virtue in adversity, which in prosperity she had been thought not only to neglect but despise. Finally, having undergone, according to very private and particular reports, the pangs of contrition, for all past offences, she died on a scaffold, a martyr to politics, but a saint, it is to be hoped, in religion.

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The writer of these pages had opportunities of seeing the last two of these royal personages, shining in all the splendour and brilliancy that the externals of majesty could cast around them; but, he feels bound to confess, that his idea of their worth increased with their misfortunes, and that they never appeared less a Jest to him than when stripped of the externals of majesty, they became victims to the barbarity of a revolutionary government, and the scorn of a parcel of proud republicans.

As it is with Majesty, so it is with all worldly distinctions; they only ennoble a man as a member of society, not as a human being; it depends upon the man himself whether he be above or below his own title, but it is undeniable that the latter being meant as the reward of virtue, should con"A mere stantly give him a bias that way. great man," says Bishop Earle, in his Microcosmo

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graphy, "is so much heraldry without honour, himself less real than his title. His virtue is, that he was his father's son, and all the expectation of him to beget another." It was the saying of a Queen, (Christina of Sweden) when, contrary to the expectations of her courtiers, she had raised Salvius, a man of low birth, but great talents, to the rank of a Senator of Stockholm, "when good advice and wise counsel are wanted, who looks for sixteen quarters?" excellent are the sentiments contained in the following lines,

"Though to your Title there is honor due,
It is yourself that makes me honor you!"

"What's Honor?

Not to be captious; not unjustly fight;

'Tis to confess what's wrong, and do what's right.

Can place or lessen us, or aggrandise?

Pigmies are pigmies still, tho' perch'd on Alps!

And pyramids are pyramids in vales!

Each man builds his own structure, builds himself;
Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids ;

Her monuments shall last, when Egypt's fall."

Are then the externals of majesty, nobility, &c. &c. I would ask, just objects of envy? Far from it. The externals of majesty, I apprehend, seldom compensate to any, but never to the good man, the troubles and vexations of so exalted, and what is more, so conspicuous a sta

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tion. "Mihi credite, said an Emperor, "mori mallem quam Imperare." "Curia curis stringitur, Diadema spinis cingitur." "In the greatest fortune," says Sallust," there is the least liberty." "In maximâ fortunâ, minima licentia." Kings, Princes, Monarchs, and Magistrates seem," says Burton, "to be most happy, but look into their estate, you shall find them to be most encumbered with cares, in perpetual fear, agony, suspicion, jealousy." That, as Valerius said of a crown, if they knew but the discontents that accompany it, they would not stop to take it up. Plus aloes quam mellis habet, it has more bitters than sweets belonging to it," non humi jacentem tolleres." "Quem mihi regem dabis, non curis plenum?" says an eloquent Father of the Church, "What King canst thou shew me not full of cares?" Look not on his crown, but consider his afflictions; attend not his number of servants, but multitude of crosses; Sylla-like, they have brave titles, but terrible cares; Splendorem titulo, cruciatum animo." "But woes me," says Linklater of King James, in the Fortunes of Nigel, "if you knew how many folks make it their daily and nightly purpose to set his head against his heart, and his heart against his head

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-to make him do hard things because they are called just, and unjust things because they are represented as kind!" Now is not this enough to convince one, that worldly titles and distinc→ tions, can seldom be any fair objects of envy, and that as Henry IV. says, in Shakespeare,

Seeing these things, and living under a monarchy, regulated and limited, upon the purest principles of political freedom, I feel a degree of gratitude mixed up with my loyalty, towards the exalted personage, who, with so little thanks, sustains so heavy a burthen; nor can I well bear to hear the murmurings and complaints of certain narrow-minded or malicious persons, who may be said constantly to stand ready to censure all his actions, as though it were not the law of the land that had placed him in so strange, so singular, so perilous, and so anxious a situation; but that he had usurped it, and altogether taken it upon himself, for his own pleasure and amusement, if not for baser ends. I must beg you to excuse a long extract from that interesting poet Cowper; for I like to give Kings fair play as well as other people;

"To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood,
E'en when he labours for his country's good,
To see a band call'd patriot for no cause,
But that they catch at popnlar applause ;
Careless of all th' anxiety he feels,
Hook disappointment on the public wheels,
With all their flippant fluency of tongue,
Most confident, when palpably most wrong;
If this be kingly, then farewell for me
All kingship! and may I, be poor and free.
To be the table-talk of clubs up stairs,
To which th' unwash'd artificer repairs,
T' indulge his genius after long fatigue
By diving into Cabinet intrigue,

(For what kings deem a toil, as well they may,
To him is relaxation and mere play.)

To win no praise when well wrought plans prevail,
But to be rudely censur'd when they fail,

To doubt the love his fav'rites pretend,
And in reality to find no friend;

If he indulge a cultivated taste,

His gall'ries with the works of art well grac'd,
To hear it call'd extravagance and waste;
If these attendants, and if such as these,
Must follow royalty, then farewell ease;
However humble and confin'd the sphere,
Happy the state that has not these to fear."

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Let it be granted then, that in the eye of the philosopher and politician, Majesty stripped of its externals is but a jest, yet let us be sure that however brilliant and dazzling to the optics of him who gazes only at the King, those externals may appear, they can contribute very little to