[67] This certainly was not true; both Gillray and Rowlandson were draughtsmen and artists of exceptionable ability.
[68] The article from which this is quoted is variously assigned to Professor Wilson and Lockhart; it matters little which. Meanwhile, we must have a name, let it be Lockhart's.
[69] The editor of "The Scourge" was one Jack Mitford. He received a classical education, was originally in the navy, and fought under Hood and Nelson. Besides "The Scourge," he edited "The Bon Ton" magazine, and "Quizzical Gazette," and was author of a sea song once popular, "The King is a true British Sailor." He was an irreclaimable drunkard, thought only of the necessities of the hour, and slept in the fields when his finances would not admit of payment of a twopenny lodging in St. Giles's. His largest work was "Johnny Newcome in the Navy," for which the publisher gave him the generous remuneration of a shilling a day till he finished it. He died in St. Giles's workhouse in 1831.
[70] The reader may remember that Napoleon once contracted a skin disease from taking up a weapon which had been wielded by a dead artilleryman, which gave him trouble at various periods of his life. It may be that this suggested the subject.
[71] See the "Declaration of the Powers," from which we have already quoted.
[72] "Narrative of Captain Maitland," p. 109.
[73] The Regent's selfish nature and expensive habits may be judged by the following extract from the Greville Memoirs. Under date of 1830, Mr. Greville writes: "Sefton gave me an account of the dinner in St. George's Hall on the King's [William IV.] birthday, which was magnificent, excellent, and well served. Bridge came down with the plate, and was hid during the dinner behind the great wine-cooler, which weighs 7,000 ounces, and he told Sefton afterwards that the plate in the room was worth £200,000. There is another service of plate which was not used at all. The king has made it all over to the crown. _All this plate was ordered by the late king, and never used; his delight was ordering what the public had to pay for._"--_Greville Memoirs_, vol. ii. p. 42.
[74] See Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Earl of Elgin's Collection ... of Marbles ("Annual Reg.," 1816, p. 447).