Another remark made by GEORGE THE THIRD during this conversation deserves to be remembered. ‘I wish,’ said he, ‘that we could have a really well-executed body of British Biography.’ This was a desideratum in the seventh year of the old King, and it is a desideratum still in the thirty-fourth year of his granddaughter. The reign of Queen VICTORIA was comparatively young when the late Mr. MURRAY first announced, not without some flourish of trumpets, a forthcoming attempt at such a labour, but the little that was said as to the precise plan and scope of the work then contemplated, gave small promise of an adequate performance; and hitherto there has been no performance at all. [Sidenote: THE KING’S CONVERSATION WITH DR. BEATTIE;] Six years after the interview with JOHNSON, another literary conversation, of which we have a record, was held in the Royal Library. But on this occasion the scene was Kew. Dr. BEATTIE’S fame is now a thing of the past. There is still, however, some living interest in the account of the talk between the author of _The Minstrel_ and his sovereign, held in 1773, [Sidenote: 1773. August.] about liturgies, [Sidenote: Forbes, _Life of Beattie_, vol. i, pp. 347–354.] about prayers occasional and prayers _ex tempore_, and about the methods of education adopted in the Scottish universities. The King’s least favourable—but not least characteristic—appearance, as a talker on literary subjects, is made in that conversation with Miss BURNEY, [Sidenote: AND WITH MISS BURNEY.] in which he uttered his often-quoted remark on SHAKESPEARE:—‘Was there ever such stuff as great part of _Shakespeare_—only one must not say so?’ [Sidenote: 1785. December.] The sense of the humorous seems in GEORGE III to have been wholly lacking. And some part of the sadness of his life has probably a vital connexion with that deficiency. In the last-mentioned conversation, the King evinced considerable acquaintance with French literature. He shared, to some extent, the then very general admiration for ROUSSEAU, on whom he had bestowed more than one act of kindness during the brief English exile of the author of _Emile_. [Sidenote: D’Arblay, _Diary_, vol. ii, pp. 395–398.] He shared, also, the common impression as to the absence of gratitude in the brilliant Frenchman’s character. When Miss BURNEY told him that his own portrait had been seen to occupy the most conspicuous place in ROUSSEAU’S living-room after his return to France, the King was both surprised and touched. Next after the large and choice acquisitions made for the King’s Library on the Continent, some of its most conspicuous and valuable literary treasures were acquired at the several sales, in London, of the Libraries of James WEST (1773), of John RATCLIFFE (1776), and of Richard FARMER (1798). It was at the first of these sales that GEORGE THE THIRD laid the foundation of his unequalled series of the productions of the father of English printing.