White's for ale and tittle-tattle and the making of wagers; to attend
a `drunken de'jeuner' in honour of `la tre`s belle Rosaline' or the
Strappini; to drive some fellow-fool far out into the country in his
pretty curricle, `followed by two well-dressed and well-mounted
grooms, of singular elegance certainly,' and stop at every tavern on
the road to curse the host for not keeping better ale and a wench of
more charm; to reach St. James's in time for a random toilet and so
off to dinner. Which of our dandies could survive a day of pleasure
such as this? Which would be ready, dinner done, to scamper off again
to Ranelagh and dance and skip and sup in the rotunda there? Yet the
youth of that period would not dream of going to bed or ever he had
looked in at Crockford's--tanta lubido rerum--for a few hours' faro.

This was the kind of life that young George found opened to him, when,
at length, in his nineteenth year, they gave him an establishment in
Buckingham House. How his young eyes must have sparkled, and with what
glad gasps must he have taken the air of freedom into his lungs!
Rumour had long been busy with the damned surveillance under which his
childhood had been passed. A paper of the time says significantly that
`the Prince of Wales, with a spirit which does him honour, has three
times requested a change in that system.' King George had long
postponed permission for his son to appear at any balls, and the year
before had only given it, lest he should offend the Spanish Minister,
who begged it as a personal favour. I know few pictures more pathetic
than that of George, then an overgrown boy of fourteen, tearing the
childish frill from around his neck and crying to one of the Royal
servants, `See how they treat me! `Childhood has always seemed to me
the tragic period of life. To be subject to the most odious espionage
at the one age when you never dream of doing wrong, to be deceived by
your parents, thwarted of your smallest wish, oppressed by the terrors