It is curious to remember that the accession of George {5} the Third was generally and joyfully welcomed. A hopeful people, having endured with increasing dislike two sovereigns of the House of Hanover, were quite prepared to believe that a third prince was rich in all regal qualities; in all public and private virtues. It would, perhaps, have been unreasonable on the part of any dispassionate observer of public affairs to anticipate that a third George would make a worse monarch than his namesakes and immediate predecessors. The dispassionate observer might have maintained that there were limits to kingly misgovernment in a kingdom endowed with a Constitution and blessed with a measure of Parliamentary representation, and that those limits had been fairly reached by the two German princes who ruled reluctantly enough over the fortunes of England. This same dispassionate observer might reasonably, assuming him to possess familiar knowledge of certain facts, have hazarded the prediction that George the Third would be a better king than his grandfather and his great-grandfather. He was certainly a better man. There was so much of a basis whereupon to build a hope of better things. The profligacy of his ancestors had not apparently vitiated his blood and judgment. His young life had been a pure life. He was in that way a pattern to princes. He had been, which was rare with his race, a good son. He was to be--and there was no more rare quality in one of his stock--a good husband, a good father. He was in his way a good friend to his friends. He was sincerely desirous to prove himself a good king to his people.