period in
England since the times of Charles II. The life of the regent was a
perpetual scandal, especially in his heartless treatment of women, and
the disgraceful revels in which he indulged.

The companions of the prince were mostly dissipated and ennuied
courtiers, as impersonated in that incarnation of dandyism who went by
the name of Beau Brummell,--a contemptible character, who yet, it seems,
was the leader of fashion, especially in dress, of which the prince
himself was inordinately fond. This boon companion of royalty required
two different artists to make his gloves, and he went home after the
opera to change his cravat for succeeding parties. His impertinence and
audacity exceeded anything ever recorded of men of fashion,--as when he
requested his royal master to ring the bell. Nothing is more pitiable
than his miserable end, deserted by all his friends, a helpless idiot in
a lunatic asylum, having exhausted all his means. Lord Yarmouth,
afterward the Marquis of Hertford, infamous for his debaucheries and
extravagance, was another of the prince's companions in folly and
drunkenness. So was Lord Fife, who expended L80,000 on a dancer; and a
host of others, who had, however, that kind of wit which would "set the
table on a roar,"--but all gamblers, drunkards, and sensualists, who
gloried in the ruin of those women whom they had made victims of their
pleasures.

But I pass by the revelries and follies of "the first gentleman" in the
realm, as he was called, to allude to one event which has historical
importance, and which occupied the attention of the whole country,--and
that was the persecution of his wife, who was also his cousin, Caroline
Amelia Elizabeth, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick. He drove her from
the nuptial bed, and from his palace. He sought also to get a divorce,
which failed by reason of the transcendent talents and eloquence of
Brougham and Denman, eminent lawyers whom she employed in her defence,
and which brought them out prominently before the eyes of the
nation,--for the great career of Brougham, especially, began with the
trial of Caroline of Brunswick, the unhappy woman whom the Prince of
Wales married to get relief from his pecuniary necessities, and whom he
insulted as soon as he saw her, although she was a princess of
considerable accomplishments, and as amiable as she was beneficent. The
only palliation of his infamous treatment of this woman was that he
never loved her, and was