James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

[413] and sixty-five millions of pounds. It may be safely asserted, that every guinea of this debt was unnecessary, and all except a few millions of it may be considered the price which Great Britain has paid, or is to pay, for allowing four such men as the four Georges of Hanover to occupy the first place in the government,--a place in which a wise and able man could do no very radical good, but one in which an incompetent man may work prodigious harm.

George the Third had fifteen children, of whom all but two survived him. Five of these children were sons, and all of them were robust and vigorous men. Down to a late period in the life of George the Third, no throne in Europe seemed so well provided as his with lineal heirs; and nothing was more improbable than that it should descend to a daughter of the fourth son,--the Duke of Kent. The Prince of Wales, however, had but one legitimate child, the Princess Charlotte, and when she died, in 1817, there was no probability of her father having other legitimate issue. The Duke of York, the second son, a shameless debauchee, also died without legitimate children. The Duke of Clarence, the third son, who afterwards reigned as William the Fourth, had a large family; but, unfortunately, his wife, Queen Adelaide, was not the mother of them.

Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth of the king's sons, had the reputation, in his lifetime, of being the only one of them who observed the ordinary rules of morality. He is even spoken of as “austerely virtuous;” an accusation which I am inclined to believe was groundless; for, if he was so austerely virtuous, he would hardly have left so many debts behind him for his widow and daughter to pay. Some allowance must be made, however, for those unfortunate princes who held the highest rank in the kingdom, without having the income of a country gentleman. This poor Duke of Kent, although he enjoyed a revenue about is large at