) and others as levanters or
hurricanes, (Circius, &c.) Thus far he did no more than indulge a
blameless fancy; but in his anxiety that his runners should emulate their
patron winds, and do credit to the names which he had assigned them, he is
said to have exacted a degree of speed inconsistent with any merciful
regard for their bodily powers.[Footnote: This, however, is a point in
which royal personages claim an old prescriptive right to be unreasonable
in their exactions and some, even amongst the most humane of Christian
princes, have erred as flagrantly as AElius Verus. George IV., we have
understood, was generally escorted from Balkeith to Holyrood at a rate of
twenty-two miles an hour. And of his father, the truly kind and paternal
king, it is recorded by Miss Hawkins, (daughter of Sir J. Hawkins, the
biographer of Johnson, &c.) that families who happened to have a son,
brother, lover, &c. in the particular regiment of cavalry which furnished
the escort for the day, used to suffer as much anxiety for the result as
on the eve of a great battle.] But these were, after all, perhaps, mere
improvements of malice upon some solitary incident.
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