During the play, Edwin drew down thunders of applause by giving the King's health as a toast; and at the close, the national anthem not being given so speedily from the stage as public impatience demanded, the audience rose, and sung it for themselves; and the Queen cheerfully joining in the encore, it was again sung in the same

manner.

A handsome compliment was afterwards paid to the royal pair by Miss Brunton, now Countess of Craven, on the King's first visit to Covent Garden Theatre after his recovery, accompanied by the Queen and princesses, a circumstance which operated to fill the house beyond any thing since his first appearance after the accession.

At the conclusion of the "Dramatist," when Miss B. says to Floriville-" If you would behold pure, unsullied love, never travel out of this country, depend on't," she added,

"No foreign climes such high examples prove

Of wedded pleasure, or connubial love :
Long in this isle domestic joys have grown,
Nurs'd in the cottage, cherish'd on the throne."

In some breasts a suspicion existed that the King was not recovered, because he avoided the extreme fatigue of business, agreeable to the necessary caution with which he was advised to act after such a severe illness; but though he did not exert himself as usual, he still paid that attention

absolutely necessary in affairs of state. He felt anxious also to join his people in a public display of general gratitude to the Giver of all things for his happy recovery; indeed, his mind, ever seriously disposed to public acts of divine worship, could not be said to be completely tranquillized until he paid that debt of thanksgiving in the most solemn manThe feelings of the man were best expressed in the closet-but of the monarch, could only be in the midst of a moral and a loyal people.

ner.

For some weeks after the declaration of his re

covery, this solemn service was postponed, although he regularly communicated with the ministers, presided at councils, performed the business of the cabinet, received addresses, and gave audiences to particular persons; and, at length, finding himself equal to the bodily fatigue of a procession, he declared his intention of making his first appearance in public an act of grateful devotion to Heaven, by going in state to St. Paul's Cathedral, on the day already appointed for the celebration of the national thanksgiving.

This extraordinary and affecting ceremony took place on the twenty-third of April, and offered a spectacle to the British empire which far exceeded whatever is recorded of the ceremonies of Pagan adoration, the games of polished Greece, or the triumphs of imperial Rome. It was the mind of the first nation in the world, co-operating with that

of its sovereign in a public act of thanksgiving to Heaven, for its preservation of a good King, and the prosperity of a loyal people.

His Majesty appeared on the occasion under a deep impression of those feelings which became him. He wore a solemn demeanour suited to the circumstances and duty of the day; in which, however, there was nothing to give faction an hope, or loyalty a fear: yet still did the guileful tongue of political calumny spit forth its falsehoods; and a factious sophistry continued to employ its wicked but unsuccessful efforts to propagate doubts as to the real situation of the sovereign's health.

The procession to St. Paul's seems to have excited as much curiosity as if it had been a coronation. Indeed, the universal joy and loyalty which pervaded the cities of London and Westminster, and the grandeur of the spectacle exhibited in the more than triumphal, the religious entry of a beloved sovereign, could not fail to fill the minds of all with such awful ideas as scarcely left room for the contemplation of the splendour of the scene. Windows were rented, and scaffoldings erected, through the whole line of procession; most of them decorated with various ingenious emblematical devices, and all filled to an overflow, many of the spectators having occupied their places during the preceding night.

The appearance of joy, notwithstanding this

previous fatigue, was universal; and the ladies, in particular, on this auspicious occasion, exerted every effort to display the effusion of pleasure that swelled their generous breasts, and to give the most efficient testimony, that, regardless of politics, whenever piety, fidelity, and majesty, resume their station, then beauty, genuine sense, and honour, must participate in the general ecstasy. Most of the ladies wore a bandeau, inscribed in gold letters with "Long live the King;" and they sat patiently through a rainy morning until the arrival of the procession, when the sun burst forth, and shed his mild rays upon the splendid scene.

To follow the procession through all its details would be irrelevant to the general plan of this memoir; we shall therefore briefly state that it was composed of the whole of the royal family, the royal household, the ministers and great officers of state, both houses of the legislature, the corporate bodies of London and Westminster, the church, the law, the army, &c. &c. &c. The whole of the regulations were under the King's express orders, and displayed the complete recovery of his mental faculties, as the whole of his behaviour through the trying scene manifested his gratitude to God, and love for his people.

The procession commenced with the House of Commons, followed by the Peers, at a quarter before eight, the King and his royal consort setting off

from the Queen's Palace soon after ten. On his arrival at Temple Bar the city sword was presented to him by the lord mayor, which, being graciously returned, was carried before him by that civic officer, bareheaded; and His Majesty arrived at St. Paul's a few minutes before noon, where all the charity children of the metropolis were assembled to join in the general celebration, at the particular desire of the Queen. When the royal party approached the choir from the great west door of the cathedral, they were struck with one of the most sublime pictures that could be exhibited to a feeling mind-upwards of six thousand fine children of different parishes, neatly clothed in their various uniforms, and so situated as to be seen in one point of view, and saluting their generous benefactors, as they passed, with an anthem to their creator. The whole was a most sublime treat to majesty itself; and so it was expressed. The Queen appeared almost overcome with admiration; His Majesty the same and in short the whole royal party declared they could have continued an hour upon that spot, had not their attention been called to another scene more splendid, and perhaps equally interesting. This was the multifarious and brilliant spectacle of the company arranged in the choir, whither their majesties proceeded, whilst the children continued to sing part of the hundredth Psalm in full chorus of almost celestial harmony.