The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II
General
The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II
Literature -- Collections
The deaths of kings travel so much faster than any post, that I can
not expect to tell you news, when I say your old master is dead. But I
can pretty well tell you what I like best to be able to say to you on
this occasion, that you are in no danger. Change will scarce reach to
Florence when its hand is checked even in the capital. But I will
move a little regularly, and then you will form your judgment more
easily.
This is Tuesday; on Friday night the King went to bed in perfect
health, and rose so the next morning at his usual hour of six; he
called for and drank his chocolate. At seven, his _valet de chambre_
heard a groan. He ran in, and in a small room between the closet and
bed-chamber he found the King on the floor, who had cut the right side
of his face against the edge of a bureau, and who after a gasp
expired. Lady Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess Amelia; but
they only told the latter that the King was ill and wanted her. She
had been confined some days with a rheumatism, but hurried down, ran
into the room without further notice, and saw her father extended on
the bed. She is very purblind, and more than a little deaf. They had
not closed his eyes; she bent down close to his face, and concluded he
spoke to her, tho she could not hear him--guess what a shock when she
found the truth.
She wrote to the Prince of Wales--but so had one of the _valets de
chambre_ first. He came to town, and saw the Duke [of Cumberland] and
the Privy Council. He was extremely kind to the first--and in general
has behaved with the greatest propriety, dignity, and decency. He read
his speech to the Council with much grace, and dismissed the guards on
himself to wait on his grandfather's body. It is intimated, that he
means to employ the same ministers, but with reserve to himself of
more authority than has lately been in fashion. The Duke of York and
Lord Bute are named of the Cabinet Council. The late King's will is
not yet opened. To-day everybody kissed hands at Leicester House, and
this week, I believe, the King will go to St. James's. The body has
been opened; the great ventricle of the heart had burst. What an
enviable death! In the greatest period of the glory of this country,
and of his reign, in perfect tranquillity at home, at seventy-seven,
growing blind and deaf, to die without a pang, before any reverse of
fortune, or any distasted peace, nay, but two days before a ship-load
of bad news: could he have chosen such another moment?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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