George urges that, whilst his next brother, the Duke of York, commanded
the army, and the younger branches of the family were either generals
or lieutenant-generals, he, who was Prince of Wales, remained colonel of
dragoons. And herein, could he have known it, lay the right limitation
of his life. As Royalty was and is constituted, it is for the younger
sons to take an active part in the services, whilst the eldest son is
left as the ruler of Society. Thousands and thousands of guineas were
given by the nation that the Prince of Wales, the Regent, the King,
might be, in the best sense of the word, ornamental. It is not for
us, at this moment, to consider whether Royalty, as a wholly Pagan
institution, is not out of place in a community of Christians. It is
enough that we should inquire whether the god, whom our grand-fathers
set up and worshipped and crowned with offerings, gave grace to his
worshippers.

That George was a moral man, in our modern sense, I do not for one
moment pretend. It were idle to deny that he was profligate. When he
died there were found in one of his cabinets more than a hundred locks
of women's hair. Some of these were still plastered with powder and
pomatum, some were mere little golden curls, such as grow low down
upon a girl's neck, others were streaked with grey. The whole of this
collection subsequently passed into the hands of Adam, the famous Scotch
henchman of the Regent. In his family, now resident in Glasgow, it is
treasured as an heirloom. I myself have been privileged to look at all
these locks of hair, and I have seen a clairvoyante take them one by
one, and, pinching them between her lithe fingers, tell of the love
that each symbolised. I have heard her tell of long rides by night, of a
boudoir hung with grass-green satin, and of a tryst at Windsor; of one,
the wife of a hussar at York, whose little lap-dog used to bark angrily
whenever the Regent came near his mistress; of a milkmaid who, in her
great simpleness, thought her child would one day be King of England;
of an arch-duchess with blue eyes, and a silly little flautist from
Portugal; of women that were wantons and fought for his favour, great
ladies that he loved dearly, girls that gave themselves to him humbly.
If we lay all pleasures at the feet of our Prince, we can scarcely hope
he will remain virtuous. Indeed, we do not wish our Prince to be an
examplar of godliness, but a perfect type of happiness. It may be
foolish