. At the play, to which the king and queen went on the day, after attending church, to witness Garrick, who was advertised to play "Bayes" in the "Rehearsal," the king was in roars of laughter at Garrick's comic acting; which even made the queen smile, to whom, however, such a play as the "Rehearsal," and such a part as Bayes, must have been totally incomprehensible, and defying explanation. There was no royal state displayed on this occasion,

but there were the penalties which are sometimes paid by a too eager curiosity. The way from the palace to the theatre was so beset by a violently loyal mob, that there was difficulty in getting the royal chairs through the unwelcome pressure. The accidents were many, and some were fatal. The young married couple did not accomplish their first party of pleasure, shared with the public, but at the expense of three or four lives of persons trampled to death among the crowd, that had assembled to view their portion of the sight.

The St. James's Chronicle thus reports the scene which took place on the occasion of the royal visit to Drury Lane, on Friday, September 11th. "Last night about a quarter after six, their majesties the king and queen, with most of the royal family, went to Drury Lane play-house to see the Rehearsal. Their majesties went in chairs, and the rest of the royal family in coaches, attended by the Horse Guards. His majesty was preceded by the Duke of Devonshire, his lord-chamberlain, and the Honorable Mr. Finch, his vice-chamberlain; and her majesty was preceded by the Duke of Manchester, her lord-chamberlain, and Lord Cantalupe, her vice-chamberlain, the Earl of Harcourt, her master of the horse; and by the Duchess of Ancaster and the Countess of Effingham. It is almost inconceivable, the crowds of people that waited in the streets, quite from St. James's to the play-house, to see their majesties. Never was seen so brilliant a train, the ladies being mostly dressed in the clothes and jewels they wore at the royal marriage. The house was quite full before the doors were open; so that out of the vast multitude that waited the opening of the doors, not a hundred got in; the house being previously filled, to the great disappointment and fatigue of many thousands, and we may venture to say that there were people enough to have filled fifty such houses. There was a prodigious deal of mischief done at the doors of the house; several genteel women who were imprudent enough to attempt to get in, had their clothes, caps, aprons, handkerchiefs, all torn off them. It is said a girl was killed, and a man so trampled on that there are no hopes of his recovery."

Among the congratulatory addresses presented to the queen, on the occasion of her marriage, there was none which caused so much

remark as that presented by the ladies of St. Alban's. They complained that custom had deprived them of the pleasure of joining in the address presented by the gentlemen of the borough, and that they were therefore compelled to act independently. They profited by the occasion to express a hope that the example set by the king and queen would be speedily and widely followed. The holy state of matrimony, the St. Alban's ladies assured her majesty, had fallen so low as to be sneered at and disregarded by the gentlemen. They further declared that if the best riches of a nation consisted in the amount of population, they were the best citizens who did their utmost to increase that amount: to further which end the ladies of St. Alban's expressed a loyal degree of willingness, with sundry logical reasonings which made even the grave Charlotte smile.

It is unnecessary perhaps to enter detailedly upon the programme of the royal coronation. All coronations very much resemble each other; they only vary in some of their incidents. That of George and Charlotte had well-nigh been delayed by the sudden and unexpected strike of the workmen at Westminster Hall. These handicraftsmen had been accustomed to take toll of the public admitted to see the preparations, but soldiers on guard perceiving the profit to be derived from such a course, allowed no one to enter at all but after payment of an admission fee sufficiently large to gratify their cupidity. The plunderers of the public thereupon fell out, and the workmen struck because they had been deprived of an opportunity of robbing curious citizens. The dispute was settled by a compromise; an increase of wages was made to the workmen, and the military continued to levy with great success upon the purses of civilians, as before.

There was nothing further to impede the completion of the preparations for the spectacle; but by another strike a portion, at least, of the public ran the risk of not seeing the spectacle at all. The chairmen and drivers of hired vehicles had talked so largely of their scale of prices for the Coronation Day, that the authorities threatened to interfere and establish a tariff; whereupon the chairmen and their brethren solemnly announced that not a hired vehicle of any description should ply in the streets at all on the day

in question; and that if there were a sight worth seeing, the fulldressed public might get to it how they could: they should not ride to it. Thereupon, great was the despair of a very large and interested class. Appeals, almost affectionate in expression, were made to the offended chairmen who led the revolt, and they were entreated to trust to the generous feelings of their patrons, willing to be their very humble servants, for one day. The amiable creatures at last yielded, when it was perfectly understood that the liberal sentiment of riders was to be computed at the rate of a guinea for a ride from the west-end to the point nearest the Abbey, which the chairmen could reach. Not many could penetrate beyond Charing Cross, where the bewildered fares were set down amid the mob and the mud, to work their way through both, as best they might.

There was only one class of extortionate robbers who succeeded in making unwarrantable gain without interference on the part of the authorities, or appeal on that of the public. The class in question consisted of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who exacted five guineas a foot as the rent or hire of the space for the erection of scaffolding for seats. This caused the tariff of places to be of so costly a nature, that, willing as the public were to pay liberally for a great show, the seats were but scantily occupied.

The popular eagerness, which existed especially to see the young queen, was well illustrated in the person of a married lady, for whom not only was a front room taken, from the window of which she might see the procession pass, but a bedroom also engaged, and a medical man in attendance; the lady's condition of health rendering it probable that both might be required before the spectacle had concluded.

Much had been said of the queen's beauty, but to that her majesty had really little pretension. The public near enough to distinguish her features, were the more disappointed, from the fact that the portrait of a very pretty woman had been in all the printshops, as a likeness of the young queen. The publisher, however, had in some sort performed a trick similar to that of the showman of wax-figures, who, when he had to exhibit his wonders to boarding-school ladies, used to take the paint off the face of the clown,

put a cap on its head, and call the figure, Mrs. Hannah More. In the case of the first published portrait of Queen Charlotte, the printseller had selected an old engraving of a young beauty, and erasing the name on the plate, issued the portrait as that of the royal consort of his Majesty George III. Many were indignant at the trick, but few were more amused by it than her majesty herself.

As illustrative of the crowds assembled, even on places whence but little could be seen, it may be mentioned that the assemblage on Westminster Bridge, which was no "coign of vantage," for the platform on which the procession passed could hardly be discovered from it, was so immense as to give rise to a report, which long prevailed, that the structure of the bridge itself had been injured by this superincumbent dead weight.

The multitude was enthusiastic enough, but it was not a kindlyendowed multitude. The mob was ferocious in its joys even, in those days. Of the lives lost, one at least was so lost by a murderous act of the populace. A respectable man in the throng dropped some papers, and he stooped to recover them from the ground. The contemporary recorders of the events of the day detail, without comment, how the mob held this unfortunate man forcibly down till they had trampled him to death! The people must have their little amusements.

It was, perhaps, hardly the fault of the people that these amusements were so savage in character. The people themselves were treated as savages. Even on this day of universal jubilee they were treated as if the great occasion were foreign to them and to their feelings; and a press-gang, strong enough to defy attack, was not the least remarkable group which appeared this day among the free Britons over whom George and Charlotte expressed themselves proud to reign. Such a gang" did not do its work in a delicate way, and a score or two of loyal and tipsy people who had joyously left their homes to make a day of it, found themselves at night, battered and bleeding, on board a "Tender,” torn from their families, and condemned to "serve the king," upon the high seas.

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Such incidents as these were going on while the crowns were being made to rest upon the brows of the monarch and his consort.