The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-13 00:00:00

MR. THACKERAYS SECOND LECTURE.

(From the Scotsman.)
The second of the series of lectures on "The Four
Georges" was delivered on Friday last by Mr. Thacke-
ray in the Music Hall, to the members of the Philuso.
phical Institution and others. The audience was even
larger than on the previous occasion ; and, besides most
of the gentlemen who on Tuesday night accompanied
the' lecturer to the platform, there were the Lord Pro-
vost, Ic.z.y, the Dean of Guild, Professor Blackie,
Mr. R. Chambers, Z.:Lc.
Mr. TIIACKERAY was cheered upon his entrance. He
said--We may begin to-night's lecture, as a favourite
English novelist has sometimes been accustomed to
comcnence his pleasant rotnances, by saying that some
timo in the afternoon of the 14th day of June, 1727,
two horsemen might have been perceived galloping
along the road from Chelsea to Richmond. The fore-
most, cased in the jackboots of the period, was a broad-
faced, jolly-looking, and very corpulent cavalier; but
by the manner in which he guided his horse you might
see that he was a bold as well as skilful rider. Indeed,
no man loved sport better, and in hunting the fields of
Norfolk no squire rode more boldly after the fox, or
cheered Ringwood and Sweetlips more lustily. Thus he
introduced Sir Robert Walpole on his way to Richmond-
lodge, to announce to the Prince of Wales the des,' h of

bis—rOya.l father and his accession to the throne. " Dat
is von big lie," roared out his sacred Majesty when the
statesman, after having pushed his way to the bed-
chamber of the polite prince, communiotted the import-
ant tidings. George the Second hated Walpole ; and it
was thus that he received the great -Minister who, for
fifteen subsequent years, served him with admirable
prudence, fidelity, and success. But for Sir Robert
Walpole we should have bad the Stuarts back again ;
but for his love of peace we should have been involved
in a war which the nation was not strong enough to
have endured ; in religion he was better than a
heathen • he cracked ribald jokes at all the big-
wigs and bishops, and spent his Sundays tippling
with, courtiers at St. James's, or boozing with boors at
Houghton. He cared for letters no more than his master

did;--be judged human eature so meanly that we are
ashamed to own he was right. But with his hireling
Home of Commons he defended the liberty of the coun-
try ; with his incredulity he kept down priestcraft. He
gave Britain peace and freedom, the Three per Cents.
nearly at par, and wheat at five-a:Ai-twenty shillings a
quarter. The troubles of England after the Hanoverian
succession began with a king who had been born in the
country and a:pired to rule it. Toe love of the two fir,t.
Georges for Hanover was of great benefit to the country.
Under them the dangerous spirit of loyalty nearly passed
away, while the Fate churches, deprived of the sup-
port furnished by that spirit, almost emptied themselves,
George If. e7as a dull little man, of low tastes; yet
Lord Harvey tells uc that he was a great sentimen-
talist, and there truly must have been something
fascinating in the enormous private letters which be
wrote. His sentimentalities he kept, however, solely for
Germans. He did not hive the fine arts, or pretend to
do so ; be bad no more religion than his father, and made
even less profession. He was brave, however. At Det-

tingen and at Oademard he displayed famone pluck and
spin r. When the Pretender's troops were at Derby is
1745 he alone of all the Court did not look pale. Mr.
Thackeray said he was frigl'tened to look back at these
times. Lady Yarmouth bet a clergyman 5,0601. that
he should be made a bishop ; the clergyman obtained
his see, and pail her ladyship the wager. In St. James's
Chapel, the King was yawning under his canopy, and
chattering German as loud as the preacher, one Dr.
Young, who wrote poetry abou's stare, and who actually
burst into tors, because the Defender of the Faith and
dispenser of bishoprics would not listen to him. No
wonder that there should have been a Wilitfiel4 crying
in the wilderness, and a We3by quitting the insulted
temple do pray en the bill side. "Where," said the
lecturer, "iA the honest man, or' the pure person one
may look at in this Gain? There are some old-world
follies and some absurd ceremonials about our Court of
the present day that I laugh at ; but as an Englishman,

contraning it with the past, shall I not :Icknowledge tho
change of to-day ?As the mistress of St. James's passes
me now, I salute the Sovereign, wise, moderate, ewein-
pla,ry of life, the good mother, the good wife, the accom-
plished lady, the enlightened friend of art, the tender
sympathiser in her people's sorrows and glories." (Loud
and orJlong,!(.l applause.) Of all the Court of George
and Caroline Lady Suffoir wao the only one whocowd

be really liked. She was the patroness and friend of Gay.
Lord Peterborough, an indomitable youth of seventy
years, courted her in flaming epiAles of gallantry with all
the vast ceremonies of rapture then in vogue ; and she g.:,t
Gay to help her to write suitable replies to them. Pope
eulogised her in his fine rhymes (which the lecturer
quoted at 1..agt,11.) Beautiful, jolly Mary Bellenden liked
her, and in her c=eutric way offered her the chtic3 of
anything in her farm prAe,ce that she care:l to stick a

knife into. A jully:,etthese maids cf honour were ;

anti it was a merrier Enelaecl that of our ancestors than
that we now inhabit. "Tne people, high and low, amused
themselves much more ; and what with drinking, danc-
ing, and playing at cards, and ail sorts of games, the
how statesmen got through their work at
Fancy Lord Palmerston playing at " hockey in
St. Jeuies'e-patk; and Lord J. Ruse ell with his coat off
giving him back the balls ! When any one errzerteieed
his female friends he engaged a band of music to play to
them. Pea, Fielding, when be entertained two ladies
at his lodgings, sent out for a fiddler to play them old
times in all sorts of quaint minor keys, 'and the gentlr-
man led out the one I sly after the other, and eelernnly
danced with her. Every provincial town had its assem
bly rooms—out of which the great wen of Tiondon has
now slicked ad. the lite. Then came a brilliant picture
of Bath in the time of its glory, when all history bathed
there under the rule of Beau Nash, whose portrait graced
the pump-room between those of Newton and Pope..
" Wiedoni and wit but partly seen,
But folly at full length."
George the Second came there to drink the waters and
play cards. Chesterfield with his gout submitted to the
iron rules requiring shoes to be worn ; end only the old
rnad-cap Peterborough - had the audacity to walk about
in boots, with a cabbage under each arm, and a chicken
with its neck drawn, which he had been cheapening for
his dinner. Mary Wortley was there, young and beauti-
ful ; and Mary Wortley
, old, hideous, and snuffy. Horace
Walpole spent many aday there ; and there a Ong, lean,
gaunt figure, swathed in flannel, would pass by in a
chair, his bigh Roman nose, gleaming eye, and terrible
frown looking oat of tho window, and time who saw it
would say that was the great Commoner, Mr. Pitt.
One might meet
leaning on the arts of Quin,
going to call on Colonel RSrnollett,
ingworm, whose two negroes
were before the door practising upon the French horn.
It was impossible to recarthe social England of that day
without night fory
without fancying playing at cards.
hours kings and queens sat down and handled their
Mi
•es ties of spades and diamonds. Old Sarah Marl-
borough did not care for books ; she " knew only
men and cards." A lady writer of letters exclaimed,
lot of scandal cards keeps ns fr.,a
" What a Dr.
Johnson regretted that he had not learned to Play cards,
as he said "cards consolidate society ; and David attune
never went to bed without his rubber of whist. Bishops
and clergymen
played cards, and on Twelfth-day the Court
played cards in State.
Ceorge 11. paid back the dislikefor
thin s Germ
an which
liaalwaaseix,b—even existed in
for this
English
g
by a contempt for everything .2g
He kept continually
roast beef.
nobility, sports, and
running away to Germany
;an more than 60 years ofnd, notwithstanding his
promise to his dying wife, when
his Hauoverian Court
age, he might have been seen at
in masquerade guise,
which choked the old
capering like a Turk with Lady
Yarmouth. At length the fit came
man ; and in 1760, when the
The saute
page ondeealuie4rning took in
hie elioc.date,
h beholdh the
EKI fe: his father ; and
manrnieg eat. to he cone -arerig
parsons ereaebed .a77d pnetd earg the departed repro-
bate's excellences. One reverend di✓ins d
the.
his virtues- in- Terse, and, suairuiug up
he there
good he had done. and a;1 the, true
leasure
from derived, deelared tint " the next degree of apei
p
n." Was heaves." A king thus passed away, " wl"),
said Mr. Tnackeray, "had neither dioniry, 10,'"1
morals, nor wit, who tainted society by his bad exalull"
who was net a gotel hu,letral, who Weis net a gooj fa' her
to hie people or to his family, who fie yulati, manhood
and old age wail low anti sen-nal ; and Dr. Porteous says
tLeearth was not good enough fur him,
id that his pi o-
per place chid
was heaven. Bravo, doctor ! The divine who
wept these tears for George IL's memory wore George
lawn. I don't know whether people still admire
his poetry or his sermone."
Our distingui2bed visitor's lectures (rays the Scolsinan)
are so extremely popular—save, perhaps,
with fanatical
lovers of Queen Mary—that he has been induced to enter
into arrangements for the redelivery of the whole series
of the Four Georges. They are to, be repeated in the
QueeneetreeaHall on the evening of the 20th, 22d, 21th,
and 27th instant, under arrangereeeta which .will render
thorn accessible to a very wid! circle. We observe that
the Fife Herald says that ites pot!.hre give one of his
improbable that Mr.
Thant:dray may visit CdPari and
lectures on the Four George w.
s. e helie7e Mr. Than
keray has a 7:0 to give ono of them ia Dumfries