Note 73 — Chapter VII

The Regent’s selfish nature and expensive habits may be judged by the following extract from the Greville Memoirs. Under date of 1830, Mr. Greville writes: “Sefton gave me an account of the dinner in St. George’s Hall on the King’s [William IV.] birthday, which was magnificent, excellent, and well served. Bridge came down with the plate, and was hid during the dinner behind the great wine-cooler, which weighs 7,000 ounces, and he told Sefton afterwards that the plate in the room was worth £200,000. There is another service of plate which was not used at all. The king has made it all over to the crown. All this plate was ordered by the late king, and never used; his delight was ordering what the public had to pay for.”—Greville Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 42.