Bertha was much distressed: she felt very sensible of his warm, honest, and straightforward attachment; but she had no heart to bestow in return, and it was due to him to be explicit on a matter which he considered of so much importance. She told him, with tears, how truly she sympathised in his feelings, though she could not reciprocate them; she begged him to forget her, and give the treasures of a love such as his to some one more worthy of them. She said that she never could be more to him than a friend and well-wisher. He told her he would be content with that amount of regard, and trust, in time, to win her affection by doing all in his power to promote her happiness. But she shook her head. "It cannot be, count," she said. "I, a friendless orphan, am most grateful to you, but there are feelings which cannot be commandedfeelings which "Which are all in favour of another," he exclaimed, with some warmth. "Another who does not deserve them. Tell me truly, countess," he added, "if your heart were disengaged, would it be so steeled against me?" "It is not steeled against you," said Bertha; "but I cannot help, if I cannot feel the same sentiments towards you that you do me the honour to profess for me." No, because your mind is pre-occupied by another-one whom, I could name has stolen into your heart-though he has no purpose but the-the-pleasure of flattering his own vanity." "I do not understand you," said Bertha, coldly. "You will not understand me," replied Count Rosenthal. "He can not love you, or he would not throw away opportunities as he does. This very night he has never once approached you, and has slighted you by devoting all his attention to another. Oh, countess-oh, dearest Bertha, do not be offended at me. Pardon my jealousy of Mr. von Feldheim, and tell me, if you can, that he at least is not my rival." Bertha could not speak; she could not assert an untruth; she was unwilling to confess the truth as matters stood. She answered gently, but not at all to the purpose; she could only repeat her thanks to Count Rosenthal for his preference, lament her inability to return it, and beg of him to forget her. "Tell me truly," he said to her, "do you love Von Feldheim ?" "I have loved him from my earliest childhood," she replied, in a low voice. "Farewell, then!" exclaimed the count, in much agitation-" farewell. I will no more trouble you with my unwelcome homage, but, if ever you should require a brother's help, remember me!" He dashed past her, and instantly left the ball-room and the house. Bertha sat for a moment motionless, as if petrified into a statue of stone, but she was suddenly roused by a deep sigh from behind the curtain. She arose in dismay. "Some one has been listening. Who could be so dishonourable?" she said to herself; and, acting on the impulse of the moment, she drew back the curtain. There, to her amazement and confusion, she beheld Rudolph von Feldheim himself, standing with folded arms, and a face from which every drop of blood seemed to have fled! BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE. BY SIR NATHANIEL. THE Young Chevalier, Bonnie Prince Charlie was distinctively called, in his heyday of enterprise, and youthful bloom, and adventurous romance, in contradistinction to the Old Pretender, his less energetic and far less fascinating sire. But the days came for Charles Edward himself to be known as an old Pretender. And they who had known and hailed him as the Young Chevalier, could hardly believe their eyes, or trust their memory, as to the seemingly mistaken identity. Look on this picture, and on that. Not the counterfeit presentment of two brothers, but of one and the same man, at no very great interval of years. Look on a portrait of Prince Charles, in the flush of earliest manhood, fighting his way to the throne of his fathers; and then of his Royal Highness, a refugee on Italian soil, a middle-aged tippler, bloated and blustering, or an elderly driveller, unregarded, unrespected, and, even by them of his own household, unbeloved. This picture first-of Charles as he looked when he made his joyous entry into Edinburgh-a day on which You would have thought the very windows spake, So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes Upon his visage. * ct And on that day, and inspirited by such a welcome, O but the Prince was fair to see! John Home, the clerical author of "Douglas," saw him on this occasion, and has left the world a copy of his lineaments and mien. From that, and other contemporaneous "copy," we can feed the Tall and handsome was Prince Charlie, we are told, press. as straight as a lance, and as round as an egg;" of a fair complexion, delicate but ruddy, and slightly freckled. He wore a light-coloured peruke, "the ringlets of which descended back in graceful masses, and over the front of which his own pale hair was neatly combed." His visage is described as a perfect oval-his brow as marked with "all the intellectual but melancholy loftiness so remarkable in the portraits of his ancestors." His neck, which was long, but not ungracefully so, had, according to the fashion of the time, no other covering or incumbrance than a slender stock buckled behind. His eyes-we quote from Mr. Chambers's physiognomical catalogue raisonné-were "large, and rolling, and of a light blue. The fair, but not ill-marked eyebrows which surmounted these features, were beautifully arched. His nose was round and high, and his mouth small in proportion to the rest of his features. He was about five feet ten in stature, and his body was of that straight and round description which is said to indicate not only perfect symmetry, but also the valuable requisites of agility and health." He excelled, says Lord Mahon (for, in literature at least, we stickle for giving Earl Stanhope his * King Richard II., Act V. Sc. 2. pre-peerage title of honour), in all manly exercises, and was inured to every kind of toil, especially long marches on foot, having applied himself to field sports in Italy, and become a first-rate walker.* His "goodly person was enhanced by his graceful manners: frequently condescending to the most familiar kindness, yet always shielded by a regal dignity, he had a peculiar talent to please and to persuade, and never failed to adapt his conversation to the taste or to the station of those whom he addressed." His demeanour might seem to warrant the application to him of what Bacha (in Beaumont and Fletcher) testifies of Leucippus, That in his youth and noble forwardness All things are bound together that are kingly, A fitness to bear rule-and sovereignty In that agile, lissom form were fascinated damsels fain to see one like the herald Mercury, new-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill-and altogether a combination, and a form, indeed, where every god did seem to set his seal, to give the world assurance of a man.§ Or, to resume that Mercurial similitude, and eke it out from another classical source, Omnia Mercurio similis, vocemque, coloremque, Et crines flavos, et membra decora juventæ. Cautious Dr. John Byrom witnessed H-R- H-'s entry into Manehester, in March, 1746, and reports that, "to do justice to his person, whatever his pretensions may be,¶ he makes a very graceful and amiable appearance; he is fair complexioned, well shaped, has a sensible and comely aspect. To account for the beauty of the man beyond that of his father, his enemies said here that he was the son of a very handsome pastry cook, some say bread-baker, at Paris; but the ladies, smitten with the charms of the young gentleman, say that he takes after his mother." ""** Not, however, to turn too abruptly to a contrasted portraiture of the Prince, in his degradation and decay, let us glance at him in a sort of "middle passage, as sketched by Sir Walter, at the age of about forty or upwards. “But either care, or fatigue, or indulgence, had brought on the appearance of premature old age, and given to his fine features a cast of seriousness or even sadness. A noble countenance, however, still remained; and though his complexion was altered, and wrinkles stamped upon his brow in many a melancholy fold, still the lofty forehead, the full and well-opened eye, and the well-formed nose, showed how handsome in better days he must have been. He was tall, but lost the advantage of his height by stooping; and the cane which he wore always in his hand, and occasionally used, as well as his slow though majestic gait, seemed to intimate that his form and limbs felt already some touch of infirmity."tt * Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. Cupid's Revenge, Act III. Sc. 1. Virgil, Eneid, IV. 559. † Mahon, Hist. Engl., ch. xxvi. § Hamlet, Act III. Sc. 4. And who better qualified to appraise the pretensions of a pretender than Dr Byrom himself, the author of an immortal epigram on that very subject? **Remains of John Byrom, II. 412. (Chetham Society, 1857.) †† Redgauntlet, vol. ii. ch. x. : Bishop Forbes tries to refute gainsayers and depreciators, by stoutly averring of the Prince's looks in 1769, that "not a blot, nor so much as a pimple, was in his face, though maliciously given out by some as if it were all over blotted; but he is jolly and plump, though not to excess, being still agile, and fit for undergoing toil." One is apt to suspect that the animus of the phrase "jolly and plump, though not to excess,' is akin to that which animated Wilkes's apologist, when contending that although Mr. Wilkes did squint, it was not more than a gentleman ought to squint.-A year later, the Prince's person is thus portrayed by a more impartial eye-witness, though of the more partial sex. "He is naturally above the middle size, but stoops excessively he appears bloated and red in the face, his countenance heavy and sleepy, which is attributed to his having given into excess of drinking." This observer, Mrs. Miller,† does justice to his "noble presence and graceful manner," as well as to the reliquary tokens imprinted on his face of former beauty; and depicts the poor exile as presenting, upon the whole, "a melancholic mortified appearance." The Italian correspondents of the English newspapers, at the time of his ill-assorted marriage-he being then a morose sot of fifty-two, and his bride (Louisa Princess of Stolberg) a radiant girl of twenty,-describe him as extremely corpulent, owing to a total disuse of exercise, and much pimpled in the face, § in consequence of drinking. So looked in his latter days he that had once enthralled the hearts of gentle and simple, by his looks and bearing,-the hearts alike of whole galaxies of high-born beauties in the halls of Holyrood, and of whole clans of wild Highlandmen on their own bleak mountains and moors. There is a note-worthy little sort of obitur dictum, trivially introduced in the Mémoires of Saint-Simon, Duke and Peer: "I had almost forgotten to say, that on the last day of this year, 1720, a Prince of Wales was born at Rome." One might almost suppose from the casual style of the "illustration," that St. Simon, like Mr. Toots, accounted it "not of the least consequence." The duke does, however, go on to report progress, as regards the public reception and welcome accorded to the little stranger whose birth he "almost forgot" to put on record. He relates how the Prince was immediately baptised by the Bishop of Montefiascone, and named Charles-and what a great stir the event caused in the Holy City-and how the Pope sent his compliments to their Britannic Majesties (not meaning the Hanover make-believe), and forwarded to the King of England (not meaning George Guelph) ten thousand Roman crowns,— and how, as soon as the Queen of England (not meaning any of that German squad) was able to see company, Cardinal Tanora came in state, as representative of the Sacred College, to congratulate her.|| St. Simon also declares the birth of Bonnie Prince Charlie to have made much stir at the Court of England, and among the priests and Jacobites of that country; adding that, for very different reasons, not only the Catholics and Protestants among His (pseudo) Majesty's Opposition were in rap * Forbes's manuscript collections, &c. † Letters from Italy, by a Lady, 1776. See Chambers, Hist. Reb., ch. xxxii. p. 194. See, too, an anecdote in the Second Series of Dean Ramsay's Reminiscences, || Mémoires de Saint-Simon. tures at it, but that nearly all the three realms showed as much joy as they dared; not from any attachment to the dethroned house, or from actual preference of Stuarts to Guelphs, but for the satisfaction of seeing the continuance of a royal lineage, with which, as a constant quantity to fall back upon and appeal to, they could always menace and oppose their de facto constitutional kings. As for the exiled Court of Saint-Germain, it too had within itself its Opposition party. It had its exaltés and its modérés.* There were those who would concede nothing to constitutionalism, who would not bate a tittle of divine right, and would rather continue to see the royal family in exile, than purchase the crown by concession and compromise. And there were those, on the other hand, who desired to see James yield to the spirit of the times, and make terms with the party of toleration, freedom, and progress. Into such a divided Court was Charles Edward born, and amid such jarring strifes was he bred. The narrative of his youth is curieux, remarks M. St. Marc Girardin, "et prépare habilement l'entrée en scène du héros." One is interested in the ardour and vivacity of ce jeune homme, whose conscious destiny makes the blood boil in his veins, as his excited imagination, panting and tumultuous, urges and spurs him on to a future of adventure and romance. "Dans cette effervescence de jeune homme, le héros de roman semble percer déjà. Les héros de l'histoire ont quelque chose de plus calme et de plus sûr." In Charles Edward, M. Girardin sees a man better fitted for adventure than for business,―rash, brilliant, sure of a brief lease of showy splendour, but not made for lasting success.† The President des Brosses, Voltaire's lively but dignified and not unequally-matched correspondent, writing in 1740, describes Charles as of "far higher worth, and much more beloved by his friends," than his younger brother, the Duke of York, whose "handsome face and pretty manners" made him so popular with the many; and M. le Président can testify, on the best authority, that Prince Charles has a kind heart and a high courage; that he feels warmly for his family misfortunes; and that if some day he does not retrieve them, it will not be for want of intrepidity. "They tell me, that having been taken, when quite a stripling, to the siege of Gaeta by the Spaniards, one day during the voyage his hat blew off into the sea. The people round him wished to No,' cried he, do not take that trouble; I will some day go the same way my hat has gone, if things remain as they are." " short lustre added to his age, would see the Prince making his entry in triumph into Edinburgh, when and where recover it. " All tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights While she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins One * Histoire de Charles-Edouard, dernier prince de la maison de Stuart, par M. Amédée Pichot. Essais de Littérature et de Morals, par St. Marc Girardin, t. ii. His courage was called in question after Culloden, mainly on the evidence of Chevalier Johnstone; which evidence was well sifted, if not shaken to pieces, by Sir Walter Scott, both in his review of Home's Life, and in his Annotations appended to Waverley. Des Brosses, L'Italie il y a Cent Ans. March-VOL. CXXX. NO. DXIX. Χ |