Quote image editor
“Whilst this change and enlargement of my mind was going on, his majesty King George IV, that gorgeous dowager, departed this life; an event of a serious kind to me, and to those with whom I had acted; for although our grief on the occasion was not of a very acute or lachrymose description, it was nevertheless heartfelt; for he stood in our opinion as the last of the regal kings, that old renowned race, who ruled with a will of their own, and were surrounded with worshippers. 'Never more,' said I, 'shall we have a monarch that will think his own will equivalent to law. His successors hereafter will only endeavour to think agreeably to their subjects; but the race of independent kings is gone forever.' In a word, the tidings of his death, though for some time expected, really smote me as a sudden and extraordinary event. Had I heard that the lions had become extinct on the face of the earth, I could not have been more filled, for a season, with wonder and a kind of sorrow.” — John Galt