ed her protection to the unfortunate of all religions and all political creeds: she won the regard of more than one noble family, whose principles were hostile to the government, by freely admitting Roman Catholic and Jacobite ladies to private audiences. During the several occasions of her administering the regency, the Act of Toleration was enforced with an almost impolitic mildness; and had her life been extended, the kindness and consideration, which she exercised towards the adherents of the exiled family, would probably have gone further in quietly establishing the House of Brunswick on the throne, than could be effected by a century of intolerable rigour and persecution. Moreover, this mild exercise of power was allowed in no degree to interfere with the true interests of the King or the people; indeed it was mentioned by Queen Caroline herself on her death-bed as a source of great consolation to her, that she had ever been a hearty well-wisher to the liberties of the subject; and that she had invariably done her best to advance the King's honour and the prosperity of the nation.

Queen Caroline was no less estimable in all the relations of private life. To her dependants she was kind and considerate, and the peculiar charm of manner, for which she was distinguished in the crowded drawing-room, was worn with the same grace by her in the privacy of her own circle. She was a kind and judicious parent; -indulgent, if it was possible, and severe only

when it was necessary. She personally superintended the education of her daughters; anxiously watching over the developement of their moral faculties; and unwearying in her endeavours to impress them with a due sense of religion, and to fit them to perform the less important duties of their rank and high calling. Gay, who was frequently admitted to her in her social hours,

From her form all your characters of life,
The tender mother, and the faithful wife;
Oft have I seen her little infant train,
The lovely promise of a future reign:
Observed with pleasure every dawning grace,
And all the mother opening in their face.

In regard to her merits as a wife, he who was the best judge of her conjugal worth has left us the most touching and trustworthy account. When George the Second, for the first time after the Queen's death, was left alone with the elder Horace Walpole, on an accidental recurrence to his recent calamity, the King burst into tears. He had lost one, he said, whose presence of mind had frequently supported him in the most trying juncture of his affairs; whose prudence and sweetness of temper had so often moderated or checked his own resentments; whose counsels and whose affection had constantly smoothed the rugged paths of life, and who had hitherto rendered his existence smooth, easy, and palatable. Hereafter, he said, he must lead a helpless, disconsolate, and uncomfortable

life; and he added, in a tone of great mournfulness, "I do not know what to do, nor which way to turn myself." It would be cruel to disturb the effect of this moral picture by any further comments; we will, therefore, conclude our Memoir of Queen Caroline, with the following lines, extracted from an elegy, by Doddington, on her death:

--

Ye grateful Britons, to her memory just,
With pious tears embalm her sacred dust:
Confess her graced with all that's good and great,

A public blessing to a favoured state!

Patron of freedom and her country's laws,
Sure friend to virtue's and religion's cause;
Religion's cause, whose charm superior shone,
To every gay temptation of a crown;
Whose awful dictates all her soul possessed,
Her one great aim to make a people blessed.

FREDERICK,

PRINCE OF WALES.

His birth.-Created Duke of Gloucester and Duke of Edinburgh. His love of drinking and gaming.-Kept, by his father, at Hanover, and reluctantly recalled to England in his twenty-second year.-Created Prince of Wales.-His attachment to the Princess Royal of Prussia.-Romantic proposal to her mother.-Mutual dislike between George the Second and the Prince.-The latter heads the opposition against Walpole and the Court.-Insidious advice of Lord Bolingbroke to the Prince.-Duchess of Marlborough offers him the hand of her grand-daughter.-Scheme defeated by Walpole. Prince married, in 1736, to the daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha.-Proposes to apply to Parliament for an increase of income.-King's message to him in consequence. -His reply.-Debate in the House of Commons on Pulteney's motion to allow the Prince 100,000l. per annum.— Walpole speaks against it.-Motion negatived.-Brutal conduct of the Prince on his wife's accouchment.-The Queen's remonstrance.-Efforts of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke to effect a reconciliation between the King and Prince.-Sir R. Walpole averse to such attempts.-Prince ordered to quit St. James's. Popularity of the Prince.-His affability and condescension.-Anecdotes.-Overtures made by the King to the Prince, through Secker, Bishop of Oxford.-The Prince's reply.-Visits his father, after Walpole's resignation. -Chief vices of the Prince.-His respect for literature and literary men.-Specimens of his poetry in French and English. He is attacked with pleurisy-recovers-and suffers a relapse from imprudently exposing himself.-Particulars of

his last moments.—The King's grief for his son's death.—General regret for the Prince.-Unpopularity of the "butcher" Cumberland.-Ironical elegy on the Prince.-Sketch of the Prince of Wales's character.

FREDERICK LOUIS, eldest son of George the Second and Queen Caroline, was born at Hanover on the 20th of January, 1707, some years previous to the elevation of the electoral family to the throne of these realms. In 1717, three years after the accession of his grandfather, George the First, he was created Duke of Gloucester: the following year he was installed a Knight of the Garter; and 1726, the title of Duke of Edinburgh was conferred upon him.

As the short life of Frederick Prince of Wales comprises, with scarcely a single redeeming exception, a mere catalogue of folly and vice, it may easily be imagined that the tale of his childhood presents but little worthy of being recorded. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, indeed, who saw him at Hanover when he was in his tenth year, has bequeathed us a pleasing portrait of the royal child. To the Countess of Bristol she writes, on the 25th of November, 1716: “I am extremely pleased that I can tell you, without flattery or partiality, that our young Prince has all the accomplishments that it is possible to have at his age, with an air of sprightliness and understanding, and something so very engaging and easy in his behaviour, that he needs not the advantage of his rank to appear charming. I had the honour of a long conversation with him last