been for
some time in the shade at court, from being strongly suspected of
cultivating the Prince's connexions at the same time; however, he
achieved Canterbury at last, and, once sheltered in Lambeth, he might
laugh at the jealousies of courtiers.

Walpole now bursts out into indignant virtue; exclaims that even the
church has its renegades in politics, and almost compassionates the
king, "who was obliged to fling open his _asylum_ to all kinds of
deserters; revenging himself, however, by not speaking to them at his
levee, or listening to them in the pulpit."

In the meantime, the great source of all opposition, the dread of the
successful, the hope of the defeated, the thorn in the royal side, or,
to take a higher emblem, the tree of promise to all that contemptible
race who trade in conscience, and live on faction,--disappeared in a
moment. The heir-apparent died! The Prince of Wales had suffered from a
pleurisy, but was so much recovered as to attend the king to the House
of Lords. After being much heated in the atmosphere of the house, he
returned to Carlton House to unrobe, put on only a light frock, went to
Kew, where he walked some time, returned to Carlton House, and lay down
upon a couch for three hours on a ground floor next the garden. The
consequence of this rashness or obstinacy was, that he caught a fresh
cold, and relapsed that night.

After struggling with this illness for a week, he was suddenly seized
with an increase of his distemper. Three years before, he had received
a blow on the breast from a tennis ball, from which, or from a
subsequent fall, he often felt great pain. Exhausted by the cough, he
cried, "Je sens la mort," and died in the arms of his valet.

The character of this prince, who was chiefly memorable as the father of
George III., had in it nothing to eclipse the past age, conciliate the
present, or attract honour from the future. Walpole, in his keen way,
says, "that he resembled the Black Prince in nothing, but in dying
before his father." "Indeed," he contemptuously adds, "it was not his
fault if he had not distinguished himself by warlike achievements." He
had solicited the command of the army in Scotland in the rebellion of
1745, which was of course given to his brother; "a hard judgment," says
Walpole, "for what he could do, he did." When the royal army lay before
Carlisle, the prince, at a great supper which he gave his court and
favourites, had ordered for the dessert a mod