our {184} Benjamin West (in which, art-heresy of the time he had excellent company), better than the rare sweet faces of Reynolds, or the picturesqueness of Gainsborough. He was English in his speech (though familiar with French and German); English, too, in his contempt for the mere graces of oratory; loving better point-blank talk, fired with interrogation points and interjections. Mme. d'Arblay, whose acquaintance we made, makes us a party to some of this talk:--"And so you wrote 'Evelina,' eh? and they didn't know; what--what? You didn't tell? eh? And you mean to write another--eh--what?" Yet withal, Dr. Franklin--whose name is entered in the London Directory of 1770, as "Agent for Pennsylvania," Craven Street, Strand--says of the king: "I can scarcely conceive a man of better disposition, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of his subjects." Ten years later, I think Dr. Franklin would have qualified the speech. But he never could have gainsaid the exemplary virtues of that quiet household--where king and {185} queen lived like Darby and Joan--going before light through the chilly corridors to morning prayers; with early dinners, no suppers, no gambling, no painted women coming between them. Yet the king, as he grew old, loved plays and farces, and used to laugh obstreperously at them, till Charlotte would tap him with her fan and pray his majesty to be "less noisy." He knew genealogies and geography; he could talk with courtiers about their aunts and cousins, and stepfathers and mothers-in-law--which is a great lift to conversation for some minds. He knew all parts of his establishment--who cleaned the silver and the brass; and what both cost. Like all such meddling, fussy masters of households, he believed himself always right; prayed himself into accessions of that belief: and on that belief went on pounding and pumelling the American branch of his family into a state that proved explosive. In short he was one of those methodic, obstinate, sober, stiffly religious, conventional, straight backed, economic, terrific, excellent men whom we all like to look at, and read about, rather than to live with. {186} As a school-master he would have set the old lessons in Cocker (if it were Cocker) and recognized nothing better; and if the sums were not done, you would hear of it. "What, what? not done? sums not done!" and then the old red ruler, and the hand put out, and a spat, and another spat. This was George III. "Those colonists not going to pay taxes, eh? and throwing tea into Boston harbor? What--what? Zounds--punish the rebels. Punish 'em well! I'll teach 'em. Flinging tea overboard--what--eh?"