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THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

JULY, 1867.

No. CCLVII.

ART. I.-1. George III.'s Letters to Lord North, from 1768 to 1783. Edited from the Originals at Windsor, with an Introduction and Notes, by W. BODHAM DONNE. Two Volumes. London: 1867.

2. Memoirs of the Life and Reign of George III. By J. HENEAGE JESSE. Three Volumes. London: 1867.

THE present age has one signal advantage over preceding

generations. The political records of the last century are gradually becoming at once more clear, more distinct, more luminous, and more interesting than the history of any previous century in English annals. Memoir after memoir, correspondence after correspondence, testimony after testimony, are successively throwing light on the obscure, and giving precision to the doubtful, portions of the Georgian era. The Waldegrave and Walpole papers, the correspondence of Pitt, of Fox, of Eldon, and of Addington, the Buckingham papers, and the Grenville papers, have familiarised the student of our recent history with the secret motives, sentiments, and aspirations of all the great actors in the political drama from the time of George II. to the time of William IV. To these sources of knowledge is now added another of great value and importance, viz. the correspondence of George III. with Lord North during the memorable years in which that much-abused and much-enduring statesman was at the head of the English Ministry. To any future historian who undertakes to travel over the ground already explored by Mahon, Massey, and Adolphus, it will at least not be competent to complain that he is precluded by a lack of materials from the composition of a work which shall supply all the deficiencies of its predecessors, and earn for itself the title to be quoted as the authoritative

VOL. CXXVI. NO. CCLVII.

B

history of England during the most important epoch of its settled Constitution.

The reign of George III. before the premiership of the younger Pitt, may be divided into three distinct periods. The first period embraces the temporary ascendancy of Lord Bute and the King's partial liberation from the yoke of the Duke of Newcastle and the elder Pitt; the second, his reluctant toleration of George Grenville, his impatience of Lord Rockingham, and his helpless conflict with the humours of Lord Chatham and the levity of the Duke of Grafton; the third, his contented acquiescence in the virtues of a Minister who did not belong to any of the great Whig families which regarded the administration of the English Government as their heritage, and whose unfailing good-nature made him equally attentive to the wishes of his sovereign and regardless of the bitterest denunciations of his foes. Of these three periods it is needless to say that the third was the happiest for the King, whatever it may have been for the country or for the Minister himself. Lord North's equanimity may have made him indifferent to the invectives of Barré, of Conway, of Fox, and of Burke. Still, it required all the consolation that large majorities in the House of Commons or kindly smiles in the royal closet could afford, to neutralise the consciousness of growing unpopularity at home and accumulated disgrace abroad. Eventful as was the life of George III., the events by which the twelve years of Lord North's administration were clouded, were less chequered even by fitful gleams of national prosperity than any other twelve years of his reign. The King had already witnessed-before he came to the throne-the honour and the fortunes of the country exalted to a height as yet unprecedented. But he so dreaded or disliked the wayward temper of the Minister by whose genius the glory of England had been widely extended, that he was happier without his aid than with it. He was destined to witness, at a later period of his reign, the strength which England could put forth in a gigantic struggle where great triumphs alternated with severe disasters.. But this was to be under the auspices of another Minister, who, although less supercilious and less fantastical than his father, yet sometimes roused the King's anger, and not unfrequently defied his prejudices. Neither with Chatham nor with Chatham's son was the King uniformly at ease. Neither the glory which the one reflected on the country, nor the courage with which the other faced the changing fortunes of a terrible epoch, ingratiated them so much in his favour as the unsentimental but sympathising devotion of Lord North. To find a

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