the most favourable opportunity, suddenly brought the fool’s cap from behind him, and endeavoured to fix it on the head of Lord Ligonier; but the old soldier who, by one glorious action at Laffeldt, had disconcerted all the projects of Marshal Saxe, was not to be foiled by a foolish prince. As soon as his eye caught sight of the cap, his hand was upon it, and almost as soon it lay crumpled up beneath his feet. His sudden action nearly threw the Prince out of his equilibrium; and leaving that illustrious fool’s-cap maker to recover himself as he best might, the old warrior quitted the apartment with a smile of scorn upon his lip. Turning now from the Envoy from, to the King of, England, I may observe that the greatest opportunity for court fools to exhibit their wit or slyness, occurred when great political events were passing before them. They were then the merry scholiasts of living history. At no period in England, since the foundation of the monarchy, could a professional fool have found more incentives to fun or satire, than during the eventful reign of George III. And of all that reign, the time of “the Coalition,” in 1783, was that on which a witty court fool, in the secret of what was passing and what was about to pass, would have had most to say, hint, or laugh at. The Shelburne Administration had gone to pieces, and that fatal “Coalition” had been forced on George III., who indignantly saw himself compelled to accept a union of men who had for years been denouncing each other as void of principle, and worthy of the hangman. Lord North and Charles Fox, antipodes in everything but wit and good temper, came together, with other bitter foes, who had salved over their old sores, but wounded their reputation, for ever. When the new ministers first appeared at court before that good and obstinate old sovereign whom they and other ministers helped or harassed into madness, George III. had made up his mind to rid himself of them at the very earliest opportunity. Had there been a court fool present who knew the royal intention, he would have revelled in jokes, gibes, and inuendoes. As it was, the King was his own fool, and could not avoid showing a sign of his resolve. How he did it, is whimsically and authentically told in the second volume, page 28, of Russell’s Memoirs of Fox. Lord Holland is speaking, and in these words:--“I cannot help relating a saying of that lively and humorous old man” (the Marquis of Townshend) “on this occasion. He said he had always foreseen the Coalition Ministry could not last, for he was at court when Mr. Fox kissed hands; and he observed George III. _turn back his ears and eyes_ just like the horse at Astley’s, when the tailor he had determined to throw was getting on him.” This was the very action of a court fool, and not one of the fraternity could have performed it more felicitously than the King, who, on this occasion, was his own.