. pensably requisite. Dreadful indeed must have been the shock; but let us hope that it came not upon her with the suddenness of the earthquake, but in the slow and gradual manner of the summer storm, in which the clouds are seen rising at a distance, and the thunder is faintly heard, but the flash which is to destroy the oak and the sapling, is not yet seen. There is a method of imparting distressing intelligence, which deprives it of a great portion of its poignancy; but, encircled in the forms of etiquette, it seldom falls to the lot of royalty to meet with the considerate friend, who will display by degrees the harrowing picture of grief, nor open it at once to lacerate every feeling which affection may have entwined around the human heart. In Christian charity, let us hope that the Princess of Wales found that friend; and it must have been a valuable consolation to her to know that her situation excited the warmest sympathy of a generous and afflicted nation; that it identified her sorrows with its own, and that in the midst of its lamentations for the daughter, it forgot not the tears of the mother. On the arrival of Mr. Dykes, the messenger, at the residence of the Princess of Wales, her * Little doubt exists, that the request was actually made by the Princess Charlotte, that her mother might be present during her confinement, which, however, could not be complied with, for reasons too obvious to be here dilated upon. Royal Highness was just risen; and the dreadful intelligence was no sooner conveyed to her, than she fainted three times, and for some days afterwards seemed scarcely conscious of surrounding objects. Her health from that period has been visibly impaired, and the last accounts represent her Royal Highness to be still immersed in the deepest affliction The following singular * Some officious friends, or who may with more propriety be designated the enemies of the Princess of Wales, discovered a gross and intentional insult to her Royal Highness in the omission of her name on the depositum of her daughter: in order fully to refute those base insinuations, I annex copies of the inscriptions engraven upon the coffin plates of their Royal Highnesses the Princess Amelia, who died in 1786; the Princess Amelia (His Majesty's daughter,) who died in 1810; and of His Majesty's sister, the Duchess of Brunswick, who died in 1813; from a perusal of which it will be seen, that in none of these inscriptions was there any mention of the mothers of those illus trious individuals. It may at the same time be observed, that the styles pronounced on the interment, never contain the name of the mother, except in those cases where the approximation or claim to the crown is derived through the maternal line; as in the case of the Duke of Gloucester, the son of Princess (afterwards Queen) Ann, by Prince George of Denmark. DEPOSITUM Illustrissimæ Principissa Amelia Sophiæ Elenoræ Defuncti. Obiit 31° die Octobris, Anno MDCCLXXXVI. Etatis Sua 76. DEPOSITUM fact has been transmitted to us, and it might almost be considered as a kind interposition of Providence to prepare the mind of her Royal DEPOSITUM Principissa Amelia Filiæ Sextæ et natu minimæ Dei Gratia Britanniarum Regis Fidei Defensoris, &c. Obiit 2da die Novembris, Anno Domini MDCCCX. Etatis Suæ XXVIII. DEPOSITUM Principissa Augustæ Vidua Caroli Gulielmi Ferdinandi Ducis Brunswici, et Sororis Augustissimi et Potentissimi Dei Gratia Britanniarum Regis, Fidei Defensoris, &c. Obiit die vicesimo tertio Martii, Anno MDCCCXIII. Etatis Sua LXXVI. Highness for the dreadful shock, which it was doomed in a short time to encounter. A few days previously to the arrival of the messenger conveying the melancholy tidings, her Royal Highness was perusing the funeral oration, from the pen of the eloquent Bossuet, on Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, daughter of Charles I., who died at the early age of twentyfive. The following passage struck her Royal Highness so forcibly that she underlined it with her pencil, and it will now be seen how applicable it is to the object whose loss we deplore. "Have we not lamented that the opening flower was suddenly blasted; that the picture, whose first warm touches excited such expectation, was suddenly effaced; this mournful exhibition of human vanity, this untimely death that chills the public hope? The usual march of death is by perceptible, but slow advances; in the present instance it was as rapid as it was alarming. Did we not behold her in the morning attired with every grace, embellished with every attraction; and in the evening, did we not behold her as a faded flower? Let us then survey her as death presents her to our view: yet even these mournful honours with which she is now encircled, will soon disappear; she will be despoiled of this melancholy decoration, and be conveyed into the dread receptacle, the last sombrous habitation, to sleep in dust with annihilated kings! "Let me however recall to your mind how amidst the wishes, the applause, and she grew up affection of a whole people. History, to which her attention was particularly directed, she used to call the Counsellor of Kings*. In the historic page, the greatest Monarchs assume no other rank than what they are entitled to by their virtues ; degraded by the hand of death, they enter, unattended by flatterers, this severe court of justice, to receive the awful judgment of posterity." Addresses of condolence to the Prince Regent and Prince Leopold, now poured in from all parts of the country; but to the honor of the Common Council of London, it must be recorded, that, however deeply sympathizing in the recent affliction, they with great propriety determined to abstain from presenting an Address to the Prince Regent on the melancholy death of his daughter. As such an address, must constitutionally have been received on the throne, and been replied to from thence, the emotions which it would have excited, would have been too acute and painful. The other addresses, with the exception of those from the Universities, as they produce no personal interview, stand on different * I cannot positively determine, whether this oration of Bossuet was known to the Princess Charlotte; but it is a curious coincidence, that her Royal Highness, once speaking of history, said, "It is by history that Kings learn to govern." |