the Law, in order to avoid all risks; it being equally manifest that, if merely preventing a Catholic from being the Sovereign's consort had been the only purpose of the enactment, this could have been most effectually accomplished by simply declaring the marriage void, and the forfeiture of the crown became wholly superfluous. It is, therefore, very far from being clear that this marriage was no forfeiture of the crown. But, it may be said, the Prince ran this risk only for himself, and no one had a right to complain. Not so. The forfeiture of the crown was his own risk assuredly; but he trepanned Mrs. Fitzherbert into a sacrifice of her honour to gratify his passion, when he well knew that the ceremony which she was made to believe a marriage could only be regarded as a mere empty form, of no legal validity or effect whatever; unless, indeed, that of exposing her, and all who assisted, to the high pains and penalties of a pramunire. While he pretended that he was making her his wife, and made her believe she was such, he was only making her the victim of his passions, and the accomplice of his crimes.

A few years after, when those passions had cooled, or were directed into some new channel, the rumour having got abroad, a question was asked in Parliament respecting the alleged marriage. His chosen political associates were appealed to, and, being instructed by him, denied the charge in the most unqualified terms. Before such men as Mr. Fox and Mr. Grey could thus far commit their honour, they took care to be well assured of the fact by direct personal communication with the Prince himself. He most solemnly denied the whole upon his sacred honour; and his denial was, through those most respectable channels, conveyed to the House of Commons. We are giving here a matter of history well known at the time;-a thousand times repeated since, and never qualified by the parties, nor ever contradicted on their behalf. It must be con

fessed, that this passage of the Prince's story made his treatment of Mrs. Fitzherbert complete in all its parts. After seducing her with a false and fictitious marriage, he refused her the poor gratification of saving her reputation, by letting the world believe he had really made her his wife. Instances are not wanting of men committing in public a breach of veracity, and sacrificing truth, to save the reputation of their paramours; nor is any moralist so stern as to visit with very severe censure conduct like this. But who was there ever yet so base as deliberately to pledge his honour to a falsehood, for the purpose of his own protection, and in order to cover with shame her whom his other false pretences had deceived into being his paramour? Bad as this is, worse remains to be told. This treachery was all for the lucre of gain; the question was raised, upon an application to Parliament for money; and the falsehood was told to smooth the difficulties that stood in the way of a vote in Committee of Supply!

The influence of Mrs. Fitzherbert gave place to another connexion, but she retained that sway over his mind which we have described as the brightest feature in the Prince's character. Hence he spared no pains to make her believe that the public denial of their wedlock was only rendered necessary by his father's prejudices and tyrannical conduct. She well knew, that to find an example of fear greater than that dread with which he quailed at the sound of his father's voice, or indeed the bare mention of his name, it was necessary to go among the many-coloured inhabitants of the Caribbee Islands; and hence she could the more easily credit the explanation given of the disclaimer so cruel to her feelings. In private, therefore, and with her, he still passed himself for her husband, and she learned, like other and more real wives, to shut her eyes upon his infidelities, while her empire over his mind remained unshaken. The pressure of new difficulties rendered a regular marriage necessary for his extri

cation; but as this must at once and for ever dispel all that remained of the matrimonial delusion, he long resisted the temptation, through fear of Mrs. Fitzherbert, and dread of their intercourse coming to a violent end. At length the increasing pressure of his embarrassments overweighed all other considerations, and he consented to a marriage, and to give up Mrs. Fitzherbert for ever. Others with whom he lived upon the most intimate terms are believed to have interposed fresh obstacles to this scheme; but these were overcome by an understanding that the new wife should enjoy only the name;-that systematic neglect and insult of every kind heaped upon her should attest how little concern the heart had with this honourable arrangement, and how entirely the husband continued devoted to the wedded wives of other men. Every thing was now settled to the satisfaction of all parties. The old spouse was discarded-the old mistresses were cherished, fondled, and appeased-the faithful Commons were overjoyed at the prospect of a long line of heirs to the crown-the loyal people were enraptured at the thoughts of new princes and princesses-the King, while he felt his throne strengthened by the provision made for the succession, was gratified with whatever lowered the person he most hated and despised-and the Prince himself was relieved of much debt, and endowed with augmented resources. One party alone was left out of the general consideration-the intended. consort of this illustrious character, whose peculiar pride it was to be called by his flatterers the "First Gentleman in Europe."

Caroline Princess of Brunswick was the individual whom it was found convenient to make the sacrifice on this occasion to an arrangement that diffused so universal a joy through this free, moral, and reflecting country. She was niece of George III., and consequently one of the Prince's nearest relations. Nor has it ever been denied, that in her youth she was a Prin

cess of singular accomplishments, as well of mind as of person. All who had seen her in those days represented her as lovely; nor did she, on touching our shores, disappoint the expectations which those eyewitnesses had raised. All who had known her in that season of youth, and before care had become the companion of her life, and the cruelty of others had preyed upon her feelings and sapped her understanding, described her mental endowments as brilliant; and a judge, alike experienced and fastidious, long after she had come amongst us, continued to paint her as formed to be "the life, grace, and ornament of polished society.' Her talents were indeed far above the ordinary level of women, and had her education not been rather below the average stock of Princesses, they would have decked her in accomplishments remarkable for any station. Endowed with the greatest quickness of apprehension, with a singularly ready wit, and with such perseverance as is rarely seen in the inmates of a court, she shone in conversation, and could have excelled in higher studies than statuary, the only one to which she devoted her attention. If it be said that her buoyant spirits were little compatible with the etiquette of a German court, and made her attend less to forms than the decorum of our English palaces, under the cold and stiff reign of George and Charlotte, might seem to require-so must it be confessed, on the other hand, that no person of the exalted station to which this great lady was born, and the still higher elevation of rank which she afterwards reached, ever showed such entire freedom from all haughtiness and pride, or more habitually estimated all who approached her by their intrinsic merits alone. The first duchess in the land, and the humblest of its peasants, were alike welcome to her, if their endowments and their dispositions claimed her regard; and, if by the accident of birth she was more frequently thrown into the

* Mr. Canning in the House of Commons.

fellowship of the one, she could relish the talk, seek out the merits, admire the virtues, and interest herself in the fortunes of the other, without ever feeling the difference of their rank, even so far as to betray in her manner that she was honouring them by her condescension. Thus, all might well be charmed with her good-nature, lively humour, and kindly demeanour, while no one ever thought of praising her affability. But Caroline of Brunswick had far higher qualities than these; she put forward, in the course of her hapless and chequered existence, claims of a much loftier caste. She had a delight in works of beneficence that made charity the very bond of her existence; nor were the sufferings of her life unconnected with this amiable propensity of her nature. Her passionate fondness for children, balked by that separation from her only offspring to which she was early doomed, led her into the unwise course of adopting the infants of others, which she cherished as if they had been her own. Her courage was of the highest order of female bravery, scorning all perils in the pursuit of worthy objects, leading her certainly into adventures that were chiefly recommended by their risks, but, like the active cou rage of a woman, suffering occasionally intervals of suspension according to the state of the animal spirits, possibly influenced by the physical constitution of the female frame, although the passive virtue of fortitude. never knew abatement or eclipse. There were occasions, indeed, when her two distinguishing characteristics were both called forth in unison, and her brave nature ministered to her charity. While travelling in the East, the plague broke out among her suite. Unappalled by a peril which has laid prostrate the stoutest hearts, she entered the hospital, and set to others the example of attending upon the sick, regardless of even the extreme risk which she ran by hanging over their beds and touching their persons. Let it be added to this, that her nature was absolutely without malice

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