pally given employment-the biographer, the preacher, and the poet. We have looked, in general, with no great success among the published specimens in each of these departments for something to satisfy our own minds. Some, indeed, of the sermons which have met our eye have made a beneficial and spiritual use of the event; and some which have met our ears have, we trust, left an useful impression upon our hearts. But the most edifying effect of the sad catastrophe is the testimony it has produced, and with which it will be coupled in history, of the national and universal tribute paid to domestic worth in princes, and the moral supremacy of virtuous example. Those who are alive to the immense importance of what in a large and political sense may be called "opinion" in the actual state of this country, considered with reference to the inquiring activity of the public mind, and the gigantic ascendancy of the press, will do justice to the importance of those great conjunctures which spread the sympathy of right religious feeling through the land, and dispose the people as one man to recognise and reverence the claims of goodness as distinct from greatness in great and illustrious persons. The only thing left us to wish in this general homage done to virtue is, that the claims of consistency may not entirely be forgotten;-that the absurdity may be felt by the elevated part of the nation of continuing their preference in practice of their own silly career of dissipation, whilst the tear is yet falling for the loss of a princess whose excellence is admitted by all to have been comprised in this short statement-that she was happy at home, and made home happy;-that the absurdity may be felt of praising as they deserved a young and royal couple for keeping the sabbath holy, and then, with an alacrity triumphant over conviction and example, recurring to the systematic violation of the decencies of the day. If a moral amendment shall be manifest in the country from the date of this afflicting event, then indeed it may be truly said that our sorrow is turned into joy; and that, of all the princes which the world has seen, to no one has so precious and superb a monument been raised by the reverence and regrets of posterity. | We are not among those, if there be any such, who look for so decided a consequence of the calamity which has befallen us: but we consider it as an event which, however melancholy in itself, has not been without some collateral benefit: it has brought into public view, and exhibited in a sensible and active form, a great deal of virtuous sentiment, of the existence of which, while in a quiescent state, we seem scarcely to have been aware. attracts the application of the just observation of Tacitus, "Virtutes iisdem temporibus optime estimantur quibus facilime gignuntur;" it has shown man to man in a light calculated to It improve philanthropy, and to increase happiness by inspiring mutual esteem: besides which, sorrow for departed excellence is always a wholesome exercise of the mind; it prepares the soil for the seed of virtue; and those who by function and appointment are the cultivators of this spiritual farm have found this a favourable season for the success of their labours. A happy being, attended by youth and beauty, health and loveliness, in her progress to the consummation of all temporal bliss and grandeur, involving in the completion of her own hopes the hopes and happiness of the greatest of nations, just as the threshold of an earthly paradise had felt the pressure of her bounding footstep, snatched away from human converse and human love, to be as a clod of the valley, afforded a lesson awfully impressive, fraught with practical humiliation, and the testimonies of our abject dependance upon God's inscrutable providence. It was an event well calculated to try how far we were a reflecting and religious people. Earthquakes and inundations will throw a nation upon its knees, but the religious fit is as short as the danger. "Revelry and dance and show Suffer a syncope and solemn pause." But folly returns with a double impetus when the dread is over, and the passions recover their lost ground with a tumultuous recoil. The character, and, we trust, the consequence of the late visitation upon this country, has been altogether of another cast: and viewed in the light of a correction (and this is not only the most reverential, but the most consolatory view, to take of it), it was better calculated to discipline the public mind, to excite virtuous emotions, to produce wholesome shame, and manly and moral reformation, than any form of parental chastisement which our depravity has deserved. Had the Princess lived to become sovereign queen of this great country, we are assured by the oracular wisdom of many of the pamphlets which her death has given birth to, that the reign of Elizabeth would have been renewed. How far such a development or consummation was to have been expected or desired, we shall not now inquire; but of this we are pretty certain, that whatever excellence of conduct might have distinguished her reign, it would not have saved her from the lying lips of democratic slander, the malignant abuse of factious politicians out of power, the misrepresentations of the unprincipled portion of the press, or the hatred of those who now join with seeming cordiality in the general praise, not because they venerate domestic virtue, but because from her domestic virtue they deduce a contrast to that splendour, and energy, and vigilant exertion, which belong of necessity to wholesome and efficient rule. The rays of her pure beneficence would have come to us through a thick and vapoury atmosphere, blunted, and bent, and distorted. Her removal from us at this period of her course, with nothing that is invidious in greatness, but with all its brilliancy surrounding her, when no fair anticipation had yet been crossed, and her diadem sparkled with the gems of innocence and love, before envy had discovered that her repose was indolent, her simplicity mean, and her vivacity vulgar; while her opening graces were under the shelter of retirement, and the dews of heaven rested upon her green and budding sceptre; has, however melancholy in other respects, been the means of giving to the world an unblemished pattern, and of procuring for virtues which adorn the lowest the homage attracted by the highest station. So far this affecting event has operated favourably for the best interests of humanity; and such was the privilege of this illustrious young lady, such the charter annexed to her quality and virtue, that death appeared to consecrate her value, and inscribe upon the hearts of the people the lesson which her short life had afforded them.. Upon no occasion which the world has yet witnessed has so numerous a portion of mankind united in one spontaneous expression of homage to virtue-plain and christian virtue-humble, charitable, and dutiful. It is quite new in the moral world to see a great and mighty nation erect itself in an attitude of religious sorrow, under an infliction not touching their own doors, or alarming their personal or selfish fears; interesting indeed the finest sympathies of our nature, and perplexing the future with some apprehensions of possible danger, but accompanied by none of those circumstances of terror which have often produced among the godless and heartless the fever of temporary devotion: it is new, and interesting, and edifying, and august, to behold a luxurious, prosperous, victorious people, brought to self-recollection and prayer, and a humble recognition of the divine wisdom of Providence, by a loss which, to feel it in all its bearings, requires both sensibility, and loyalty, and a spirit of sober reflection. It is very consoling and gratifying to have been the spectators and participators of this devotional sorrow at a period of increasing crime in spite of increasing instruction, and of a general intermixture with continental depravity. But incomparably the finest view to take of this, may we be permitted to call it, picturesque attitude of the country, is the penetrating lecture it conveys to the ears of princes and great men. They are taught to feel "how awful goodness is," and how deeply implanted in the frame and constitution of things are its titles to veneration. Is there one of our princes who can have been a cold observer of the feelings of the country upon this late occasion? Is there one that can avoid perceiving, taught by this lesson, that while, in the vulgar display of ephemeral splendour, every great capitalist in the land may be his equal or superior, in that "unbought grace of life" which consists in the discharge of its simple duties, he has by birth and station a power of excelling others, if not in substance, at least in effect. It is scarcely too strong an aphorism to say-let him take care of the man, and what is princely will take care of itself. Popularity is perhaps too easy a purchase in a prince: to be "honoured in their generations" they need scarcely do much more than "live peaceably in their habitations; and to be "the glory of their times," they need neither be rich, nor eminently "furnished with ability;" so long as they uphold by their example the dignity of the national character, and the discipline of a virtuous life. To live above the insipidity and vulgarity of what is called fashionable life, and which can only mix them with their inferiors; to consult nature, and Scripture, and consistency in their conduct; to be strict in their observance, not of chivalrous, but of social honour; to be hearty in their intercourse, and honest in their dealings; and, to come plainly to the point, to live the life which alone conducts to happiness; is the cheap price which our princes have to pay for the affectionate attachment of a people the greatest upon the earth. Such has been the lesson bequeathed by the Princess Charlotte as a legacy to her royal House. Her death has developed the genuine sentiments of the British people towards their princes, who, in the sacred grief which marked the day of her interment, may see wherein lies the security of thrones, and the moral secret of preserving empire. The little book the title of which we have placed at the head of this article has been chosen by us, not for any distinction that belongs to it, but because it has collected together a great deal of the nonsense which has been written on the subject. The volume is pretty equally divided between prose and poetry, and the prose, of which alone we shall stop to take any notice, consists of the rubbish of newspaper anecdotes and party fables; a specimen of which occurs in p. 27, which, being rather curious for the stupidity of its fabrication, and the factious turpitude which is at the bottom of it, we will present it to our readers: "Unfortunately for the Princess, after her royal father had formed the resolution to detach himself from his former connexions with the friends of Mr. Fox, with whose constitutional principles he had gloried in embuing the mind of the beloved Princess, it is related that before she was perfectly acquainted with this sudden change, she was invited to an entertainment at Carlton House, under the idea of being introduced to the friends of her royal father, those elevated and enlightened characters to whose principles she had been taught to look up almost with a degree of reverence. Instead of these, to her the faces and the situations they then held were all new! One only of those who were present formed an exception. In vain she looked for the nobler names, and some of the descendants of our ancient nobility. Some explanation became necessary. Her father inquiring the cause, she replied to this effect: "Your Highness has frequently enjoined me that if any thing should happen to you, and I should ascend the throne of these kingdoms, to place my whole dependence upon the counsels of Lords Grenville, Grey, Erskine, Lauderdale, &c.; but I see only one of these at your table. Something strange must have taken place in your sentiments since you caused me to be educated in the school of Mr. Fox, and gave me the injunction I have mentioned." The Princess retired in great distress, and the report as circulated by the newspapers was, that she was taken suddenly ill, until Lord Lauderdale gave the statement here related, and Lord Byron wrote the following remarkable lines upon this memorable transaction: "Weep, daughter of a royal line, A sire's disgrace, a realm's decay, "Weep, for thy tears are virtuous tears, Repaid thee by thy people's smiles." (P. 26, 27.) We need hardly make any comment upon this passage after what in various other places of our Review we have said of the spirit of Mr. Fox's party and of Lord Byron's poetry. It will be enough to say that, to be educated in the school of Mr. Fox, could have no sense but this-to be taught to oppose indiscriminately all the measures of any Government of which Mr. Fox made not a part; and if this could be the right education for the future Prince of this country, we should still have to learn in what manner the school of Mr. Fox was to prepare the disciple for a dependance upon the counsels of Lord Grenville. Nor will it be just to Lord Lauderdale not to presume that, if the statement, as this writer supposes, were really made by him, his Lordship's name, instead of appearing among the number of those on whose counsels the Princess was instructed to depend, would rather have been committed in silence to the &c. at the end of the sentence. If any thing relating to the object of our present regret could induce a smile, we should be really amused by the statement which we have just quoted, especially with the pathos with which it is asserted that the Princess retired in great distress, and that sudden illness was assigned as the cause of this abrupt departure, until Lord Lauderdale in prose, and Lord Byron in poetry, revealed the solemn secret to the world. But the writer of this informing little work presents us in the |
