Personal Feelings. 5 a dawning lustre that promised to give unfading splendour to the Imperial Diadem! But we may, with propriety, turn from public considerations to personal sentiments; and it has been well observed, that the circumstances of the dissolution of the national hopes are as affecting to private feelings, as the event itself may be esteemed publicly calamitous: for, if there is an occasion on which the infliction of the universal doom excites peculiar sorrow, it is that wherein the more tender sex is alone exposed to pain and hazard. This consideration is also strongly tinted both by the rank and private virtues of the sufferer; so that whilst the eye weeps her loss, the lips are zealous in her praise patience and sorrow strive, Who shall express her goodliest." Blessed with exalted intellectual talents, improved by cultivation, and a disposition as singularly amiable, frank, and decided, she found friends in all ranks whom etiquette or the common concerns of life brought round her-friends who now acknowledge what though short her date, Virtue, not rolling suns, the mind matures 6 Disappointed Expectations. and those who knew her best, confess that here, on earth, she was all innocence and virtue: having a heart overflowing with tenderness, affection, and generosity; influenced by a mind possessing more than feminine firmness, and which had abundantly profited by the religious and moral instructions imparted in her early youth. To this we must add, a countenance in which all the most exquisite and captivating graces of Nature displayed themselves to the gratification and delight of every beholder. All combining, in short, to afford the most animating presages of a period when, by the course of nature, the destinies and happiness of the British Empire, perhaps of Europe and the world, might have been directed and sanctified by her power and discretion. Warmth and openness of heart marked her conduct through life: she was beloved by all who knew her. In short, she was a genuine Englishwoman; and had it pleased PROVIDENCE to call her to the Throne, she would have brought to it the spirit of an English Queen. In her choice of a Consort she was not guided by pride and ambition, but selected a Prince recommended by his talents, attainments, and virtues, rather than by a rank commensurate with her own, or with amplitude of possessions: and when she found herself blessed with the Husband of her Conjugal Sorrow. choice, and saw that choice justified by his virtues, she more than once repeated, that she was the happiest woman in her kingdom. Yet this scene of earthly felicity, has Death, the stern claimant, broken up "He called Narcissa, long before her hour, a consideration that enhances all our sorrow; for who is there that has no heart for the lovely, no tears for her grave? Who can contemplate without emotion, youth, beauty, and grandeur, on the bed of anguish, of pain, and of death-smitten in the spring of life and happiness, when surrounded by all the endearments of existence, by all the hopes and affections of a mighty people, and preparing to enjoy the still higher raptures of becoming a mother? Alas! that happiness was too short-lived on earth. Let us firmly trust, that it has been exchanged for a blissful futurity! But if the Nation, even on personal feeling, has such cause for mourning, who will dare to describe,-who will venture to conceive, the grief of the husband, of Prince LEOPOLD— the day too short for his distress; And night-even in the zenith of her dark domain, 8 Succession to the Throne. If it were necessary to excite public commis seration in his favour, we have numberless anecdotes in point, many of which shall appear in their proper place: but of that amiable and illustrious youth, there is but one voice and one feeling. Let it be remembered, too, that England had hailed him as the future Father of a line of Kings, who should perpetuate to latest times her glories, her liberties, and her renown. Well indeed may he exclaim with our darling Poet of sentimental melancholy "How richly were my noontide trances hung Starting I woke, and found myself undone !" But considerations of a more public nature now rapidly force themselves upon our notice-considerations, in the gay moments of hope, entirely overlooked; for, as very justly observed in a public journal, "trusting in confidence upon this fair off- spring of the Royal House, and looking to her as the Mother of a long and illustrious line of Kings to maintain the glories of the British Throne, but little attention has been paid to what must be the state of the succession on the contingency of her prema. ture decease. But now the consideration is forced on our attention, and the prospect is by no means flattering. The sons and daughters of our present Monarch are all without lawful issue. Supposing, then, that a barren sceptre' passed through their hands,' no child of theirs succeeding,' the next claimant of the Crown would be the Duke of Gloucester, and after him would come the descendants of his present Majesty's Sister, the Dutchess of Brunswick, being Protestant. Of that branch there are two young scions, whom political storms compelled to seek shelter under the parent stock in England; and as, without much violence to probability, we may eventually look to them as affording a Sovereign to this Realm, it is some consolation to reflect, that their education has been in a great degree British." But we must add, that other facts of the most important nature, involving both the national happiness and honour, now start forward, sufficient to appal the most inconsiderate, and to alarm even the coolest politician! Here, then, must we stop to reflect, in a political point of view, upon what may well be designated as melancholy an event as has ever occurred in the annals of hereditary monarchies-the demise of the only two presumptive heirs to the Crown in direct succession-the mother and the child; in thus losing a Prince, just before he saw the light, and a |