persons in the land are standing ready,
like supers at the wings, to come on and please him! At Carlton House
there was a constant succession of wits. Minds were preserved for
the Prince of Wales, as coverts are preserved for him to-day. For him
Sheridan would flash his best bon-mot, and Theodore Hook play his most
practical joke, his swiftest chansonette. And Fox would talk, as only he
could, of Liberty and of Patriotism, and Byron would look more than ever
like Isidore de Lara as he recited his own bad verses, and Sir Walter
Scott would 'pour out with an endless generosity his store of old-world
learning, kindness, and humour.' Of such men George was a splendid
patron. He did not merely sit in his chair, gaping princely at their
wit and their wisdom, but quoted with the scholars and argued with
the statesmen and jested with the wits. Doctor Burney, an impartial
observer, says that he was amazed by the knowledge of music that the
Regent displayed in a half-hour's discussion over the wine. Croker says
that 'the Prince and Scott were the two most brilliant story-tellers,
in their several ways, he had ever happened to meet. Both exerted
themselves, and it was hard to say which shone the most.' Indeed His
Royal Highness appears to have been a fine conversationalist, with a
wide range of knowledge and great humour. We, who have come at length to
look upon stupidity as one of the most sacred prerogatives of Royalty,
can scarcely realise that, if Georges birth had been never so humble, he
would have been known to us as a most admirable scholar and wit, or as
a connoisseur of the arts. It is pleasing to think of his love for the
Flemish school of painting, for Wilkie and Sir Thomas Lawrence. The
splendid portraits of foreign potentates that hang in the Banqueting
Room at Windsor bear witness to his sense of the canvas. In his later
years he exerted himself strenuously in raising the tone of the drama.
His love of the classics never left him. We know he was fond of quoting
those incomparable poets, Homer, at great length, and that he was
prominent in the 'papyrus-craze.' Indeed, he inspired Society with
a love of something more than mere pleasure, a love of the 'humaner
delights.' He was a giver of tone. At his coming, the bluff, disgusting
ways of the Tom and Jerry period gave way to those florid graces that
are still called Georgian.

A pity that Georges predecessor was not a man, like the Prince Consort,
of strong chastenin