Volume 1

Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie / by Timothy Holmes.

  • Timothy Holmes
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie / by Timothy Holmes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the King’s room at about six o’clock, and sit talking with him for an hour or two before leaving for town. He seems to have formed a more indulgent estimate of the King’s character than those now in vogue, and which are based, to a great extent, on the somewhat slapdash criticism of Thackeray’s “Four Georges.” “He would have been,” he says, “a happier and a better man if it had been his lot to be nothing more than a simple country gentleman, instead of being in the exalted situation which he inherited. If William IV. retained his simplicity of character, and his freedom from selfishness, it was because he ascended the throne at a late period of life, having had no previous expectation that he would ever be thus elevated.” - The following account of the death of George IV. has not, I believe, been published. It is contained in a communication to Sir Benjamin Brodie from Sir Wathen Waller which was preserved amongst his correspondence :— “¢ Pope’s VILLA, “5 o'clock, evening, “ Mug. &I; 1830. ““[ am this moment, my dear Sir, favoured with your note, and its Enclosure. . . . You desired a copy of the hasty account I gave his Majesty of the few last moments of my be/oved and Royal Master. I now enclose it with an assurance of the jigh Regard I shall ever feel for you from the very judicious, honorable, and manly Conduct you evinced during your Attend-
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