advice by an earlier termination of the war with America, we had acted wisely: you were in the right." This the Dean repeated to the writer a few days after, together with the whole conversation, which was so honourable to the good sense, general knowledge, and rectitude of mind of His Majesty, that it is to be regretted it had not been preserved.

His understanding, though, perhaps, it had not received the highest cultivation of which it was susceptible, was soundly good, and the whole bent and bias of that understanding was turned to objects of utility. In such of his conversations as have been recorded by Johnson, Beattie, and others, his talents are seen to great advantage. His observations are acute, and his expression neat. In the details of business he was said to be singularly accurate, and particularly well informed in the local circumstances of whatever place was the subject under consideration. His domestic

duties were filled with eminent fidelity and uniform tenderness. His family enjoyments were the relief and solace of his public cares; while the proverbial correctness of his court furnished a model to contemporary sovereigns, and bequeathed a noble pattern to his own illustrious posterity. He observed the law of kindness as scrupulously as he observed all other laws; nor was its exercise limited to those about his person or court, but extended to as many of inferior rank as fell under his observation.

He was strictly punctual in the discharge of his

religious duties, a practice which alone could have enabled him to fulfil his other duties in so exemplary a manner. The writer has heard an inhabitant of Windsor (a physician of distinguished learning and piety) declare, that in his constant attendance at the morning chapel, his own heart was warmed, and his pious affections raised, by the devout energy of the King's responses. Who shall presume to say what portion of the prosperity of his favoured people may have been obtained for them by the supplications of a patriot, paternal, praying king?

Firmly attached to the church of which God had made him the supreme head; strong in that faith of which God had appointed him the hereditary defender, he yet suffered no act of religious persecution to dishonour his reign. His firmness was without intolerance, his moderation without laxity.

Though involved in darkness, both bodily and mental, for so many of his latter years, he was still regarded with a sentiment compounded of sorrow, respect, and tenderness. He was, indeed, consigned to seclusion, but not to oblivion. The distinctions of party, with respect to him, were lost in one common feeling: and the afflicted monarch was ever cherished in the hearts of the virtuous of every denomination, whether religious or political.

Even in the aberrations of reason he was not forsaken. The hand which inflicted the blow mercifully mitigated the pain. His wounded mind was soothed by visionary anticipations of heavenly

happiness. Might not these fanciful consolations indicate something of the habit of a mind accustomed in its brighter hours to the indulgence of pious thoughts? And may we not in general venture to observe, in vindication of the severer dispensations of the Almighty, that even during the distressful season of alienation of mind, the hours which are passed without sorrow and without sin are not, to the sufferer, among the most unhappy hours.

Notwithstanding the calamities with which it has lately pleased God to afflict a guilty world, calamities in which England has had its share, though by no means an equal share, yet the reign of the third George may be called a brilliant and glorious period. Independently of the splendour of our geographical discoveries, our eastern acquisitions, and other memorable political events, we may challenge any era in the history of the world to produce a catalogue of the twentieth part of the noble institutions which have characterized and consecrated this auspicious reign of these, some have successfully promoted every elegant art, and others every useful science. Painting, statuary, and engraving have been brought into fresh existence under the royal patronage; the application of chemistry and mechanics to the purposes of common life has been attended with unexampled success. Signals at sea have been reduced to a science; the telegraph has been invented; military tactics are said to have been carried to their utmost perfection. Among the gentle arts of peace, the study of agriculture, which the King

loved and cultivated, has become one among the favourite pursuits of our honourable men.

The time would fail to recount the numberless domestic societies of every conceivable description established for promoting the moral and temporal good of our country; persons of high rank, even of the highest, men of all parties and professions, periodically assemble to contrive the best means to instruct the ignorant, and to reclaim the vicious; to relieve every want which man can feel, or man can mitigate; to heal the disturbed in mind, or the diseased in body; nay, to resuscitate the apparently dead: prisons have been converted into places of moral improvement, and the number of churches has been rapidly multiplying. But the peculiar glory which distinguishes the period we are commemorating is that of our having wiped out the foulest blot that ever stained, not only the character of Christian Britain, but of human nature itself, by the abolition of the opprobrious traffic in the human species.

If we advert to other remarkable circumstances which distinguish this reign,—while new worlds have been discerned in the heavens, one of which bears the honoured name of the sovereign under whose dominion it was discovered, on the earth, Christianity has been successfully carried to its utmost boundaries. In this reign, also, it has been our pre-eminent glory to have fought singlehanded against the combined world; yet not by our own strength, but by the arm of the Lord of Hosts, England has been victorious.

England, it is true, labours at present under

great and multiplied, but we trust not insuperable, difficulties. We have the misfortune of a depressed commerce, but we have the consolation of an untarnished honour; we have still a high national character, and in a nation character is power and wealth. To the distresses inflicted by Divine Providence, our own countrymen have made a large and most criminal addition. In looking out for the causes of this appalling visitation, may not one of those causes be found in our not having used the sudden flow of our prosperity with gratitude, humility, and moderation?

Great are our exigencies, but great are our

resources.

We possess a powerful stock of talent, and of virtue; and in spite of the blasphemies of the atheist, and the treasons of the abandoned, we possess, it is presumed, an increasing fund of vital religion.

Were these and all our other numberless resources thrown into one scale, and applied to the same grand ends, and objects; would party, at this critical juncture, renounce the operation of its narrowing spirit; would every professed patriot show himself zealous, not for the magnifying of his own set, but for the substantial interests of his country; what a mighty aggregate of blessings would be the result, and how reasonably might we then expect the Divine favour on a union so moral, so patriotic, so Christian!

It has pleased God in his mercy to restore to health the son of our late monarch, and to place him on the throne of his illustrious ancestors. We nave the sanction of his own royal word, that he