[207] Thackeray: _The Four Georges_. George III created one order of Knighthood, that of St. Patrick in 1783, in the hope to conciliate the Irish, who, however, treated it with ridicule. "George sends his stars and garters to our land, We send him ropes to hang his pensioned band, And, having made the crew disgorge their pelf, He then may, if he pleases, hang himself." [208] _Georgiana._ George liked to think himself a patron of art and artists, but it is hinted he was not always inspired by the right motive, as when he found a place for Gibbon as a Lord of Trade: "King George in a fright, Lest Gibbon should write The Hist'ry of England's disgrace, Thought no way so sure His pen to secure As to give the historian a place." The royal patronage was certainly not exercised on the heroic scale. Thus, Richard Paton was commanded to bring to Kew for their Majesties' inspection naval pictures intended for St. Petersburg, and he obeyed the summons, at a cost of fifty pounds for carriage, for which he was repaid only with thanks; and it was the payment by the King of twenty-five pounds for a picture, the market price of which was four times that amount, painted by a friend of Dr. Wolcot, that brought down upon the monarch the many vigorous onslaughts by that keen though coarse satirist.[209] [209] Papendiek: _Journals_. On another occasion the Queen was persuaded to sit to young Thomas Lawrence. "The poor young fellow was naturally inexperienced in the ways of a Court, and the manner in which her Majesty treated him was not with her usual kind consideration. She declined to give him a last sitting for the ornaments, as it was too much trouble, but eventually was prevailed upon to allow Mrs. Papendiek to act as her deputy. No money was paid. The King told him to remove it to town, and have it engraved. When that was done, the portrait was to be sent to Hanover, and then the King proposed to pay. But Lawrence had no money, and could not risk the engraving at his own expense."[210] The picture, therefore, remained in his studio, and was sold with others after his death. [210] _Ibid._ Even royalty itself was not able to induce the King to put aside his dislike of spending money, for when the Empress of Russia asked for a portrait of himself by Reynolds, the monarch, with "laudable royal economy," as the satirist put it, went, not to Reynolds, but to an inexpensive portrait-painter. "I'm told, and I believe the story, That a fam'd Queen of Northern brutes, A gentlewoman of _prodigious_ glory, Whom every sort of epithet _well suits_; Whose husband _dear_, just happening to _provoke_ her, Was shov'd to heaven upon a _red-hot poker_! Sent to a _certain_ King, not King of _France_, Desiring by Sir Joshua's hand his phiz, What did the royal quiz? Why, _damned genteelly_, sat to Mr. Dance."[211]