d see that everything should be neatly adjusted.
Every man had to shift for himself and, consequently, men were, as Mr.
Clement Scott would say, manly, and women, as Mr. Clement Scott would
say, womanly. In those days, a young man of wealth and family found
open to him a vista of such licence as had been unknown to any since
the barbatuli of the Roman Empire. To spend the early morning with his
valet, gradually assuming the rich apparel that was not then tabooed
by a hard sumptuary standard; to saunter round to Whites for ale and
tittle-tattle and the making of wagers; to attend a 'drunken dejeuner'
in honour of 'la tres belle Rosaline or the Strappini; to drive some
fellow-fool far out into the country in his pretty curricle, 'followed
by two well-dressed and well-mounted grooms, of singular elegance
certainly,' and stop at every tavern on the road to curse the host for
not keeping better ale and a wench of more charm; to reach St. James's
in time for a random toilet and so off to dinner. Which of our dandies
could survive a day of pleasure such as this? Which would be ready,
dinner done, to scamper off again to Ranelagh and dance and skip and sup
in the rotunda there? Yet the youth of that period would not dream
of going to bed or ever he had looked in at Crockford's--tanta lubido
rerum--for a few hours' faro.

This was the kind of life that young George found opened to him, when,
at length, in his nineteenth year, they gave him an establishment in
Buckingham House. How his young eyes must have sparkled, and with what
glad gasps must he have taken the air of freedom into his lungs!
Rumour had long been busy with the damned surveillance under which his
childhood had been passed. A paper of the time says significantly that
'the Prince of Wales, with a spirit which does him honour, has three
times requested a change in that system.' King George had long postponed
permission for his son to appear at any balls, and the year before had
only given it, lest he should offend the Spanish Minister, who begged
it as a personal favour. I know few pictures more pathetic than that of
George, then an overgrown boy of fourteen, tearing the childish frill
from around his neck and crying to one of the Royal servants, 'See how
they treat me! 'Childhood has always seemed to me the tragic period of
life. To be subject to the most odious espionage at the one age when you
never dream of doing wrong, to be deceived by your parents, thwarted of