[Illustration: Drop-F]rom the year 1751 to the coronation of George III. (1761), the London Parliament and the London newspapers were the sole sources from which the metropolitan Jacobites, who were not ‘in the secret,’ could obtain any information. There were two events in the earlier year which in some degree interested the Jacobite party. The first was the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. His way of life has been mercilessly censured, but, considering the standard of morals of his time, it was not worse than that of contemporary princes. It was quite as pure as that of Charles Edward (the Jacobite ‘Prince of Wales’), with whom ultra-Tories disparagingly compared him. Many lies were told of him, cowardly defamers knowing that a prince cannot stoop to defend himself from calumny. It was assumed that he was of the bad quality of the worthless, scampish men who were among his friends. The assumption was not altogether unjustifiable. ‘He possessed many amiable qualities,’ said Mrs. Delany, speaking for the aristocracy. ‘His condescension was such that he kept very bad company,’ said a May Fair parson on the part of the church. The well-known Jacobite epigram not only refused to be sorry at his death, but declared that had it been the whole royal generation, it would have been so much the better for the nation. The press chronicled the event without comment. On ‘Change, the Jacobites openly said, ‘Oh, had it only been the butcher!’ A few weeks later everybody was drinking ‘the Prince of Wales’――George or Charles Edward. [Sidenote: _DEATH OF GREAT PERSONAGES._] The other death was that of Viscount Bolingbroke, which occurred in the last month of the year 1751. Bubb Dodington reflected the general indifference, by the simple entry in his Diary, ‘Dec. 12. This day died Lord Bolingbroke.’ The newspapers said little more of the pseudo-Jacobite than they had said of the prince. It amounted to the sum of Mrs. Delany’s testimony, and ‘_she_ remembered Lord Bolingbroke’s person; that he was handsome, had a fine address, but that he was a great drinker, and swore terribly.’ His own treachery to the Chevalier de St. George caused more than one honest Jacobite to be suspected of treason to his lawful king. He made the name odious, and almost warranted the assertion of Burgess (an old divine, a familiar friend of the St. John family), who declared in all good faith, that God ever hated Jacobites, and therefore He called Jacob’s sons by the name of Israelites! [Sidenote: _THE NEW HEIR TO THE THRONE._]