high of a
gentleman who was standing in the rear. In the evening of the same day a
more alarming circumstance occurred at the Drury Lane Theatre. At the
moment when the King entered the royal box, a man in the pit, on the
right-hand side of the orchestra, suddenly stood up and discharged a
large horse-pistol at him. The hand of the would-be assassin was thrown
up by a bystander, and the ball entered the box just above the head of
the King.

Such were the public manifestations of affection for this royal tyrant.
He was finally attacked by an enemy that could not be thwarted, and on
the 20th December, 1810, he became a confirmed lunatic. In this dreadful
condition he lingered until January, 1820, when he died, having been the
most unpopular, unwise and obstinate sovereign that ever disgraced the
English throne. He was forgotten as soon as life left his body, and was
hurriedly buried with that empty pomp which but too often attends a
despot to the grave.

His whole career is well summed up by Allan Cunningham, his biographer,
in few words: "Throughout his life he manifested a strong disposition to
be his own minister, and occasionally placed the kingly prerogatives in
perilous opposition to the resolutions of the nation's representatives.
His interference with the deliberations of the upper house, as in the
case of Fox's Indian bill, was equally ill-judged and dangerous. _The
separation of America from the mother country, at the time it took
place, was the result of the King's personal feelings and interference
with the ministry._ The war with France was, in part at least,
attributable to the views and wishes of the sovereign of England. His
obstinate refusal to grant any concessions to his Catholic subjects,
kept his cabinet perpetually hanging on the brink of dissolution, and
threatened the dismemberment of the kingdom. He has been often praised
for firmness, but it was in too many instances the firmness of
obstinacy; a dogged adherence to an opinion once pronounced, or a
resolution once formed."

The mind, in passing from the unhonored grave of the prince to the last
resting-place of the peasant boy, leaps from a kingdom of darkness to
one of light.

Let us now return to the career of Washington. Throughout the
Revolutionary War he carried, like Atropos, in his hand the destinies of
millions; he bore, like Atlas, on his shoulders the weight of a world.
It is unnecessary to follow him throughout his subsequent caree