e of his life that went to disprove this view, he either suppressed
or distorted utterly. 'History,' he would seem to have chuckled, 'has
nothing to do with the First Gentleman. But I will give him a niche in
Natural History. He shall be King of the Beasts.' He made no allowance
for the extraordinary conditions under which all monarchs live, none for
the unfortunate circumstances by which George, especially, was from the
first hampered. He judged him as he judged Barnes Newcome and all the
scoundrels lie created. Moreover, he judged him by the moral standard of
the Victorian Age. In fact, he applied to his subject the wrong method,
in the wrong manner, and at the wrong time. And yet every one has taken
him at his word. I feel that my essay may be scouted as a paradox; but
I hope that many may recognise that I am not, out of mere boredom,
endeavouring to stop my ears against popular platitude, but rather, in
a spirit of real earnestness, to point out to the mob how it has been
cruel to George. I do not despair of success. I think I shall make
converts. The mob is really very fickle and sometimes cheers the truth.

None, at all events, will deny that England stands to-day otherwise
than she stood a hundred and thirty-two years ago, when George was born.
To-day we are living a decadent life. All the while that we are
prating of progress, we are really so deteriorate! There is nothing but
feebleness in us. Our youths, who spend their days in trying to build
up their constitutions by sport or athletics and their evenings in
undermining them with poisonous and dyed drinks; our daughters, who are
ever searching for some new quack remedy for new imaginary megrim, what
strength is there in them? We have our societies for the prevention of
this and the promotion of that and the propagation of the other,
because there are no individuals among us. Our sexes are already nearly
assimilate. Women are becoming nearly as rare as ladies, and it is only
at the music-halls that we are privileged to see strong men. We are born
into a poor, weak age. We are not strong enough to be wicked, and the
Nonconformist Conscience makes cowards of us all.

But this was not so in the days when George was walking by his tutor's
side in the gardens of Kew or of Windsor. London must have been a
splendid place in those days--full of life and colour and wrong and
revelry. There was no absurd press nor vestry to protect the poor at the
expense of the rich an