or three small strugglings of nature, and without such agonies as in such cases are common, she fell asleep." Dr. Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester, in a preface to his Discourse on the Queen's death, bears additional testimony to her extraordinary calmness and resignation in her last moments, and informs us that so struck was one of her physicians at the serenity with which she endured her sufferings, that he exclaimed," She seemed to me more like an angel than a woman." We learn from the same authority, that when the Queen received the Sacrament, as many as seven bishops communicated at the same time. Queen Mary died 28th of December, 1691, in the thirty-third year of her age, and the sixth of her joint reign with her husband. The fact appears somewhat singular, that, on her death-bed, Mary should have expressed no regret for her former conduct towards her father, and, indeed, (as far as we can glean from contemporary accounts,) that she should have abstained from all allusion to the subject. Shortly after her decease, an attack was made on the Archbishop of Canterbury, by Dr. Ken, the deprived Bishop of Bath and Wells, for having neglected to exhort her to express contrition on the subject. The fact of his daughter dying in her disobedience, appears to have been a severe blow to King James. That monarch, speaking an of himself in the third person, observes in noticing her death in his Diary,-"The Princess of Orange dies December 28, O.S. The King made no efforts upon her death. Her proximity of blood was the Prince of Orange's chief support. He hoped the government might shake and unhinge itself. All that the King got was additional affliction to those he had already undergone, by seeing his child he loved so tenderly persevere, to her death, in such a signal state of disobedience and disloyalty; and to hear it extolled as for the highest virtue, by the mercenary flatterers of the times. Even Archbishop Tenison reckoned, among her virtues, her contradictions; and that she had got the better of her duty to a parent, in consideration of her religion and her country. But his own children had lost all bowels of compassion and duty for the King. The King was much afflicted at her manner of dying."* After the Queen's death, a memorandum was found among her papers of her personal debts, which, however, amounted but to a small sum. A paper was also discovered, in which she expressed a desire that her body should not be opened, and that no extraordinary sum should be expended on her funeral. This document was found too late to be acted upon. † Her * Macpherson's Original Papers, vol. i. p. 246. obsequies, indeed, were performed with the greatest magnificence. The streets from Whitehall to Westminster were covered with boards; and divided, on each side the foot-paths, by railings hung with black cloth. The Duchess of Somerset, supported by two Duchesses, twelve Countesses, and four Baronesses, acted as chief mourner. The Sergeants-at-Law, the Judges, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London, as well as the House of Commons, in long cloaks, and the Peers in their robes, attended the ceremony. The body of the late Queen, in a purple velvet coffin, covered with a rich pall of cloth of gold, was conveyed to the Abbey in an open chariot drawn by eight horses; the latter caparisoned in purple velvet, and decorated with feathers and escutcheons. No ceremonial, indeed, was omitted which could possibly add to the splendour of the mournful scene, or tend to show respect for the deceased. The burial service was performed by the Dean of Westminster, after which the body was interred in a vault on the south side of Henry the Seventh's chapel. Evelyn, who saw the Queen's body lying in state, informs us that the expenses of her funeral amounted to fifty thousand pounds. As a particular mark of respect, it was ordered that, on the day of her interment, the great bell in every church in England should toll for three hours. "Probably," says Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Prior, "no funeral was ever so poetically attended as that of Queen Mary." As a specimen of the numerous elegies and other funereal lamentations, which celebrated the nation's loss and the King's grief, we may insert the following lines from Pomfret's "Pastoral Essay on the Death of Queen Mary," with which we will conclude our notice of her life : How good she was, how generous, how wise The humblest muse with the sublimest fire; 221 WILLIAM BENTINCK, EARL OF PORTLAND. His descent from an old Dutch family.-His birth in 1649, and appointment as Page of Honour to the Prince of Orange. -Instance of his early attachment to the Prince.—Sir W. Temple's opinion of him.-Bentinck accompanies the Prince on his invasion of England. - Is shortly afterwards created Earl of Portland, and made a Knight of the Garter. Is lampooned in consequence. Accompanies William to Ireland, and distinguishes himself at the battle of the Boyne. -His disinterestedness with respect to a bribe offered him. -He is sent Ambassador-Extraordinary to France.-Is disliked by the English. — Is rivalled in the King's favour by Arnold Van Keppel, afterwards Earl of Albemarle.-Dies of a pleurisy and malignant fever in 1709. WILLIAM, Earl of Portland, the early favourite of King William, was the third son of Henry Bentinck, Herr Van Diepenham, and was descended from a family who had long resided in Overyssel, one of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. He was born in 1649, and at an early age was appointed page of honour to William, then Prince of Orange, from which post he was shortly afterwards advanced to be a gentleman of his bedchamber. On an occasion of William being attacked with |