education was wholly of the practical kind which comes from work
and things, not from books and teachers; yet many of them with only
these simple helps found out two secrets which the highest culture
sometimes misses,--how to be useful and how to be happy.[1]

[1] See Wordsworth's poem "Resolution and Independence."

The ordinary means of travel were still very imperfect. Stage-coaches
had been in use for more than a hundred and fifty years. They crawled
along at the rate of about three miles an hour. Mail coaches began to
run in 1784. They attained a speed of six miles an hour, and later of
ten. This was considered entirely satisfactory.

The close of George III's reign marks the beginning of the present
age. It was indicated in many ways, and among others by the declining
use of sedan chairs, which had been the fashion for upwards of a
century, and by the change in dress. Gentlemen were leaving off the
picturesque costumes of the past,--the cocked hats, elaborate wigs,
silk stockings, ruffles, velvet coats, and swords,--and gradually
putting on the plain democratic garb, sober in cut and color, by which
we know them to-day.

567. Last Days of George III.

George III died (1820) at the age of eighty-two. During ten years he
had been blind, deaf, and crazy, having lost his reason not very long
after the jubilee, which celebrated the fiftieth year of his reign
(1809). Once, in a lucid interval, he was found by the Queen singing
a hymn and playing an accompaniment on the harpsichord.

He then knelt and prayed aloud for her, for his family, and for the
nation; and in closing, for himself, that it might please God to avert
his heavy calamity, or grant him resignation to bear it. Then he
burst into tears, and his reason again fled.[1] In consequence of the
incapacity of the King, his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, was
appointed regent (1811), and on the King's death came to the throne as
George IV.

[1] See Thackeray's "Four Georges."

568. Summary.

The long reign of George III covered sixty very eventful years.
During that time England lost her possessions in America, but gained
India and prepared the way for getting possession of New Zealand and
Australia. During that period, also, Ireland was united to Great
Britain. The wars with France, which lasted more than twenty years,
ended in the great naval victory of Trafalgar and the still greater
victory on the battlefield of Waterloo. In consequenc