CHAPTER LV.
THE DEATH OF GEORGE IV.--THE POLITICAL SITUATION OF PARTIES, AND OF LADY
ERPINGHAM.
The death of George the Fourth was the birth of a new era. During the
later years of that monarch a silent spirit had been gathering over the
land, which had crept even to the very walls of his seclusion. It cannot
be denied that the various expenses of his reign,--no longer consecrated
by the youthful graces of the prince, no longer disguised beneath the
military triumphs of the people,--had contributed far more than
theoretical speculations to the desire of political change. The shortest
road to liberty lies through attenuated pockets!
Constance was much at Windsor during the king's last illness, one of the
saddest periods that ever passed within the walls of a palace. The
memorialists of the reign of the magnificent Louis XIV. will best convey
to the reader a notion of the last days of George the Fourth. For, like
that great king, he was the representation in himself of a particular
period, and he preserved much of the habits of (and much too of the
personal interest attached to) his youth, through the dreary decline of
age. It was melancholy to see one who had played, not only so exalted,
but so gallant a part, breathing his life away; nor was the gloom
diminished by the many glimpses of a fine original nature, which broke
forth amidst infirmity and disease.
George the Fourth died; his brother succeeded; and the English world began
to breathe more freely, to look around, and to feel that the change, long
coming, was come at last. The French Revolution, the new parliament,
Henry Brougham's return for Yorkshire, Mr. Hurne's return for Middlesex,
the burst of astonished indignation at the Duke of Wellington's memorable
words against reform, all betrayed, while they ripened, the signs of the
new age. The Whig Ministry was appointed, appointed amidst discontents in
the city, suspicions amongst the friends of the people, amidst fires and
insurrections in the provinces;--convulsions abroad, and turbulence at
home.
The situation of Constance in these changes was rather curious; her
intimacy with the late king was no recommendation with the Whig
government of his successor. Her power, as the power of fashion always
must in stormy times, had received a shock; and as she had of late been a
little divided from the main body of the Whigs, she did not share at once
in their success, or claim to be one of their allies. She remained silent
and aloof; her parties were numerous and splendid as ever, but the small
plotting reunions of intriguers were suspended. She hinted mysteriously
at the necessity of pausing, to see what reform the new ministers would
recommend, and what economy they would effect. The Tories, especially the
more moderate tribe, began to court her: the Whigs, flushed with their
triumph, and too busy to think of women, began to neglect. This last
circumstance the high Constance felt keenly--but with the keenness rather
of scorn than indignation; years had deepened her secret disgust at all
aristocratic ordinances, and looking rather at what the Whigs had been
than what, pressed by the times, they have become, she regarded them as
only playing with democratic counters for aristocratic rewards. She
repaid their neglect with contempt, and the silent neutralist soon became
regarded by them as the secret foe.
But Constance was sufficiently the woman to feel mortified and wounded by
that which she affected to despise. No post at court had been offered to
her by her former friends; the confidant of George the Fourth had ceased
to be the confidant of Lord Grey. Arrived at that doubtful time of life
when the beauty although possessing, is no longer assured of, her charms,
she felt the decay of her personal influence as a personal affront; and
thus vexed, wounded, alarmed, in her mid-career, Constance was more than
ever sensible of the peculiar disquietudes that await female ambition, and
turned with sighs more frequent than heretofore to the recollections of
that domestic love which seemed lost to her for ever.
Mingled with the more outward and visible stream of politics there was, as
there ever is, a latent tide of more theoretic and speculative opinions.
While the practical politicians were playing their momentary parts,
schemers, and levellers, were propagating in all quarters doctrines which
they fondly imagined were addressed to immortal ends. And Constance began
to turn with some curiosity to these charlatans or sages. The bright
countess listened to their harangues, pondered over their demonstrations,
and mused over their hopes. But she had lived too much on the surface of
the actual world, her habits of thought were too essentially worldly, to
be converted, while she was attracted, by doctrines so startling in their
ultimate conclusions. She turned once more to herself, and waited, in a
sad and thoughtful stillness, the progress of things-convinced only of the
vanity of them all.
