Yet it was his good luck during the first years of his regency to be popular as few English kings have ever been. To his people he typified old England against revolutionary France; and his youth and gaiety made many like him. He drank and gambled; he kept packs of hounds and strings of horses; he ran deeply into debt that he might patronize the sports of that uproarious day. He was a gallant "Corinthian," a haunter of dens where there were prize-fights and cock-fights, and there was hardly a doubtful resort in London where his face was not familiar. He was much given to gallantry--not so much, as it seemed, for wantonness, but from sheer love of mirth and chivalry. For a time, with his chosen friends, such as Fox and Sheridan, he ventured into reckless intrigues that recalled the amours of his predecessor, Charles II. He had by no means the wit and courage of Charles; and, indeed, the house of Hanover lacked the outward show of chivalry which made the Stuarts shine with external splendor. But he was good-looking and stalwart, and when he had half a dozen robust comrades by his side he could assume a very manly appearance. Such was George IV. in his regency and in his prime. He made that period famous for its card-playing, its deep drinking, and for the dissolute conduct of its courtiers and noblemen no less than for the gallantry of its soldiers and its momentous victories on sea and land. It came, however, to be seen that his true achievements were in reality only escapades, that his wit was only folly, and his so-called "sensibility" was but sham. He invented buckles, striped waistcoats, and flamboyant collars, but he knew nothing of the principles of kingship or the laws by which a state is governed. The fact that he had promiscuous affairs with women appealed at first to the popular sense of the romantic. It was not long, however, before these episodes were trampled down into the mire of vulgar scandal. One of the first of them began when he sent a letter, signed "Florizel," to a young actress, "Perdita" Robinson. Mrs. Robinson, whose maiden name was Mary Darby, and who was the original of famous portraits by Gainsborough and Reynolds, was a woman of beauty, talent, and temperament. George, wishing in every way to be "romantic," insisted upon clandestine meetings on the Thames at Kew, with all the stage trappings of the popular novels--cloaks, veils, faces hidden, and armed watchers to warn her of approaching danger. Poor Perdita took this nonsense so seriously that she gave up her natural vocation for the stage, and forsook her husband, believing that the prince would never weary of her.