‘Thy lov’d ones fell around thee. ... Thou, meanwhile, Didst walk unconscious through thy royal towers, The one that wept _not_, in the tearful isle! · · · · · But who can tell what visions might be thine? The stream of thought, though broken, still was pure. Still on that wave the stars of Heaven might shine Where earthly image would no more endure. Nor might the phantoms to thy spirit known, Be dark or wild,—creations of Remorse,— Unstain’d by thee, the blameless Past had thrown No fearful shadows o’er the Future’s course.’ [Sidenote: AND HIS DEATH.] When GEORGE THE THIRD died at Windsor Castle, on the 29th of January, 1820, the public mourning was sincere. [Sidenote: 1820. January.] During its ten years of rule, the Regency had done very much to heighten and intensify regret for the calamity of 1810. The errors of the old monarch came, naturally, to be dwarfed to the view, when his private virtues acquired all the sharp saliency of contrast. Since his death, political writers have usually been somewhat harsh to his memory. But the verdict of history has not yet been given in. When the time for its delivery shall at length come, there will be a long roll of good deeds to set off against many mistakes in policy. Nor will the genuine piety, and the earnest conscientiousness of the individual man—up to the measure of the light vouchsafed to him—be forgotten in the preliminary summing up. What GEORGE THE THIRD did for Britain simply in conferring upon it the social blessings of a pure Court, and of a bright personal example, is best to be estimated by contemplating what, in that respect, existed before it, and also what came immediately after it. Comparisons of such a sort will serve, eventually, to better purpose than that of feathering the witty shafts of reckless satirists, whether in prose or in verse. Meanwhile, it is enough to say that no honester, no more God-fearing man, than was GEORGE THE THIRD, ever sat upon the throne of England. During all the time of his long illness, the King’s Library had continued, more or less, to grow. When he died, it contained sixty-five thousand two hundred and fifty volumes, besides more than nineteen thousand unbound tracts. [Sidenote: STATE OF THE KING’S LIBRARY IN JANUARY, 1820.] These have since been bound severally. The total number of volumes, therefore, which the Collection comprised was about eighty-four thousand. At the time of the King’s decease, the annual cost of books in progress, and of periodical works, somewhat exceeded one thousand pounds. The annual salaries of the staff—four officers and two servants—amounted to eleven hundred and seventy-one pounds. The Library occupied a fine and extensive suite of rooms in Buckingham Palace. One of them was large enough to make a noble billiard-room.