Florizel's Folly. By John Ashton. (Chatto and Windus. 6s.)— By
" Florizel," we may explain, is meant the Prince who afterwards became George IV., and by " Florizel's Folly" the Pavilion of Brighton. " Florizel" was not the first of his family to patronise the new watering place. The Duke of Cumberland lived there for a time, not less disreputably than his kinsman, though less conspicuously. Mr. Ashton tells us the whole story of the Prince of Wales and of his debaucheries. It would hardly be fair to say that he spares us nothing; but he certainly relates much that would have been better left untold. Magitia debent abscondi. One is amazed as one reads that a career so openly scandalous should have been possible. A million of debt contracted within a few years was one of the least of the Prince's offences. But the servility of the time was capable of descending to incredible depths. Even a generation later, when some strengthening of public opinion might have been expected, it prompted the erec- tion of the Duke of York's Column, perhaps the most egregious instance of base adulation, all the circumstances being taken into consideration, that exists in the world. It must be allowed that the satirists of the day did not fail to express themselves with all possible plainness. The reproductions of the caricatures are the most interesting things in the volume. This is not diffi- cult to read, though we could have very well done without it.
Previous page
