Saturday, Aug. 16.—We left Cheltenham early this morning. Major Price breakfasted with us, and was so melancholy at the king’s departure he could hardly speak a word. All Cheltenham was drawn out into the High-street, the gentles on one side and the commons on the other, and a band, and “God save the king,” playing and singing.
My dear Port, with all her friends, was there for a last look, and a sorrowful one we interchanged; Mr. Seward also, whom again I am not likely to meet for another two years at least. The journey was quite without accident or adventure.
And thus ends the Cheltenham episode. May I not justly call it so, different as it is to all the mode of life I have hitherto lived here, or alas I am in a way to live henceforward?
Melancholy—most melancholy—was the return to Windsor destitute of all that could solace, compose, or delight; replete with whatever could fatigue, harass, and depress! Ease, leisure, elegant society, and interesting communication, were now to give place to arrogant manners, contentious disputation, and arbitrary ignorance! Oh, heaven! my dearest friends, what scales could have held and have weighed the heart of your F.B. as she drove past the door of her revered, lost comforter, to enter the apartment inhabited by such qualities!
But before I quit this journey let me tell one very pleasant anecdote. When we stopped to change horses at Burford I alighted and went into the inn, to meet Mrs. Gast, to whom I had sent by Mrs. Frodsham a request to be there as we passed through the town. I rejoiced indeed to see again the sister of our first and wisest friend. My Susanna, who knows her too enthusiastic character, will easily suppose my reception. I was folded in her arms, and bathed in her tears all my little stay, and my own, from reflected tenderness for her ever-honoured, loved, and lamented brother, would not be kept quite back; ’twas a species of sorrowful joy—painful, yet pleasing—that seemed like a fresh tribute to his memory and my affection, and made the meeting excite an emotion that occupied my mind and reflections almost all the rest of my journey.
She inquired most kindly after my dear father and my Susanna, and separately and with interest of all the rest of the family; but her surprise to see me now, by this most un expected journey, when she had concluded me inevitably shut up from her sight for the remainder of her life, joined to the natural warmth of her disposition, seemed almost to suffocate her. I was very sorry to leave her, but my time was unavoidably short and hurried. I inquired after Chesington, and heard very good accounts.
Windsor, Sunday, Aug. 17.—This day, after our arrival, began precisely the same as every day preceding our journey. The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood could not awake more completely to the same scene; yet I neither have been asleep, nor am quite a beauty! O! I wish I were as near to the latter as the former at this minute!
We had all the set assembled to congratulate his majesty on his return—generals and colonels without end. I was very glad while the large party lasted, its diminution into a solitary pair ending in worse than piquet—a tête-à-tête!—and such a one, too! after being so spoiled!
Monday, Aug. 18.—Well, now I have a new personage to introduce to you, and no small one; ask else the stars, moon and planets! While I was surrounded with bandboxes, and unpacking, Dr. Shepherd was announced. Eager to make his compliments on the safe return, he forced a passage through the back avenues and stairs, for he told me he did not like being seen coming to me at the front door, as it might create some jealousies amongst the other canons! A very commendable circumspection! but whether for my sake or his own he did not particularize.
M. de Lalande, he said, the famous astronomer,290 was just arrived in England, and now at Windsor, and he had expressed a desire to be introduced to me.
Well, while he was talking this over, and I was wondering and evading, entered Mr. Turbulent. What a surprise at sight of the reverend canon! The reverend canon, also, was interrupted and confused, fearing, possibly, the high honour he did me might now transpire amongst his brethren, notwithstanding his generous efforts to spare them its knowledge.
Mr. Turbulent, who looked big with heroics, was quite provoked to see he had no chance of giving them vent. They each outstayed the patience of the other, and at last both went off together.
Some hours after, however, while I was dressing, the canon returned. I could not admit him, and bid Goter tell him at the door I was not visible. He desired he might wait till I was ready, as he had business of importance. I would not let him into the next room, but said he might stay in the eating-parlour.
When I was dressed I sent Goter to bring him in. She came back, grinning and colouring; she had not found him, she said, but only Mrs. Schwellenberg, who was there alone, and had called her in to know what she wanted. She answered she came to seek for a gentleman.
“There’s no gentleman,” she cried, “to come into my parlour. It is not permit. When he comes I will have it locked up.”
O, ho, my poor careful canon! thought I. However, soon after a tap again at my door introduced him. He said he had been waiting below in the passage, as he saw Madame Schwellenberg in the parlour, and did not care to have her know him; but his business was to settle bringing M. de Lalande to see me in the evening. I told him I was much honoured, and so forth, but that I received no evening company, as I was officially engaged.
He had made the appointment, he said, and could not break it without affronting him; besides, he gave me to understand it would be an honour to me for ever to be visited by so great an astronomer. I agreed as to that, and was forced, moreover, to agree to all the rest, no resource remaining.
I mentioned to her majesty the state of the case. She thought the canon very officious, and disapproved the arrangement, but saw it was unavoidable.
But when the dinner came I was asked by the présidente, “What for send you gentlemen to my parlour?”
“I was dressing, ma’am, and could not possibly receive company in mine, and thought the other empty.”
“Empty or full is the same! I won’t have it. I will lock up the room when it is done so. No, no, I won’t have no gentlemen here; it is not permit, perticklere when they von’t not speak to me!”
I then heard that “a large man, what you call,” had entered that sacred domain, and seeing there a lady, had quitted it “bob short!”
I immediately explained all that had passed, for I had no other way to save myself from an imputation of favouring the visits and indiscretion of this most gallant canon.
“Vell, when he comes so often he might like you. For what won’t you not marry him?”
This was coming to the point, and so seriously, I found myself obliged to be serious in answer, to avoid misconstruction, and to assure her, that were he Archbishop of Canterbury, and actually at my feet, I would not become archbishopess.
“Vell, you been right when you don’t not like him; I don’t not like the men neither: not one from them!” So this settled us very amicably till tea-time, and in the midst of that, with a room full of people, I was called out by Westerhaults to Dr. Shepherd!
Mrs. Schwellenberg herself actually te-he’d at this, and I could not possibly help laughing myself, but I hurried into the next room, where I found him with his friend, M. de Lalande. What a reception awaited me! how unexpected a one from a famed and great astronomer.
M. de Lalande advanced to meet me—-I will not be quite positive it was on tiptoe, but certainly with a mixture of jerk and strut that could not be quite flat-footed. He kissed my hand with the air of a petit-maître, and then broke forth into such an harangue of éloges, so solemn with regard to its own weight and importance, and so fade291 with respect to the little personage addressed, that I could not help thinking it lucky for the planets, stars, and sun, they were not bound to hear his comments, though obliged to undergo his calculations.
On my part sundry profound reverences, with now and then an “O, monsieur!” or “c’est trop d’honneur,” acquitted me so well, that the first harangue being finished, on the score of general and grand reputation, éloge the second began, on the excellency with which “cette célèbre demoiselle” spoke French!
This may surprise you, my dear friends; but You must consider M. de Lalande is a great discoverer.
Well, but had you seen Dr. Shepherd! he looked lost in sleek delight and wonder, that a person to whom he had introduced M. de Lalande should be an object for such fine speeches.
This gentleman’s figure, meanwhile, corresponds no better with his discourse than his scientific profession, for he is an ugly little wrinkled old man, with a fine showy waistcoat, rich lace ruffles, and the grimaces of a dentist. I believe he chose to display that a Frenchman of science could be also a man of gallantry.
I was seated between them, but the good doctor made no greater interruption to the florid professor than I did myself; he only grinned applause, with placid, but ineffable satisfaction.
Nothing therefore intervening, éloge the third followed, after a pause no longer than might be necessary for due admiration of éloge the second. This had for sujet the fair female sex; how the ladies were now all improved; how they could write, and read, and spell; how a man now-a-days might talk with them and be understood, and how delightful it was to see such pretty creatures turned rational!
And all this, of course, interspersed with particular observations and most pointed applications; nor was there in the whole string of compliments which made up the three bouquets, one single one amongst them that might have disgraced any petit maître to utter, or any petite maîtresse to hear.
The third being ended, a rather longer pause ensued. I believe he was dry, but I offered him no tea. I would not voluntarily be accessory to detaining such great personages from higher avocations. I wished him next to go and study the stars: from the moon he seemed so lately arrived there was little occasion for another journey.
I flatter myself he was of the same opinion, for the fourth éloge was all upon his unhappiness in tearing himself away from so much merit, and ended in as many bows as had accompanied his entrance.
I suppose, in going, he said, with a shrug, to the canon, “M. le docteur, c’est bien gênant, mais il faut dire des jolies choses aux dames!”293
He was going the next day to see Dr. Maskelyne’s observatory. Well! I have had him first in mine!
I was obliged on my return to the tea-room to undergo much dull raillery from my fair companion, and Much of wonder that “since the canon had such good preferment” I did not “marry him at once,” for he “would not come so often if he did not want it.”
Tuesday, Aug. 18.—-The Duke of York’s birthday was kept this day, instead of Saturday, that Sunday morning might not interfere with the ball.
The Prince of Wales arrived early, while I was yet with the queen. He kissed her hand, and she sent for the princesses. Only Princess Elizabeth and Princess Sophia were dressed. Her majesty went into the next room with Mrs. Sandys, to have her shoes put on, with which she always finishes. The prince and princesses then chatted away most fluently. Princess Elizabeth frequently addressed me with great sweetness but the prince only with curious eyes. Do not, however, understand that his looks were either haughty or impertinent far from it; they were curious, however, in the extreme.
Colonel Manners made me laugh as If I had been at a farce, by his history of the late Westminster election, in which Lord John Townshend conquered Lord Hood. Colonel Manners is a most eager and active partisan on the side of the government, but so indiscreet, that he almost regularly gets his head broke at every contested election; and he relates it as a thing of course. I inquired if he pursued his musical studies, so happily begun with Colonel Wellbred? “Why,” answered he, “not much, because of the election; but the thing is, to get an ear: however, I think I have got one, because I know a tune when I hear it, if it’s one that I’ve heard before a good many times so I think that’s a proof; but I can never get asked to a concert, and that keeps me a little behind.”
“Perhaps,” cried I, “your friends conclude you have music enough in your three months’ waiting to satisfy you for all the year?”
“O, ma’am, as to that, I’d just as lief hear so many pots and pans rattled together; one noise is just as well as another to me.”
I asked him whether his electioneering with so much activity did not make his mother, Lady Robert, a little uneasy?—N.B. She is a methodist.
“O, it does her a great deal of good,” cried he; “for I could never get her to meddle before; but when I’d had my head broke, it provoked her so, she went about herself canvassing among the good people,—and she got us twenty votes.”
“So then,” cried Colonel Goldsworthy, “there are twenty good people in the world? That’s your calculation, is it?”
Mr. Fisher, who just then came in, and knew nothing of what had passed, starting the election, said to Colonel Manners, “So, sir, you have been beat, I hear!”
He meant only his party; but his person having shared the same fate, occasioned a violent shout among the rest at this innocent speech, and its innocent answer for Colonel Manners, looking only a little surprised, simply said, “Yes, I was beat, a little.”
“A little, sir?” exclaimed Mr. Fisher, “no, a great deal you were shamefully beat—thrashed thoroughly.” In the midst of a violent second shout, Colonel Manners only said, “Well, I always hated all that party, and now I hate them worse than ever.”
“Ay, that I’ll be bound for you,” cried Colonel Goldsworthy.
“Yes for having been so drubbed by them,” cried Mr. Fisher.
As I now, through all his good humour, saw Colonel Manners colour a little, I said in a low voice to Mr. Fisher, “Pray is it in innocence, or in malice, that you use these terms.”
I saw his innocence by his surprise, and I whispered him the literal state of all he said; he was quite shocked, and coloured in his turn, apologising instantly to Colonel Manners, and protesting he had never heard of his personal ill usage, but only meant the defeat of his party.
Everybody was full of Mr. Fairly’s appointment, and spoke of it with pleasure. General Budé had seen him in town, where he had remained some days, to take the oaths, I believe, necessary for his place. General Budé has long been intimate with him, and spoke of his character exactly as it has appeared to me; and Colonel Goldsworthy, who was at Westminster with him, declared he believed a better man did not exist. “This, in particular,” cried General Budé, “I must say of Fairly: whatever he thinks right he pursues straightforward and I believe there is not a sacrifice upon earth that he would not make, rather than turn a moment out of the path that he had an opinion it was his duty to keep in.”
They talked a good deal of his late lady; none of them knew her but very slightly, as she was remarkably reserved. “More than reserved,” cried General Budé, “she was quite cold. Yet she loved London and public life, and Fairly never had any taste for them; in that they were very mal assortis, but in all other things very happy.”
“Yes,” cried Colonel Goldsworthy, “and how shall we give praise enough to a man that would be happy himself, and make his wife so too, for all that difference of opinion? for it was all his management, and good address, and good temper. I hardly know such another man.”
General Budé then related many circumstances of his most exemplary conduct during the illness of his poor suffering wife, and after her loss; everybody, indeed, upon the occasion of this new appointment, has broke forth to do justice to his deserving it. Mrs. Ariana Egerton, who came twice to drink tea with me on my being sensa Cerbera, told me that her brother-in-law, Colonel Masters, who had served with him at Gibraltar, protested there was not an officer in the army of a nobler and higher character, both professional and personal.
She asked me a thousand questions of what I thought about Miss Fuzilier? She dislikes her so very much, she cannot bear to think of her becoming Mrs. Fairly. She has met with some marks of contempt from her in their official meetings at St. James’s, that cannot be pardoned. Miss Fuziller, indeed, seemed to me formerly, when I used to meet her in company, to have an uncertainty of disposition that made her like two persons; now haughty, silent, and supercilious—and then gentle, composed, and interesting. She Is, however, very little liked, the worst being always what most spreads abroad.
Sept. 1.—Peace to the manes of the poor slaughtered partridges!
I finished this morning the “Memoirs of Baron Trenck,” which have given me a great deal of entertainment; I mean in the first volume, the second containing not more matter than might fill four pages. But the singular hardiness, gallantry, ferocity, and ingenuity of this copy of the knights of ancient times, who has happened to be born since his proper epoch, have wonderfully drawn me on, and I could not rest without finishing his adventures. They are reported to be chiefly of his own invention; but I really find an air of self-belief in his relations, that inclines me to think he has but narrated what he had persuaded himself was true. His ill-usage is such as to raise the utmost indignation in every reader and if it really affected his memory and imagination, and became thence the parent of some few embellishments and episodes, I can neither wonder nor feel the interest of his narrative diminished.
Sept. 2.—Mr. Turbulent was in high rage that I was utterly invisible since my return from Cheltenham; he protested he had called seven times at my door without gaining admission, and never was able to get in but when Dr. Shepherd had led the way.
He next began a mysterious attack upon the proceedings of Cheltenham. He had heard, he said, strange stories of flirtations there. I could not doubt what he meant, but I would not seem to understand him: first, because I know not from whom he has been picking up this food for his busy spirit, since no one there appeared collecting it for him; and secondly, because I would not degrade an acquaintance which I must hope will prove as permanent as it is honourable, by conceiving the word flirtation to be possibly connected with it.
By every opportunity, in the course of the day, he renewed this obscure raillery; but I never would second it, either by question or retort, and therefore it cannot but die away unmeaningly as it was born. Some effect, however, it seems to have had upon him, who has withdrawn all his own heroics, while endeavouring to develop what I have received elsewhere.
Sept. 4.—To-day there was a Drawing-room, and I had the blessing of my dearest father while it lasted; but not solus; he was accompanied by my mother; and my dear Esther and her little innocent Sophy spent part of the time with us. I am to be god-mother to the two little ones, Esther’s and James’s. Heaven bless them!
We returned to Kew to a late dinner; and, indeed, I had one of the severest evenings I ever passed, where my heart took no share in unkindness and injustice. I was wearied in the extreme, as I always am on these drawing-room days, which begin with full hair-dressing at six o’clock in the morning, and hardly ever allow any breakfast time, and certainly only standing, except while frizzing, till the drawing-room commences; and then two journeys in that decked condition—and then another dressing, with three dressing attendances—and a dinner at near seven o’clock.
Yet, not having power to be very amusing after all this, I was sternly asked by Mrs. Schwellenberg, “For what I did not talk?”
I answered simply, “Because I was tired.”
“You tired!—what have you done? when I used to do so much more—you tired! what have you to do but to be happy:—have you the laces to buy? have you the wardrobe to part? have you—you tired? Vell, what will become next, when you have every happiness!—you might not be tired. No, I can’t bear It.”
This, and so much more than it would be possible to write, all uttered with a haughtiness and contempt that the lowest servant could not have brooked receiving, awoke me pretty completely, though before I was scarce able to keep my eyelids a moment open; but so sick I turned, that indeed it was neither patience nor effort that enabled me to hear her; I had literally hardly strength, mental or bodily, to have answered her. Every happiness mine!—O gracious heaven! thought I, and is this the companion of my leisure—the associate of my life! Ah, my dear friends, I will not now go on—I turn sick again.
Sept. 29.—The birth-day of our lovely eldest princess. It happens to be also the birth-day of Miss Goldsworthy; and her majesty, in a sportive humour, bid me, as soon as she was dressed, go and bring down the two “Michaelmas geese.” I told the message to the Princess Augusta, who repeated It in its proper words. I attended them to the queen’s dressing-room, and there had the pleasure to see the cadeaux presentations. The birth-days in this house are made extremely interesting at the moment, by the reciprocations of presents and congratulations in this affectionate family. Were they but attended with less of toil (I hate to add ette, for I am sure it is not little toil), I should like them amazingly.
Mrs. Schwellenberg has become both colder and fiercer. I cannot now even meet her eyes-they are almost terrifying. Nothing upon earth having passed between us, nor the most remote subject of offence having occurred, I have only one thing on which to rest my conjectures, for the cause of this newly-awakened evil spirit, and this is from the gentlemen. They had all of late been so wearied that they could not submit even for a quarter of an hour to her society: they had swallowed a dish of tea and quitted the room all in five minutes, and Colonel Goldsworthy in particular, when without any companion in his waiting, had actually always fallen asleep, even during that short interval, or at least shut his eyes, to save himself the toil of speaking.
This she brooked very ill, but I was esteemed innocent, and therefore made, occasionally, the confidant of her complaints. But lately, that she has been ill, and kept upstairs every night, she has always desired me to come to her as soon as tea was over, which, she observed, “need not keep me five minutes.” On the contrary, however, the tea is now at least an hour, and often more.
I have been constantly received with reproaches for not coming sooner, and compelled to declare I had not been sooner at liberty. This has occasioned a deep and visible resentment, all against them, yet vented upon me, not in acknowledged displeasure—pride there interfered—but in constant ill-humour, ill-breeding, and ill-will.
At length, however, she has broken out into one inquiry, which, if favourably answered, might have appeased all; but truth was too strongly in the way. A few evenings after her confinement she very gravely said, “Colonel Goldsworthy always sleeps with me! sleeps he with you the same?”
In the midst of all my irksome discomfort, it was with difficulty I could keep my countenance at this question, which I was forced to negative.
The next evening she repeated it. “Vell, sleeps he yet with you—Colonel Goldsworthy?”
“Not yet, ma’am,” I hesitatingly answered.
“O! ver vell! he will sleep with nobody but me! O, i von’t come down.”
And a little after she added, “I believe he vill marry you.”
“I believe not, ma’am,” I answered.
And then, very gravely, she proposed him to me, saying he only wanted a little encouragement, for he was always declaring he wished for a wife, and yet wanted no fortune—“so for what won’t you not have him?”
I assured her we were both perfectly well satisfied apart, and equally free from any thoughts of each other.
“Then for what,” she cried, “won’t you have Dr. Shepherd?” She Is now in the utmost haste to dispose of me! And then she added she had been told that Dr. Shepherd would marry me!
She is an amazing woman! Alas, I might have told her I knew too well what it was to be tied to a companion ill-assorted and unbeloved, where I could not help myself, to make any such experiment as a volunteer!
If she asks me any more about Colonel Goldsworthy and his sleeping, I think I will answer I am too near-sighted to be sure if he is awake or not!
However, I cannot but take this stroke concerning the table extremely ill; for though amongst things of the very least consequence in itself, it is more openly designed as an affront than any step that has been taken with me yet.
I have given the colonel a hint, however,-that he may keep awake in future....
Oct. 2.—Mrs. Schwellenberg, very ill indeed, took leave of the queen at St. James’s, to set off for Weymouth, in company with Mrs. Hastings. I was really very sorry for her; she was truly in a situation Of suffering, from bodily pain, the most pitiable. I thought, as I looked at her, that if the ill-humours I so often experience could relieve her, I would consent to bear them unrepining, in preference to seeing or knowing her so ill. But it is just the contrary; spleen and ill-temper only aggravate disease, and while they involve others in temporary participation of their misery, twine it around themselves in bandages almost stationary. She was civil, too, poor woman. I suppose when absent she could not well tell why she had ever been otherwise.
Oct. 9.—I go on now pretty well; and I am so much acquainted with my party, that when no strangers are added, I begin to mind nothing but the first entree of my male visitants. My royal mistress is all sweetness to me; Miss Planta is most kind and friendly; General Budé is ever the same, and ever what I do not wish to alter; Colonel Goldsworthy seems coming round to good-humour; and even General Grenville begins to grow sociable. He has quitted the corner into which he used to cast his long figure, merely to yawn and lounge; and though yawn and lounge he does still, and must, I believe, to the end of the chapter, he yet does it in society, and mixes between it loud sudden laughter at what is occasionally said, and even here and there a question relative to what is going forward. Nay-yesterday he even seated himself at the tea table, and amused himself by playing with my work-box, and making sundry inquiries about its contents.
Oct. 10.—This evening, most unwittingly, I put my new neighbour’s good-humour somewhat to the test. He asked me whether I had walked out in the morning? Yes, I answered, I always walked. “And in the Little park?” cried he. Yes, I said, and to Old Windsor, and round the park wall, and along the banks of the Thames, and almost to Beaumont Lodge, and in the avenue of the Great park, and in short, in all the vicinage of Windsor. “But in the Little park?” he cried.
Still I did not understand him, but plainly answered, “Yes, this morning; and indeed many mornings.”
“But did you see nothing—remark nothing there?”
“No, not that I recollect, except some soldiers drilling.” You never heard such a laugh as now broke forth from all for, alas for my poor eyes, there had been in the Little park General Grenville’s whole regiment, with all his officers, and himself at their head! Fortunately it is reckoned one of the finest in the king’s service: this I mentioned, adding that else I could never again appear before him.
He affected to be vehemently affronted, but hardly knew how, even in joke, to appear so; and all the rest helped the matter on, by saying that they should know now how to distinguish his regiment, which henceforth must always be called “the drill.”
The truth is, as soon as I perceived a few red-coats I had turned another way, to avoid being marched at, and therefore their number and splendour had all been thrown away upon me.
[Fanny’s vivid account of the king’s illness, from the autumn of 1788 to the spring of 1789, needs no recommendation to the reader. It requires only to be supplemented by a very brief sketch of the consequent proceedings in Parliament, which excited so much foolish indignation in the royal household, and in Fanny herself. That she should display more feeling than judgment under circumstances so affecting, was, perhaps, only to be expected, but it is none the less evident, from certain passages in the Diary, that the tainted Court atmosphere had already clouded, to some extent, her naturally clear understanding. The insanity of a sovereign is, to her, a purely private and personal matter, with respect to which the only business of the public is to offer up prayers for his majesty’s speedy recovery. That ministers should take steps to provide for the performance of the royal functions in government, during the period of the king’s incapacity, is an act of effrontery at which she wants words to express her indignation. Mrs. Schwellenberg, who thought it treason to say that the King was ever at all indisposed, was scarcely more unreasonable in this particular than Miss Fanny Burney, who shuddered, with sentimental horror, at the mention of a Regency Bill.
About the commencement of November, 1788, there was no longer any doubt as to the serious nature of the king’s malady. At the meeting of Parliament the prime minister, Mr. Pitt, Moved that a committee be appointed to examine the physicians attendant upon his majesty. This motion was agreed to, and on the 10th of December the report of the committee was laid upon the table of the House. The physicians agreed that his Majesty was then totally incapable of attending to public business. They agreed also in holding Out strong hopes of his ultimate recovery, but none of them would venture to give any opinion as to the probable duration of his derangement. Upon this, Mr. Pitt moved for a committee to examine and report upon such precedents as might be found of proceedings in cases of the interruption, from any cause, of the personal exercise of the royal authority. The motion was strenuously resisted by the opposition, headed by Mr. Fox, who argued that whenever the sovereign was incapacitated from performing the functions of his office, the heir-apparent, if of full age and capacity, had an inalienable right to act as his substitute. This doctrine seems certainly inconsistent with the liberal principles professed by the opposition, but it will be remembered that at this time the Prince of Wales was politically in alliance with that party, and that he was on terms of friendship with Mr. Fox himself. On the other hand, Pitt protested that in such circumstances the heir-apparent had no more claim to exercise, as a matter of right, the royal functions, than any other Subject of the crown; and that it belonged only to the two Houses of Parliament to make such provision for supplying the deficiency in the government as they should think proper. As to the person of the Regent there was no dispute; the question was, simply, whether the Prince of Wales should assume the Regency in his own right, or by the authority of Parliament.
Pitt’s motion being carried, the committee was accordingly appointed, and proceeded at once to make their examination and report. The prime minister then (December 16) moved two resolutions, declaring, firstly, that the king was incapable of performing the functions of his office, and, secondly, that it was the duty of Parliament to provide for the exercise of those functions. In spite of Fox’s opposition both resolutions were carried, and a third resolution was moved by Pitt, and passed (December 23), empowering the lord chancellor to affix the great seal to the intended Regency Bill.
Early in January, 1789, a fresh examination of the physicians was voted, but gave no more definite hopes of an early recovery. Pitt now wrote to the Prince of Wales, informing him of the plan intended to be pursued: that the prince should be invested with the authority of Regent, under certain restrictions, regarding especially the granting of peerages, offices, or pensions; and that the care of the king’s person and the control of the royal household should remain with the queen. The prince, in reply, expressed his readiness to accept the Regency, while protesting strongly against the proposed limitations of his authority; and on the 16th of January, a bill, in which the prime ministers scheme was embodied, was introduced into the House. The question was actively debated in both Houses, until, in the latter part of February, the king’s recovery put a stop to further proceedings.-ED.]
Kew, Friday, Oct. 17.—Our return to Windsor is postponed till to-morrow. The king is not well; he has not been quite well some time, yet nothing I hope alarming, though there is an uncertainty as to his complaint not very satisfactory; so precious, too, is his health.
Oct. 18.—The king was this morning better. My royal mistress told me Sir George Baker294 was to settle whether we returned to Windsor to-day or to-morrow.
Sunday, Oct. 19.—The Windsor journey is again postponed, and the king is but very indifferent. Heaven preserve him! there is something unspeakably alarming in his smallest indisposition. I am very much with the queen, who, I see, is very uneasy, but she talks not of it.
We are to stay here some time longer, and so unprepared were we for more than a day or two, that our distresses are prodigious, even for clothes to wear; and as to books, there are not three amongst us; and for company only Mr. de Luc and Miss Planta; and so, in mere desperation for employment, I have just begun a tragedy.295 We are now in so spiritless a situation that my mind would bend to nothing less sad, even in fiction. But I am very glad something of this kind has occurred to me; it may while away the tediousness of this unsettled, unoccupied, unpleasant period.
Oct. 20.—The king was taken very ill in the night, and we have all been cruelly frightened—but it went off, and, thank heaven! he is now better.
I had all my morning devoted to receiving inquiring visits. Lady Effingham, Sir George Howard, Lady Frances Howard, all came from Stoke to obtain news of the king; his least illness spreads in a moment. Lady Frances Douglas came also. She is wife of the Archibald Douglas who caused the famous Hamilton trial in the House of Peers, for his claim to the Douglas name.296 She is fat, and dunch, and heavy, and ugly; otherwise, they say, agreeable enough. Mr. Turbulent has been sent for, and he enlivens the scene somewhat. He is now all he should be, and so altered! scarce a flight left.
Oct. 21.—The good and excellent king is again better, and we expect to remove to Windsor in a day or two.
Oct. 23.—The king continues to mend, thank God! Saturday we hope to return to Windsor. Had not this composition fit seized me, societyless, and bookless, and viewless as I am, I know not how I could have whiled away my being; but my tragedy goes on, and fills up all vacancies.
Oct. 25.—Yesterday was so much the same, I have not marked it; not so to-day. The king was so much better that our Windsor journey at length took place, with permission of Sir George Baker, the only physician his majesty will admit. Miss Cambridge was with me to the last moment.
I have been hanging up a darling remembrance of my revered, incomparable Mrs. Delany. Her “Sacharissa” is now over my chimney. I could not at first bear it, but now I look at it, and call her back to my eye’s mind perpetually. This, like the tragedy I have set about, suits the turn of things in this habitation.
I had a sort of conference with his Majesty, or rather I was the object to whom he spoke, with a manner so uncommon, that a high fever alone could account for it, a rapidity, a hoarseness of voice, a volubility, an earnestness—a vehemence, rather—it startled me inexpressibly; yet with a graciousness exceeding even all I ever met with before—it was almost kindness!
Heaven—Heaven preserve him! The queen grows more and more uneasy. She alarms me sometimes for herself, at other times she has a sedateness that wonders me still more.
Sunday, Oct. 26-The king was prevailed upon not to go to chapel this morning. I met him in the passage from the queen’s room; he stopped me, and conversed upon his health near half-an-hour, still with that 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, yet certainly he is better than last night. Nobody speaks of his illness, nor what they think of it.
Oct. 29.—The dear and good king again gains ground, and the queen becomes easier.
To-day Miss Planta told me she heard Mr. Fairly was confined at Sir R——— F———‘s, and therefore she would now lay any wager he was to marry Miss F———.297
In the evening I inquired what news of him of General Budé: he told me he was still confined at a friend’s house, but avoided naming where—probably from suggesting that, however little truth there may yet have been in the report, more may belong to it from this particular intercourse.