The feeling of which I speak almost leads me at this moment to put down my pen.

And, if so much be due to all subjects, is less due to a sovereign?
Considerations such as these diminished, I think, the popularity of Thackeray's second series of lectures; or, rather, not their popularity, but the estimation in which they were held.

On this head he defended himself more than once very gallantly, and had a great deal to say on his side of the question.

"Suppose, for example, in America,--in Philadelphia or in New York,--that I had spoken about George IV.

in terms of praise and affected reverence, do you believe they would have hailed his name with cheers, or have heard it with anything of respect ?" And again; "We degrade our own honour and the sovereign's by unduly and unjustly praising him; and the mere slaverer and flatterer is one who comes forward, as it were, with flash notes, and pays with false coin his tribute to Caesar.