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"L'enfant Titi, is the pretty infant.

"L'Eveille, is a person lively and watchful.

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‘Bibi, in Arabic signifies, my Love or my Dear. "Forteserre, is one who will gripe, hold his own.

"Abor, father of Bibi, maintains the character of a faithful and affectionate parent.

"Triptillon, brother of Titi, shows his dexterity in being too sharp for his play-fellows.

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'Ginguet, bears the interpretation of weak or spiritless wine, which cannot intoxicate any here.

Tripasse, is a good housewife or complete œconomist in all family affairs.

Blanche, brune: is white and brown, or Princess Brunetta. "The old lady; it appears, is a professed sorceress.

"Prince Titi's history is thus explained,

In which no Kingdom, Town or City's named;
War is declared and battles lost and won,
Between the rising and the setting sun,
Diamonds in filberts, medlars, eggs abound,
And every scene displays enchantments round;
Exiled from Court the prince superior shone,
And happily, at length, ascends the Throne.
If to these fairy figments, claimants rise,
Welcome the owners are to share the prize.
"ELIZA STANLEY,

"Whitehall,

"Feb. 20, 1736."

Enough has been given to snow the character of the book, which Mr. Croker endeavoured, with great elaboration, to identify with the Memoirs, which were said to have been written, either by Prince Frederick or by his secretary Ralph. But these memoirs

-what is the authority for a belief in their existence? Mr. Croker's seems to have been based on a passage in Park's annotated edition of Walpole's "Royal and Noble Authors." "He (i.e. Frederick, Prince of Wales) had written memoirs of his own time, under the name of Prince Titi. They were found among Ralph the historian's papers: his executor, the late Dr. Rose of Chiswick, with a spirit of honour and disinterestedness of which the world has seen few examples, put the manuscript without any terms into the hands of a nobleman then in great favour at Carlton House. Of this generous behaviour that nobleman never took the least notice, nor even made the least

remuneration, either pecuniary or in any other manner whatever." (Vol. i. p. 171.) So far Mr. Park in his additions to Walpole, who has not himself a single word about Ralph or these memoirs. But whence did Park derive the substance of his story? From that repertory of the curious and the useful, the "Gentleman's Magazine,” vol. lxx. pt. i., p. 422. In answer to the inquiries of correspondents respecting Mr. Ralph, S. A. (i.e. S. Ayscough, writing from B. M., i.e. the British Museum) supplied in the May number of the year 1800, certain notes, and among others the following:

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Thursday, July 5, 1764.—Mr. William Martin, Deputy Master of the Office of Pleas, in the Court of Exchequer, told me that he had been assured by a worthy dissenting minister, that at a public meeting and dinner of his brethren, at which himself was present, Mr. R(ose), of C(hiswick), related to them the following story. That Mr. James Ralph, when he was so ill as to apprehend death, observed to Mr. R(ose), whom he left his executor, that there was in a certain box papers that would prove a sufficient provision for his family. Upon Mr. Ralph's death, on the 23rd of January, 1762, the box was examined by Mr. R(ose), who found in it a bundle of papers with an inscription on the cover, purporting that they were given by the Prince of Wales's own hand. The title of them was 'The History of Prince Titus' (sic), and the piece appeared to be the history of the Prince of Wales himself, which had been drawn up by his Royal Highness, in conjunction with the Earl of B(ute), and transcribed from their several papers, which were in the bundle, by the Prince himself. The chief subject of the history was to represent how much he had been wronged by his father and his father's ministers, against whom he expressed the deepest resentment, and a resolution to revenge himself upon them when he should come to the Crown. When Mr. R(ose) had read the piece, he thought proper to acquaint Lord Blute) with what he had in his possession: who declared great satisfaction in knowing where the papers were, and intimated that His Majesty, the present King, would be equally pleased, and ready to consider Mr. Ralph's daughter on that account. Accordingly, a pension of £150 was settled on her, which she enjoyed but a short time, dying about a month after her father. Mr. R(ose) has since been more reserved with regard to this story, which has occasioned those, who heard him tell it, and know how unwilling he is to recollect it, to suspect

that he has a sufficient consideration to induce him to silence, especially as he appears to be more affluent in his circumstances than he was formerly, before the time of his mentioning the story."

A strenuous but vain effort has been made to discover the writer of this paragraph, which Ayscough produced in answer to the inquiries regarding Mr. Ralph. The labour indeed was superfluous, as the character of Mr. William Martin's narrative is transparent; but it may be worth while to add that, such as it is, all the particular statements of it are peremptorily denied by Mr. Faulkner in his history of Brentford, Ealing, and Chiswick (1845, p. 354-5), from information communicated by the family of Dr. Rose.

This, then, which is not above the level of a coq-a-l'âne story, is, we believe, the fons et origo of Park's supplementary remarks. It is the sole support of Mr. Croker's persistent attempt to identify Monsieur Hyacinthe de Themiseul's allegory of Prince Titi, with Memoirs which Prince Frederick is said to have written of his own times. Anything more unlike memoirs can hardly be conceived, than this Allegorie Royale. So that, in short, even if Mr. Croker were right, what the executors of Ralph found and delivered up, whether to the Government or the Princess of Wales, was the manuscript of a feeble allegory which had run through four editions in French, from 1736 to 1752, and which had also appeared in two English translations published, or advertised, in 1736,—“ Histoire du Prince Titi," and the translations thereof.

Macaulay, therefore, was undoubtedly right when he asserted that no Memoirs, in the formal and distinctive sense of the word, of Prince Frederick had ever been published, though he may have been ignorant of the existence of the "Histoire du Prince Titi," a very venial piece of ignorance, it appears to us.

Readers may now understand the ground of Johnson's aversion: he turned away in contempt from a collection of books among which he saw the puerile Prince Titi side by side with fairy tales es vapid as are contained in the Bibliothèque des Fées.

END OF VOL. II.

CHISWICK PRESS-C WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT,

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