QUEEN CAROLINE,

GREAT GRANDMOTHER OF HIS GRACIOUS MAJESTY, KING GEORGE THE FOURTH.

THIS distinguished Princess was the friend of Sir Isaac Newton, and we feel that her name, and a memoir of her great virtues and talents, from unquestionable authority and original papers, seems just, and very interesting in this small volume of biography, which may be circulated for the improvement of many who have neither time nor means to consult larger works.

The following lines we have extracted from Lord Clarendon's History of England. "On the 20th of November, 1737, Queen Caroline died, deeply regretted. "She was a Princess of great merit and goodness, with uncommon talents and penetration of mind, and extensive generosity of disposition; she was a pattern of conjugal fidelity, affection, and prudence. She was also the kind and generous patroness of learning and learned men, and very pious in the performance of all her religious duties." See Lord Clarendon's History in Quarto.

We next find very ample memoirs of this most amiable and superior Queen in the History of Sir

Robert Walpole, by the Rev. Archdeacon Coxe, in three volumes.

He informs us in his Preface, that he owed great obligations to many friends who favoured him with ample store of original papers and letters for full and true information: he particularly mentions the following character of the distinguished Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, "To my noble friend the Earl of Hardwicke I gratefully acknowledge great obligations for the use of his valuable collection : from it I have been supplied with various papers, letters, memorandums and narratives of his grandfather the Lord Chancellor, and of the late Earl of Hardwicke; also letters from the Duke of Newcastle, and the confidential correspondence between Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Townshend, together with various important documents." The Rev. Archdeacon proceeds to write of Queen Caroline as follows.

"It is a remarkable fact that the historians of George II. have wrote so little of the excellent Queen Caroline, of whose judgment and good sense he had the highest opinion, and in whom he ever placed the highest confidence. Yet during the first ten years of his reign, he was entirely governed by her opinions, while she bore her faculties so meekly, and with such extraordinary prudence, as not to excite the least uneasiness even in a sovereign highly tenacious of his authority, but had contrived that her opinion should appear as if it had been his own; by which Sir Robert Walpole

(who had great merits and talents) was continued in the ministry, and by which the most eminent men in the Church were all promoted, viz. Archbishop Herring, and Bishops Hoadley, Pearce, Butler, Hare, Sherlocke and Clarke, all very eminent, learned, and pious. This superior Princess was the daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Anspach, by the Princess of Saxe-Eysenach. She was born in 1683. She lost her father when she was very young, and her mother married the Elector of Saxony, while the young Princess Caroline Wilhelmina was placed under her guardian, the Elector of Brandenburg, who was afterwards the first King of Prussia, and had married her aunt, the accomplished Sophia Charlotte, sister of George the First of England; under the superintendence of this very superior and royal aunt, the young Princess Caroline had found a mother, from whose example and instructions she not only acquired the polite manners and graceful dignity of character by which she was very remarkable, but also a great taste for books, and the conversation of learned Her aunt was called "the female Philosopher," in Germany, yet never interfered in politics at Berlin. She excelled in music, and all the elegant accomplishments. She went to Hanover from Berlin, to visit her mother, (the Electress Sophia), and carried there her niece the Princess Caroline in her twenty-second year, who was then very beautiful, before she had the small pox; and had given a proof at Berlin of her perfect attach

men.

ment to the Protestant religion. The fame of her beauty and accomplishments had attracted the notice of the Archduke Charles, (son of the Emperor Leopold the First, and afterwards Emperor of Germany himself). This young Prince made proposals of marriage to the Princess Caroline, but she declined the offer from her decided Protestant principles. Mr. Addison in his works mentions this proposal, with other particulars of Queen Caroline of England; he says, "Providence had kept a reward in store for this young Princess for her exalted, pious and virtuous mind, and by divine wisdom in one year after, she was married to George II. at Hanover, where he was then Electoral Prince of Hanover." Her aunt, the Queen of Prussia, who had brought her from Berlin that year, (1705), was taken dangerously ill, and, after a few days, died at Hanover, in the 37th year of her age, greatly lamented. To the King of Prussia, her husband, she wrote an affectionate letter, thanking him for all his kindness to her, and recommending her domestics to his care: she died with great composure of mind. She said to her brother, (afterwards George the First of England)

66

why do you weep, dear brother? Did you think I was immortal?" She soon after expired. Her favourite niece, the Electoral Princess, lived in Hanover; while the Prince, her husband, was early in military life. He served under the Duke of Marlborough in the year 1708, and was greatly distinguished as a volunteer at the battle of Oude

narde that year, where he charged the enemy at the head of the Hanoverian Dragoons, and had his horse shot under him. He was created Duke of Cambridge, and Knight of the Garter, in 1708, three years after his marriage. Queen Anne died the 1st of August, 1714, when the Prince and Princess accompanied George the First to England. He said to an English gentleman, "I have not one drop of blood in my veins which is not English, and at the service of my father's subjects." Soon after his arrival in London, he was created Prince of Wales, and when his father visited Hanover in 1716, he was appointed Guardian and Lieutenant of the Kingdom. After some time a very great misunderstanding arose between the King and his son the former seemed to be jealous of the great popularity of the latter, who made a short visit to the country, into Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire, where the Prince and Princess of Wales were extremely popular. This reached the ears of the King, who was at Hanover with his mistress, the Duchess of Kendal. The prudence and excellent conduct of the Princess of Wales made her beloved in England. The King went twice to Hanover; his last visit to that place was in June 1727, with the Duchess of Kendal. She was a German lady who had great ascendancy and influence, by which she obtained large sums of money from George the First; she died in England at an advanced age. She was present at his death in Hanover, which was very sudden, the 10th June, 1727.