Horse Guards, the debtor received a letter rom head-quarters, requiring to know if there existed any objections to the account, and failing in rendering a satisfactory answer, he was put on stoppages until the creditor's demand was satisfied. Repeated applications of this kind might endanger the officer's commission, which was then sold for the payment of his creditors. Other moral delinquencies were at the same time adverted to; and, without maintaining an inquisitorial strictness over the officers, or taking too close inspection of the mere gaieties and follies of youth, a complaint of any kind, implying a departure from the character of a gentleman and a man of honour, was instantly inquired into by the commanderin-chief, and the delinquent censured or punished, as the case seemed to require. The army was thus like a family under protection of an indulgent father, who, willing to promote merit, checks, with a timely frown, the temptations to license and extravagance.

The private soldiers equally engaged the attention of his royal highness. In the course of his superintendence of the army, a military dress, the most absurd in Europe, was altered for one easy and comfortable for the men, and suitable to the hardships they are exposed to in actual service. The severe and vexatious rules exacted about the tying of hair, and other trifling punctilios, (which had been found sometimes to goad troops into mutiny,) were abolished, and strict cleanliness was substituted for a Hottentot headdress of tallow and flour. The pay of the soldier was augmented, while care was at the same time taken, that it should, as far as possible, be expended in bettering his food and extending his comforts. The slightest complaint on the part of a private sentinel was as regularly inquired into as if it had been preferred by a general officer. Lastly, the use of the cane (a brutal practice, which our officers borrowed from the Germans) was entirely prohibited, and regular corporal punishments, by the sentence of a court-martial, have been gradually diminished.

If, therefore, we find in the modern British officer more information, a more regular course of study, a deeper acquaintance with the principles of his profession, and a greater love for its exertions-if we find the private sentinel discharge his duty with a mind unembittered by petty vexations and regimental exactions, conscious of immunity from capricious violence, and knowing where to appeal if he sustains injury-if we find in all ranks of the army a love of their profession, and a capacity of matching themselves

with the finest troops which Enrope ever produced-to the memory of his Royal Highness the Duke of York we owe this change from the state of the forces thirty years since.

The means or improving the tactics of the British army did not escape his royal highness's sedulous care and attention Formerly every commanding officer manœuvred his regiment after his own fashion, and if a brigade of troops were brough together, it was very doubtful whether they could execute any one combined movement, and almost certain that they could not execute the various parts of it on the same principle. This was remedied by the system of regulations compiled by the late Sir David Dundas, and which obtained the sanction and the countenance of his royal highness. This one circumstance, of giving a uniform principle and mode of working to the different bodies, which are after all but parts of the same great machine, was in itself one of the most distinguished services which could be rendered to a national army, and it is only surprising that, before it was introduced, the British army was able to execute any combined movements at all.

We cannot but notice the duke of York's establishment near Chelsea, for the orphans of soldiers, the cleanliness and discipline of which are a model for such institutions; and the Royal Military School, or College, at Sandhurst, where every species of scientific instruction is afforded to those officers whom it is desirable to qualify for the service of the staff. The excellent officers who have been formed at this institution, are the best pledge of what is due to its founder. Again we repeat, that if the British soldier meets his foreign adversary, not only with equal courage, but with equal readiness and facility of manoeuvre-if the British officer brings against his scientific antagonist, not only his own good heart and hand, but an improved and enlightened knowledge of his profession, to the memory of the duke of York the army and the country owe them

The character of his royal highness was admirably adapted to the task of this extended reformation, in a branch of the public service on which the safety of England absolutely depended for the time. Without possessing any brilliancy, his judgment, in itself clear and steady, was inflexibly guided by honour and principle. No solicitations could make him promise what it would have been inconsistent with these principles to grant ; nor could any circumstances induce him to break or elude the promise which he had

once given. At the same time his teelings, humane and kindly, were, on all possible occasions, accessible to the claims of compassion; and there occurred but rare instances of a wife widowed, or a family rendered orphans, by the death of a meritorious officer, without something being done to render their calamities more tolerable.

As a statesman, the duke of York, from his earliest appearance in public life, was guided by the opinions of Mr. Pitt. But two circumstances are worthy of remark. First, that his royal highness never permitted the consideration of politics to influence him in his department of commander-in-chief, but gave alike to Whig as to Tory, the preferment their service or their talents deserved. Secondly, in attaching himself to the party whose object is supposed to be to strengthen the crown, his royal highness would have been the last man to invade, in the slightest degree, the rights of the people. The following anecdote may be relied upon-At the table of the commanderin-chief, not many years since, a young officer entered into a dispute with lieutenant-colonel upon the point tc which military obedience ought to be carried. "If the commander-in-chief," said the young officer, like a second Seid, "should command me to do a thing which I knew to be civilly illegal, I should not scruple to obey him, and consider myself as relieved from all responsibility by the commands of my military superior."" So would not I," returned the gallant and intelligent officer who maintained the opposite side of the question. "I should rather prefer the risk of being shot for disobedience by my commanding officer, than hanged for transgressing the laws, and violating the liberties of the country."-" You have answered like yourself," said his royal highness, whose attention had been attracted by the vivacity of the debate; "and the officer would deserve both to be shot and hanged that should act otherwise. I trust all British officers would be as unwilling to execute an illegal command, as I trust the commander-in-chief would be incapable of issuing one."

The religion of the duke of York was sincere, and he was particularly attached to the doctrines and constitution of the Church of England. In this his royal highness strongly resembled his father; and, like his father, he entertained a conscientious sense of the obligations of the coronation oath, which prevented him from acquiescing in the further relaxation of the laws against Catholics. We pronounce no opinion on the justice of his

royal highness-s sentiments on this important point; but we must presume them to have been sincerely entertained, since they were expressed at the hazard of drawing down upon his royal highness an odium equally strong and resentful.

In his person and countenance the duke of York was large, stout, and manly; he spoke rather with some of the indistinctness of utterance peculiar to his late father, than with the precision of enunciation which distinguishes the king, his royal brother. Indeed, his royal highness resembled his late majesty perhaps the most of any of George the Third's descendants. His family affections were strong, and the public cannot have forgotten the pious tenderness with which he discharged the duty of watching the last days of his royal father, darkened as they were by corporeal blindness and mental incapacity. No pleasure, no business, was ever known to interrupt his regular visits to Windsor, where his unhappy parent could neither be grateful for, nor even sensible of, his unremitted attention. The same ties of affection united his royal highness to other menibers of his family, and, particularly, to its present royal head. Those who witnessed the coronation of his present majesty, will long remember, as the most interesting part of that august ceremony, the cordiality with which his royal highness the duke of York performed his act of homage, and the tears of affection which were mutually shed between the royal brethren. We are aware, that, under this heavy dispensation, his majesty will be chief mourner, not in name only, but in all the sincerity of severed affection. The king's nearest brother in blood was also his nearest in affection; and the subject who stood next to the throne, was the individual who would most willingly have laid down his life for its support.

In social intercourse, the duke of York was kind, courteous, and condescending

general attributes, we believe, of the blood royal of England, and well befiting the princes of a free country. It may be remembered, that when in " days of youthful pride," his royal highness had wounded the feelings of a young nobleman, he never thought of sheltering himself behind his rank. but manfully gave reparation by receiving the (well-nigh fatal) fire of the offended party, though he declined to return it.

We would here gladly conclude the subject, but to complete a portrait, the shades as well as the lights must be inserted, and in their foibles as well as their good qualities, princes are the property

of history. Occupied perpetually with official duty, which, to the last period of his life, he discharged with the utmost punctuality, the duke of York was peculiarly negligent of his own affairs, and the embarrassments which arose in conscquence were considerably increased by an imprudent passion for the turf and for deep play. Those unhappy propensities exhausted the funds with which the nation supplied him liberally, and sometimes produced extremities which must have been painful to a man of temper sc honourable. The exalted height of his rank, which renders it doubtless more difficult to look into and regulate domestic expenditure, together with the engrossing duties of his royal highness's office, may be admitted as alleviations, but not apologies, for their imprudence.

A criminal passion of a different nature proved, at one part of the duke's life, fraught with consequences likely to affect his character, destroy the confidence of the country in his efforts, and blight the fair harvest of national gratitude, for which he had toiled so hard. It was a striking illustration of the sentiment of Shakspeare:

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make whips to scourge us."

The duke of York was married to Frederica, princess royal of Prussia, September 29, 1791, lived with her on terms of decency, but not of affection; and the duke had formed, with a female called Clarke, a connexion justifiable certainly neither by the laws of religion nor morality. Imprudently he suffered this woman to express her wishes to him for the promotion of two or three officers, to whose preferment there could be no other objection than that they were recommended by such a person. It might doubtless have occurred to the duke, that the solicitations of a woman like this were not likely to be disinterested; and, in fact, she seems to have favoured one or two persons, as being her paramours-several for mere prospect of gain, which she had subordinate agents to hunt out for, and one or two from a real sense of good-nature and benevolence. The examination of this woman and her various profligate intimates before the house of commons, occupied that assembly for nearly three months, and that with an intenseness of anxiety seldom equalled. The duke of York was acquitted from the motion brought against him by a majority of eighty; but so strong was the outcry against him without doors, so much was the nation convinced that all Mrs. Clarke said was true, and so little could they be

brought to doubt that the duke of York was a conscious and participant actor in all that person's schemes, that his royal highness, seeing his utility obstructed by popular prejudice, tendered to his majesty the resignation of his office, which was accepted accordingly, March 20, 1809. And thus, as according to Solomon, a dead fly can pollute the most precious unguent, was the honourable fame, acquired by the services of a lifetime, obscured by the consequences of what the gay world would have termed a venial levity. The warning to those of birth and eminence is of the most serious nature. This step had not long been taken, when the mist in which the question was involved began to disperse. The public accuser, in the house of commons, colonel Wardle, was detected in some suspicious dealings with the principal witness, Mrs. Clarke, and it was evidently expectation of gain that had brought this lady to the bar as an evidence. Next occurred, in the calm moments of retrospect, the great improbability that his royal highness ever could know on what terms she negociated with those in whose favour she solicited. It may be well supposed she concealed the motive for interesting herself in such as were his own favoured rivals, and what greater probability was there that she should explain to him her mercenary speculations, or distinguish them from the intercessions which she made upon more honourable motives? When the matter of accusation was thus reduced to his royal highness's having been, in two or three instances, the dupe of an artful woman, men began to see that when once the guilt of entertaining a mistress was acknowledged, the disposition to gratify such a person, who must always exercise a natural influence over her paramour, follows as a matter of course. It was then that the public compared the extensive and lengthened train of public services, by which the duke had distinguished himself in the management of the army, with the trifling foible of his having granted one or two favours, not in themselves improper, at the request of a woman who had such opportunities to press her suit; and, doing to his royal highness the justice he well deserved, welcomed him back, in May, 1811, to the situation from which he had been driven by calumny and popular prejudice.

In that high command his royal highness continued to manage our military affairs. During the last years of the most momentous war that ever was waged, his royal highness prepared the most splendid victories our annals boast, by an unceasing attention to the character and talents