An hour or so after George the Fourth was born, we are told that the
waggons containing the treasure of the _Hermione_, a Spanish galleon,
captured off St. Vincent by three English frigates, entered St. James's
street, escorted by cavalry and infantry, with trumpets sounding, the
enemy's flags waving over the waggons, and the whole surrounded by an
immense multitude of spectators. Now here, to the vulgar mind, was a happy
augury of the future golden reign of the Royal baby. He comes upon the
earth amid a shower of gold! The melodious chink of doubloons and pieces
of eight echo his first infant wailings! What a theme for the gipsies of
the press--the fortune-tellers of the time! At the present hour that baby
sleeps the last sleep in St. George's chapel; and we have his public and
his social history before us. What does experience--the experience bought
and paid for by hard, hard cash--_now_ read in the "waggons of treasure,"
groaning musically to the rocking-cradle of the callow infant? Simply, the
babe of Queen Charlotte would be a very expensive babe indeed; and that
the wealth of a Spanish galleon was all insufficient for the youngling's
future wants.
We have been favoured, among a series of pictures, with the following of
George the Fourth, exhibited in his babyhood. We are told that "all
persons _of fashion_ were admitted to see the Prince, under the following
restrictions, viz.
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