e grumbling sadly at that absence of supper), and get up quite
early the next morning, and perhaps the next night have another dance; or
the queen would play on the spinet--she played pretty well, Haydn said--or
the king would read to her a paper out of the _Spectator_, or perhaps one
of Ogden's sermons. O Arcadia! what a life it must have been! There used
to be Sunday drawing-rooms at Court; but the young king stopped these, as
he stopped all that godless gambling whereof we have made mention. Not
that George was averse to any innocent pleasures, or pleasures which he
thought innocent. He was a patron of the arts, after his fashion; kind and
gracious to the artists whom he favoured, and respectful to their calling.
He wanted once to establish an Order of Minerva for literary and
scientific characters; the knights were to take rank after the knights of
the Bath, and to sport a straw-coloured ribbon and a star of sixteen
points. But there was such a row amongst the _literati_ as to the persons
who should be appointed, that the plan was given up, and Minerva and her
star never came down amongst us.

He objected to painting St. Paul's, as Popish practice; accordingly, the
most clumsy heathen sculptures decorate that edifice at present. It is
fortunate that the paintings, too, were spared, for painting and drawing
were wofully unsound at the close of the last century; and it is far
better for our eyes to contemplate whitewash (when we turn them away from
the clergyman) than to look at Opie's pitchy canvases, or Fuseli's livid
monsters.

And yet there is one day in the year--a day when old George loved with all
his heart to attend it--when I think St. Paul's presents the noblest sight
in the whole world: when five thousand charity children, with cheeks like
nosegays, and sweet, fresh voices, sing the hymn which makes every heart
thrill with praise and happiness. I have seen a hundred grand sights in
the world--coronations, Parisian splendours, Crystal Palace openings,
Pope's chapels with their processions of long-tailed cardinals and
quavering choirs of fat soprani--but think in all Christendom there is no
such sight as Charity Children's Day. _Non Angli, sed angeli_. As one
looks at that beautiful multitude of innocents: as the first note strikes:
indeed one may almost fancy that cherubs are singing.

Of church music the king was always very fond, showing skill in it both as
a critic and a performer. Many stories, mirthful