In the midst of the difficulties with which the great duke had to contend, George IV. died, June 26, 1830.  He was in his latter days a great sufferer from the gout and other diseases brought about by the debaucheries of his earlier days; and he was a disenchanted man, living long enough to see how frail were the supports on which he had leaned,—­friends, pleasures, and exalted rank.

All authorities are agreed as to the character of George IV., though some in their immeasurable contempt have painted him worse than he really was, like Brougham and Thackeray.  All are agreed that he was selfish and pleasure-seeking in his ordinary life, though courteous in his manners and kind to those who shared his revels.  As dissipated habits obtained the mastery over him, and the unbounded flattery of his boon companions stultified his conscience, he became heartless and even brutal.  He was proud and overbearing; was fond of pomp and ceremony, and ultra-conservative in all his political views.  He was outrageously extravagant and reckless in his expenditures, and then appealed to Parliament to pay his debts.  He liked to visit his favorites, and received visits from them in return so long as his physical forces remained; but when these were hopelessly undermined by self-indulgence, he buried himself in his palaces, and rarely appeared in public.  Indeed, in his latter days he shunned the sight of the people altogether.  His character appears better in his letters than in the verdicts of historians.  Those written to his Chancellor Eldon, to the Duke of Wellington, to Lord Liverpool, to Sir William Knighton, keeper of the privy purse, and others, show great cordiality, frankness, and the utter absence of the stiffness and pride incident to his high rank.  They abound in expressions of kindness and even affection, whether sincere or not.  They are all well written, and would do credit, from a literary point of view, to any private person.  His talents and conversation, his wit and repartee, and his felicitous description of character are undeniable.  He is said to have had the talent of telling stories to perfection.  His powers of mimicry were remarkable, and he was fond of singing songs at his banquets.  Had he been simply a private person or an ordinary nobleman, he would have been far from contemptible.

The latter days of George IV. were sad, and for a king he was left comparatively alone.  He had neither wife nor children to lean upon and to cheer him,—­only mercenary courtiers and physicians.  His tastes were refined, his manners affable, and his conversation interesting.  He was intelligent, sagacious, and well-informed; yet no English monarch was ever more cordially despised.  The governing principle of his life was a love of ease and pleasure, which made him negligent of his duties; and there never yet lived a man, however exalted his sphere, who had not imperative duties to perform, without the performance of which his life was a failure and a reproach.  So it was with this unhappy king, who died like Louis XV. without any one to mourn his departure; and a new king reigned in his stead.