For art George had some liking, thus forming an agreeable contrast to his two predecessors who detested "bainting and boetry," but unfortunately his taste was quite uninformed and his critical faculties negligible: he preferred Benjamin West to Reynolds, and Peter Pindar "wept over the hard fate of Prince Octavius and Prince Augustus, children of our Most Glorious Sovereign," whose portraits had, by royal command, been painted by West. "Ghost of Octavius! tell the bard, And thou, Augustus, us'd so _hard_, Why West hath murdered you, my tender lambs? You bring to mind vile Richard's deed, Who bid your royal cousins bleed, For which the world the tyrant's mem'ry damns. "West, I must own thou dost inherit Some portion of the painting spirit; But trust me--not extraordinary things-- _Some_ merit thou must surely own By getting up so near the throne, And gaining whispers from the best of Kings."[205] [205] _Lyric Odes to Royal Academicians._ The King also delighted in Beattie, who was his and his consort's favourite poet. "... Sweet Poesy exalts her voice, MacOssian sings, and Homer's halls rejoice, One lazy tenor Beattie's bag-pipe keeps, And tragic Home most lamentably weeps. The Monarch's favourites, and the Muses' too! 'Whawr, Bratons, whawr's yore _Woolly Shockspare noo_!'"[206] [206] _An Heroic Epistle to an Unfortunate Monarch._ "Peregrine the Elder," the author of the _Heroic Epistle_, assures his readers that the question asked in the last line was asked by a Scotchman at the first performance of Home's "Douglas." However, to the best of his ability, George admired, and if when shown some of Blake's drawings he cried, "What--what--what! Take them away, take them away!" and if he thought Shakespeare "sad stuff," on the other hand it is to his credit that he took much interest in the foundation of the Royal Academy, and, though he did not desire that Reynolds should be President, yet he sanctioned the appointment and knighted the painter. In his respect for letters he conceived the idea to establish an Order of Minerva for eminent writers and scientists. "The knights were to take rank after the Knights of the Bath, and to sport a straw-coloured ribbon and a star of sixteen points. But there was such a row among the _literati_ as to the persons who should be appointed, that the plan was given up, and Minerva and her star never came down amongst us."[207] He accumulated a fine library that George IV, when he found he might not sell it, gave to the British Museum; but he was probably entirely ignorant of his acquisitions, though he had a fondness for the exterior of books, and it is to his credit that he instructed his librarian "never to bid a farthing against a scholar, or professor, or against any person of moderate means, desiring a particular volume for his own use."[208]