unties and great unrepresented towns. All these motions were defeated
by larger or smaller majorities, but no one doubted that parliamentary
reform was inevitable, and few can have imagined that Wellington was
either willing or competent to grapple with it.

While domestic affairs were in this state, George IV. died. His
constitution, weakened by many years of self-indulgence, had been
further depressed by a growing sense of loneliness and by the long
struggle with his ministers over catholic emancipation. On April 15 his
illness had been made public, and on May 24 it had been necessary to
bring in a bill, authorising the use of a stamp, to be affixed in his
presence in lieu of the royal sign manual. A month later, the disease of
the heart from which he suffered took a fatal turn, and on June 26 he
passed away, not without dignity, in the sixty-eighth year of his age.
Perhaps no other English king has been so harshly judged by posterity,
nor is it possible to acquit him of moral vices which outweighed all his
merits, considerable as they were. The Duke of Wellington, who knew him
as well as any man, declared that he was a marvellous compound of
virtues and defects, but that, on the whole, the good elements
preponderated. Peel, who had become by his father's death Sir Robert,
testified in Parliament that he "never exercised, or wished to exercise,
a prerogative of the crown, except for the advantage of his people".
These estimates assuredly err on the side of charity, and are quite
inconsistent with other statements of the duke himself.

George IV., it is true, possessed many royal gifts. He was a man of no
ordinary ability, with a fine presence, courtly manners, various
accomplishments, and clear-sighted intelligence on every subject within
the sphere of his duties. But all these kingly qualities were marred by
a heartlessness which rendered him incapable of true love or friendship,
and a duplicity which made it impossible for him to retain the respect
of his ministers. His private life was not wholly unlike that of the
Regent Orleans and had much the same influence on the society of the
metropolis. He was an undutiful son, a bad husband, a perfidious friend,
with little sense of truth or honour, and destitute of that public
spirit which atoned for the political obstinacy of his father. No one
sincerely regretted his death, except the favourites who had been
enriched by his extravagance, and actually succeeded in carryi