onal liberty if the enthusiasm of
loyalty is to be visited as madness. For our part, we have the fullest
belief in the avowal of the poor man of the _Athenaeum_, that for half a
day he is--in fancy--watching the little Prince in Buckingham nursery; and
yet we see that men are deprived of enormous fortunes (we tremble for the
copyright of the _Athenaeum_) for indulging in stories, with equal
probability on the face of them. For instance, a few days since WEEKS, a
Greenwich pensioner, (being suddenly rich, the reporters call him _Mister_
WEEKS,) was fobbed out of 120,000l. for having boasted (among other
things) that he had had children by Queen ELIZABETH (by the way, the
virginity of Royal BETSY has before been questioned)--that he intended to
marry Queen VICTORIA, and that, in fact, not GEORGE THE THIRD but WEEKS
THE FIRST was the father of Queen CHARLOTTE'S offspring. Now, what is all
this, but loyalty _in excess_? Is it not precisely the same feeling that
takes the editor of the _Athenaeum_ half of every day from his family,
spellbinding him at the cradle of the Duke of CORNWALL? Cannot our readers
just as easily believe the pensioner as the editor? We can.

"He told me he was going to marry the Queen" (thus speaks Sir R. DOBSON,
chief medical officer of Greenwich Hospital, of poor WEEKS), "and _I had
him cupped_ and treated as an insane patient!" Can the editor hope to
escape blood-letting and a shaven head? "He told me he was going to dine
to-day at Buckingham Palace." Thus spoke WEEKS. "Half the day at least we
are in fancy at the Palace;" thus boasteth the _Athenaeum_. The pensioner
is found "incapable of managing himself or his affairs:" the editor
continues to review books and write articles! "He (WEEKS) also said he had
once horse-whipped a lion until it became afraid of him!" Where is
CARTER--where VAN AMBURGH, if not in Bedlam? Lucky, indeed, is it for the
editor of the _Athenaeum_ that his weekly miscellany (wherein he _thinks_
he sometimes horse-whips lions) is not quite worth 120,000l. Otherwise,
certain would be his summons to Gray's-inn.

We have rejoiced, as beseemed us, at the birth of the little Prince; it
now becomes our grave moral duty to read a lesson of forbearance to those
enthusiastic people who--especially if they have money--may by an excess
of the principle of loyalty put in peril their personal freedom. Let them
not take confidence from the safety enjoyed by the _Athenaeum_ editor--the
pove