the right of the House of Commons to imprison him ; but at length force was employed, and on the 9th of April, he was conveyed to the Tower in a glass coach. London was in a state of riotous ferment for several days; the military were called out, and in their progress to or from the Tower, an unoffending person was killed by a musket shot, whilst standing in the shop of a tradesman in Fenchurch-street. Sir Francis was liberated on the 12th of the following June.

In May, 1812, Mr. Perceval the prime minister, as he was entering the lobby of the House of Commons, was shot by a person of the name of Bellingham, from some motive of private revenge. The murderer was brought to trial, condemned and executed. Mr. Perceval was succeeded as prime minister by the Earl of Liverpool.

BATTLE OF WATERLOO.-In the beginning of 1815, Buonaparte, who, after his late abdication, had been permitted, under restraint, to retire to the Island of Elba, suddenly escaped from that place, and landed in France, where he was received with acclamations by the army. He proceeded without opposition to Paris, from which the King, Louis the Eighteenth, had fled, and immediately resumed the government. The Allied Powers prepared to invade France; and Buonaparte proceeded with an army of a hundred and fifty thousand men, to meet them in the Netherlands, where the British and Prussian armies already were; the British under the command of the Duke of Wellington, whose glorious victories over Buonaparte and the French armies, on the continent of Europe, had resounded throughout the world, and the Prussians under Marshals Bulow and Blucher. After several encoun

ters on the 16th and 17th, a general battle took place on the 18th of June, near the village of Waterloo, in which, after a desperate conflict, which lasted the whole day, the French army was completely defeated, and Buonaparte with difficulty saved himself by flight. He returned to Paris, but finding his situation hopeless he endeavoured to escape to America. Finding himself unable to avoid an English ship of war, he gave himself up to the English captain, and was by the Allies sent to the Island of St. Helena, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, where he remained till his death, on the 5th of May, 1821. King Louis returned to Paris, and a new treaty of peace was concluded.

DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. In 1816, the Princess Charlotte of Wales, the heiress apparent to the crown of Great Britain, was married to the Prince Leopold of Saxe Cobourg. This union, in all respects a most happy one, was terminated by the death of the princess. She expired on the 6th of November, 1817; an event which was deeply lamented throughout the kingdom. Indeed the whole British nation mourned over this event, as one connected with domestic feelings. All public avocations, whether of business or pleasure, were suspended. In the metropolis the shutters of the principal shops were closed for the whole interval between the decease of the princess and her interment. Every person was intent on displaying the cause of public sorrow as that of his own bosom. The distress and consternation of the royal family was indeed extreme. Intelligence of the afflictive event reached the Prince Regent, her father, whilst he was engaged in a festive party at Sudbourn Hall, in Suffolk; and we may easily suppose that he received the

melancholy tidings with pungent distress. The queen was at Bath when the tidings arrived. All the gaieties connected with her visit to that city, were immediately suspended; and her majesty, on receiving the awful intelligence, retired to solitude and reflection. The Princess was interred in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

The day of the funeral was one of general mourning throughout the empire. It was, indeed, as it has been aptly described, "A day of voluntary humiliation and prayer, of cessation from business, and of sad and silent reflection on the instability of human greatness, and of all sublunary hopes."

"Now sear'd within the sad funereal urn,
With sable blazonry they bear the corse
Of lov'd Augusta to the mould'ring tomb;
The bell (dire harbinger of Albion's loss),
Responsive thrills through every Briton's heart,
And tells in solemn strains our princess dead.
Britannia weeps, and o'er the hallow'd spot
In pensive anguish heaves the bitter sigh!"

Her royal highness was in the 22nd year of her age. Her brief and innocent life made a deep impression upon the people over whom she appeared once destined to preside; and exhibited, in a striking point of view, the loveliness of moral excellence, and the proof that personal happiness and public esteem are most readily to be attained by the exercise of domestic virtues.

The Queen died on the 17th of November, 1818, at Kew Palace, and was buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

The year 1820 had scarcely commenced when the British nation was once more involved in mourning, by the death of an amiable prince, and an aged and be

loved monarch. His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, the father of her present majesty, died at Sidmouth in Devonshire, on the 23rd of January; and the king, his father, died on the 29th of the same month at Windsor Castle, in the eighty-second year of his age, and the sixtieth of his reign.

XXXIII.

CHARACTER OF GEORGE THE FOURTH.

GEORGE THE FOURTH possessed, especially in the early part of his life, a graceful and handsome person, remarkably fine eyes, dark hair, and an engaging open countenance, that commanded esteem and admiration. He was noble and majestic in appearance, finely shaped, and had a robust and healthy constitution. His mental faculties were of the highest order; courteous, affable, and eloquent, he excelled in the powers of conversation, and was unequalled in elegance of manners, refinement, and personal address. In the cabinet he displayed all the abilities of a politician with the discernment and sagacity of a legislator. He was, however, fond of show and parade, and much addicted to pleasure and extravagance, but at the same time, a munificent patron of the arts and men of letters. That this monarch possessed many faults, the common lot of mortals, cannot be questioned; but that he also possessed many shining virtues, must as readily be admitted.

HISTORICAL EVENTS.

His majesty King George the Fourth succeeded to the throne on the 29th of January, 1820; but as the next day was Sunday and the anniversary of the martyrdom of Charles the First, he was not proclaimed till the 31st. On that day, however, his accession was publicly announced in London and Westminster, with the usual solemnities.

Immediately after the king's accession a plot was discovered, the object of which was to assassinate the whole of the cabinet ministers. At the head of this conspiracy was one Arthur Thistlewood, a man who had long rendered himself conspicuous by his inflammatory speeches at public meetings, and who had already been tried for high treason, but acquitted. The place of rendezvous was a loft over a stable in Cato Street, Edgeware Road, whence the conspirators were to proceed armed with muskets, pistols, swords, pikes, and hand-grenades, to the house of Lord Harrowby, where the cabinet ministers were to dine. One of them was to procure admittance as the bearer of some despatches, and the rest in a body were to rush forward, and commence their work of destruction. The whole of their plans, however, had been revealed to the privy council, and at the very juncture when their plot was ripe for execution, a strong body of police officers, aided by a party of the foot-guards, proceeded to Cato Street, and after an obstinate resistance, in which one of the police officers was killed, nine of the conspirators were secured. Thistlewood contrived to escape in the confusion, but was afterwards discovered and taken prisoner.