1745.

HOW LONDON FELT.

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of the Pretender's march past General Cope, and very gloomy forebodings for the result. Another letter, which talks of the Pretender as 'the Boy' and of King George 'as the person most concerned,' presents the Hanoverian Elector as making very little of the invasion, answering all the alarms of his ministers by 'Pho, don't talk to me of that stuff.' Walpole's spirits had risen within the week, for he is much amused by the story that 'every now and then a Scotchman comes and pulls the Boy by the sleeve, "Preence, here is another mon taken," then, with all the dignity in the world, the Boy hopes nobody was killed in the action.'

London at large vacillated very much as Horace Walpole vacillated. While on the one side Jacobites began to come out of the corners in which they had long lain concealed, and to air their opinions in the free sunlight, rejoicing over the coming downfall of the House of Hanover, authority, on the other hand, busied itself in ordering all known Papists to leave the capital, in calling out the Train bands, in frequently and foolishly shutting the gates of Temple Bar, and, which was better and wiser, in making use of Mr. Henry Fielding to write stinging satires upon the Pretender and his party, and hint at the sufferings which were likely to fall upon London when the Highlanders imported their national complaint into the capital. A statesman is reported to have said that this disagreeable jest about the itch was worth two regiments of horse to the cause of the Government.

Yet, if London was excited, there was a tranquil

London as well. Mr. George Augustus Sala in that brilliant novel of his, 'The Adventures of Captain Dangerous,' draws a vivid picture of this London with the true artist touch. Although from day to day we people in London knew not whether before the sunset the dreaded pibrochs of the Highland Clans might not be heard at Charing Cross-although, for aught men knew, another month, nay, another week, might see King George the Second toppled from his throne -yet to those who lived quiet lives and kept civil tongues in their heads all things went on pretty much as usual... That there was consternation at St. James's, with the King meditating flight, and the Royal family in tears and swooning, did not save the little schoolboy a whipping if he knew not his lesson after morning call. . . . So, while all the public were talking about the Rebellion, all the world went nevertheless to the playhouses, where they played loyal pieces, and sang "God save great George, our King" every night; as also to balls, ridottos, clubs, masquerades, drums, routs, concerts, and Pharaoh parties. They read novels and flirted their fans, and powdered and patched themselves, and distended their petticoats with hoops, just as though there were no such persons in the world as the Duke of Cumberland and Charles Edward Stuart.' Fiction, that most faithful and excellent handmaiden of history, here shows us no doubt very vividly what London as a whole thought and did in face of the Rebellion. It is an old story. Were not the Romans in the theatre when the Goths came over

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OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

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the hills? Did not the theatres flourish, never better, during the Reign of Terror?

Nor was London the only place which displayed a well-nigh stoical indifference to the progress of the rebellion. If Oxford had a good deal of Jacobitis m hidden decorously away in its ancient colleges, if there were a good many disloyal toasts drunk in the seclusion of scholastic rooms, there was apparently only a feeling of curious indifference at the rival university, for Gray has put it on record that at Cambridge they had no more sense of danger than if it were the battle of Cannæ,' and we learn that some grave Dons actually were thinking of driving to Camford to see the Scotch troops march past, 'as though they were volunteers out for a sham fight, or a circus procession.'

CHAPTER XXXVI.

CULLODEN-AND AFTER.

THE Prince did not know, and could not know, the exact condition of things in the capital; did not know, and could not know, how many elements of that condition told in his favour, and how many against. But what he could know, what he did know, was this. He was at the head of a devoted army, which if it was small had hitherto found its career marked by triumph after triumph. He was in the heart of England, and had already found that the Stuart war-cry was powerful enough to rally many an English gentleman to his standard. Sir Walter Williams Wynn, whom men called the King of Wales, was on his way to join the Prince of Wales. So was Lord Barrymore, the member of Parliament; so was many another gallant gentleman of name, of position, of wealth. Manchester had given him the heroic, the ill-fated, James Dawson, and a regiment three hundred strong. Lord James Drummond had landed at Montrose with men, money, and supplies. The Young Chevalier's troops were eager to advance; they were flushed with victories; their hearts were high; they believed, in the wild Gaelic way, in the sanctity of

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THE FATAL RETREAT.

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their cause, they believed that the Lord of Hosts was on their side, and such a belief strengthened their hands. For a prince seeking his principality it would seem that there was one course, and one only, to pursue. He might go on and take it, and win the great game he played for; or, failing that, he might die as became a royal gentleman, sword in hand and fighting for his rights. The might-have-beens are indeed for the most part a vanity, but we can fairly venture to assert now that if Charles had pushed on he would, for the time at least, have restored the throne of England to the House of Stuart. We may doubt, and doubt with reason, whether any fortuitous succession of events could have confirmed the Stuart hold upon the English crown; but we can scarcely doubt that the hold would have been for the time established, that the Old Pretender would have been King James the Third, and that George the Elector would have been posting bag and baggage to the rococo shades of Herrenhausen. But, as we have said, failing that, if Charles had fallen in battle at the head of his defeated army, how much better that end would have been than the miserable career which was yet to lend no tragic dignity to the prolonged, pitiful, pitiable life of the Young Pretender!

However, for good or evil, the insane decision was made. Charles's council of war were persistent in their arguments for retreat. There were thirty thousand men in the field against them. If they were defeated they would be cut to pieces, and the Prince, if he escaped slaughter, would only escape it to die