Genius has wasted itself again and again in
the attempt fittingly to describe him. To Byron he became "the fourth of
the fools and oppressors called George." Moore immortalized his
"nothingness" as a "sick epicure's dream, incoherent and gross." Leigh
Hunt went to prison for calling him a "fat Adonis of fifty." Landor, in
an epigram on himself and his royal namesakes as bitter as four biting
lines could be, could find nothing more bitter than to record his descent
from earth, and thankfulness to Heaven that with him the Georges had come
to an end. Thackeray abandoned in despair the task of doing justice to
his existence. "I own I once used to think it would be good sport to
pursue him, fasten on him, and pull him down. But now I am ashamed to
mount and lay good dogs on, to summon a full field, and then to hunt the
poor game."

When Pitt became Prime Minister the Prince of Wales was in Opposition,
because he was opposed to his father. He imagined himself to be the
friend of Fox, of Sheridan, of Burke, because Fox and Sheridan and Burke
were unpopular with the King. His career had been one of debt and
drunkenness, of mean amours and degrading pleasures, when the son of
Chatham passed from his studious youth to the control of the destinies of
England. Pitt was called upon and refused to consent to a Parliamentary
appeal to the King for the payment of the Prince's debts. Pitt could
feel no courtier's sympathy for the unnatural son, for the faithless
Florizel of foolish Perdita Robinson, for the perjured husband of Mrs.
Fitzherbert. There can be no doubt that in the December of 1785 the
Prince of Wales went through a ceremony of marriage, which could not
under the conditions constitute a legal marriage, with Mrs. Fitzherbert,
a beautiful young woman of a little more than twenty-nine years of age,
who had twice been widowed {243} and was a member of the Roman Catholic
faith. The town soon rang with gossip, and what was gossip in the
drawing-rooms threatened to become a matter for "delicate investigation"
in the House of Commons. The denial given by Fox in Parliament on the
authority of the Prince of Wales practically ended any attempt at public
inquiry, and almost broke the heart of Mrs. Fitzherbert. To her the
Prince of course promptly disavowed Fox, with whom she immediately broke
off all friendship. Fox himself, indignant at the Prince's falsehood and
at the base use which had been made of his voice, shunned