all I met with before-it was almost kindness. The following day," she goes on with her diary, telling us, "I met him in the passage from the queen's room; he stopped me, and conversed upon his health near halfan-hour, still with the extreme quickness of speech and manner that belongs to fever, and he hardly sleeps, he tells me, one minute all night; indeed, if he recovers not his rest, a most delirious fever seems to threaten him. He is all agitation, all emotion, yet all benevolence and goodness, even to a degree that makes it touching to hear him speak. He assures everybody of his health, he seems only fearful to give uneasiness to others." November 1st, we find her describing him with a hoarse and altered countenance: "Nor can I ever forget him in what passed this night; when I came to the queen's dressing-room he was still with her. He was begging her not to speak to him when he got to his room, that he might fall asleep, as he felt great want of that refreshment. He repeated his desire at least a hundred times, though far enough from needing it-the poor queen never uttered one syllable. He then applied to me, saying he was really very well, except in that one particular, that he could not sleep."

As we peruse these and similar passages in her diary, we are strongly reminded of the interview between Hamlet and Ophelia in the play-scene, and are struck with admiration of the knowledge which Shakespeare must have possessed of the workings of the mind under the first approaches of mental derangement. She proceeds to describe the deep distress of the queen, her solitary anguish, overpowered with terror lest she should betray her feelings, and express the inevitable danger towards which she saw the king

was gradually verging. Harassed by his state, believing it unknown to any but herself and her household, she at length found that a whispering of the infirmity of the king had commenced; and then read in the Morning Herald some anecdote which she was desirous that the editor should retract, and answer, at his peril, any further such treasonable paragraph. On the 5th of November a terrible scene occurred, which rendered all further hesitation as to the nature of his malady impossible. The king in the afternoon went out in his chaise with the princess royal for an airing; he was all smiling benignity, but gave so many orders to the postillions, and got in and out of the carriage twice, with such agitation, as to excite Miss Burney's alarm. Retiring in her own room, she was struck in the evening with the uncommon stillness that reigned throughout the palace; nobody stirred, not a voice was heard, not a step, not a motion-there seemed a strangeness in the house most extraordinary. The equerries then passed to and fro with unusual gravity, whisperings only were exchanged-all was mysterious horror. At length the news was told her, that the king at dinner had broken forth into positive delirium, which had long been apprehended by all who saw him most closely; the queen was so overpowered as to fall into violent hysterics; all the princesses were in misery, and the Prince of Wales burst into tears. The night that followed was a fearful one. Miss Burney was called upon to attend her Majesty. "My poor royal mistress! never can I forget her countenance-pale, ghastly pale, she was seated to be undressed, and attended by Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave and Miss Goldsworthy; her whole frame was disordered, yet she was still and quiet. These two ladies

assisted me to undress her, or rather I assisted them, for they were firmer from being longer present; my shaking hands and blinded eyes could scarce be of any use. The king, at the instance of Sir George Baker, had consented to sleep in the next apartment; in the middle of the night the king insisted upon seeing if the queen was not removed from the house, and he had come into the room with a candle in his hand, and satisfied himself she was there; he stayed a full half-hour, and the depth of that terror during that time no words can paint." The confirmation

of the worst fears that had been apprehended gave now no pretence for keeping from the nation the sad change that had occurred in a monarch who had gradually become popular, and for whom the tenderest solicitude was from that period displayed. The earlier days of the king's reign had not been propitious, and he had incurred displeasure from his obstinate adherence to his own preconceived views; but now all was forgotten, all was anxious affection, and, amid hopes and fears, the nation turned to Parliament to learn from its deliberations what would be the steps which, in consonance with the spirit of the constitution, would be taken. Various were the surmises which were afloat, as to the placing the power in the hands of the heir apparent to the throne, and to whose custody would be committed the person of the afflicted monarch. Upon the first assembling of Parliament, it was resolved that an adjournment should take place for a fortnight, and on the 4th of November a report of the Privy Council was laid on the table, and another adjournment took place till the 8th of December.

The Prince of Wales had, from the previous circumstances of his career, become the centre around

which the opposition of the time revolved; its members looked forward to the day when he should be in possession of power as that on which their triumph would be secured, and they therefore displayed the greatest anxiety that he should be proclaimed unrestricted regent; and the doctrines they upheld were that he at once had a right to assume the royal authority. To these pretensions the administration of the day, headed by Mr. Pitt, was strenuously opposed, and the feelings of the great mass of the people were also decidedly hostile to them. It unfortunately happened that the taste and morals of the party desirous of seeing his Royal Highness at the head of affairs were most questionable. Mr. Fox, its leader, however highly gifted with intellectual power, and loved for his generous and affectionate temper, was too much addicted to those social pleasures which border on folly to be generally esteemed. Sheridan's prudence had begun to be more than doubted, and reports were widely disseminated of the recklessness of those who frequented Carlton House. Hence the slow and protracted steps which were taken by the House of Commons, the caution exercised, and the apparent wisdom of deep reflection (whilst, in fact, intrigue of every description was going forward in various sections of the parties), were quite in consonance with public opinion.

Mr. Fox was sent for from Italy; and when Mr. Pitt came forward to propose that a committee be appointed to examine the journals of the House, and report precedents of such authority as may have been had in cases of the personal exercise of the royal authority being prevented or interrupted by infancy, sickness, infirmity, or otherwise, with a view

to provide for the same, Mr. Fox at once took up the position "that whenever the sovereign, from sickness, infirmity, or other incapacity, was unable to exercise the functions of his high office, the heir apparent, being of full age and capacity, had as clear and express a right to assume the reins of government and exercise the power of sovereignty as in the case of his Majesty's demise." Mr. Pitt's reply kindled a fire throughout the country. In the collection made of the works and the correspondence of Dr. Parr, is to be found a letter upon the subject of the king's illness from Mrs. Sheridan, in which she says: "An unlucky word about right, made use of by Charles Fox in the House, has made some little confusion in the heads of a few old Parliamentaries, who did not understand him, and Pitt has taken advantage of this and means to move a question about it on Tuesday, which our friends wish to avoid by moving the previous question, thinking Pitt's motion mischievous and quite unnecessary." Mr. Pitt said "that the very announcement of a claim of right rendered an inquiry into precedent and history of the greater consequence, for if such an authority should be discovered, all further debate in that House would be unnecessary; but he boldly said that the assertion of such a right in the Prince of Wales or any one else was little short of treason against the constitution of the country. He pledged himself to prove that in the case of the interruption of the personal exercise of the royal authority, without the existence of any lawful provision being previously made for carrying on the government, it belonged to the other branches of the nation at large to provide, according to their discretion, for the temporary