Faint recollections still survive of a discussion upon the august topic of the character of George the Third.

"To whom do we owe it," asked Macaulay, "that while Europe was convulsed with anarchy and desolated with war, England alone remained tranquil, prosperous, and secure?
To whom but the Good Old King?
Why was it that, when neighbouring capitals were perishing in the flames, our own was illuminated only for triumphs?
[This debate evidently made some noise in the university world.

There is an allusion to it in a squib of Praed's, very finished and elegant, and beyond all doubt contemporary.

The passage relating to Macaulay begins with the lines--"Then the favourite comes with his trumpets and drums, And his arms and his metaphors crossed."] You may find the cause in the same three words: the Good Old King." Praed, on the other hand, would allow his late monarch neither public merits nor private virtues.

"A good man! If he had been a plain country gentleman with no wider opportunities for mischief, he would at least have bullied his footmen and cheated his steward." Macaulay's intense enjoyment of all that was stirring and vivid around him undoubtedly hindered him in the race for university honours; though his success was sufficient to inspirit him at the time, and to give him abiding pleasure in the retrospect.