The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 77: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER VIII ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE KING In the afternoon of the same day on which Mr. Timothy Meagles thus returned to the metropolis, the king and queen held a grand levee and drawing-room at St. James’s Palace. The farce of a parcel of titled fools and vain or silly women decking themselves out in all their splendour for the purpose of attending the royal raree-show was duly perférmed; and the disgusting display of pomp and ostentation stood forth in striking contrast with the soul-destroying and body- crushing miseries endured by the toiling millions throughout the length and breadth of the land. That dreadful king, George III, in comparison with whom Nero was an angel and Caligula a saint, and that snuffy termagant, Queen Charlotte, thus received the homage of the vile sycophants and the titled demireps who paid those miserable specimens of fallen humanity a worship which they had not religion enough to offer up to their Maker. The saloons of St. James’s were rich, and dazzling, and brilliant with the plunder of the poor man. The produce of his labour was there, while he himself was starving and in rags, and yet that execrable king and that hateful queen bestowed not a thought upon the suffering millions over whom they ruled. The trumpery proceedings of the levee and drawing-room took place in the usual manner, — proceedings which were more contemptible than child’s play, without the innocence of the latter; for the effect of such pompous parade and gorgeous ostentation was inevitably caculated to puff up the principal actors with an intolerable pride, and confirm them in their course of tyranny, oppression, and extrava- gance. But at five o’clock the whole tomfoolery was over; 04 Gomicbooks (E()