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down while it was yet day;" or that, prematurely snatched from prospects the most brilliant and enchanting, she was compelled to close her eyes so soon on a world, of whose grandeur she formed so conspicuous a part? No! in the full fruition of eternal joys, for which, we humbly hope, religion prepared her; she is so far from looking back with lingering regret on what she has quitted, that she is surprised it had the power of affecting her so much; that she took so deep an interest in the scenes of this shadowy state of being, while so near to an eternal weight of glory;" and, so far as memory may be supposed to contribute to her happiness, by associating the present with the past, it is not by the recollection of her illustrious birth and elevated prospects-but that she visited the abodes of the poor, and learned to weep with those that weep; that, surrounded with the fascinations of pleasure, she was not inebriated by its charms; that she resisted the strongest temptations to pride, preserved her ears open to truth, was impatient of the voice of flattery; in a word, that she sought and cherished the inspirations of piety, and walked humbly with her God.

The nation has certainly not been wanting in the proper expression of its poignant regret at the sudden removal of this most lamented Princess; nor of their sympathy with the royal family, deprived, by this visitation, of its brightest ornament. Sorrow is painted in every countenance, the pursuits of business and of pleasure have been suspended, and the kingdom is covered with the signals of distress- -But what (my friends) if it were lawful to indulge such a thought-what would be the funeral obsequies of a lost soul? Where shall we find the tears fit to be wept at such a spectacle; or, could we realize the calamity, in all its extent, what tokens of commiseration and concern would be deemed equal to the occasion? Would it suffice for the sun to veil his light, and the moon her brightness? to cover the ocean with mourning, and the heavens with sackcloth? or, were the whole fabric of nature to become animated and vocal, would it be possible for it to utter a groan too deep, or a cry too piercing, to express the magnitude and extent of such a catastrophe?

Hall.

On the Death of the Princess Charlotte.

OH! how it tends to quiet the agitations of every earthly interest and earthly passion, when death steps forward, and demonstrates the littleness of them all-when he stamps a character of such affecting insignificance on all that we are contending for-when, as if to make known the greatness of his power in the sight of a whole country, he stalks in ghastly triumph over the might and the grandeur of its most august family, and singling out that member of it in whom the dearest hopes and the gayest visions of the people were suspended, he, by one fatal and resistless blow, sends abroad the fame of his victory and his strength, throughout the wide extent of an afflicted nation! He has indeed put a cruel and impressive mockery on all the glories of mortality. A few days ago, all looked so full of life, and promise, and security-when we read of the bustle of the great preparation-and were told of the skill and the talent that were pressed into the service—and heard of the goodly attendance of the most eminent of the nation-and how officers of state, and the titled dignitaries of the land, were charioted in splendour to the scene of expectation, as to the joys of an approaching holiday—yes, and were told too, that the bells of the surrounding villages were all in readiness for the merry peal of gratulation, and that the expectant metropolis of our empire, on tiptoe for the announcement of her future monarch, had her winged couriers of despatch to speed the welcome message to the ears of her citizens, and that from her an embassy of gladness was to travel over all the provinces of the land; and the country, forgetful of all that she had suffered, was at length to offer the spectacle of one wide and rejoicing jubilee. O death! thou hast indeed chosen the time and the victim, for demonstrating the grim ascendency of thy power over all the hopes and fortunes of our species!-Our blooming Princess, who fancy had decked with the coronet of these realms, and under whose sway all bade so fair for the good and the peace of the nation, has he placed upon her bier! and, as if to fill up the measure of his triumph, has he laid by her side, that babe, who, but for him, might have been the monarch of a future generation; and he has done that, which by no single achievement he could otherwise have accomplished-he has sent forth over the whole of our land, the gloom of such a bereavement as cannot be

replaced by any living descendant of royalty-he has broken the direct succession of the monarchy of England -by one and the same disaster, has he awakened up the public anxieties of the country, and sent a pang as acute as that of the most woful visitation into the heart of each of its families.

Amongst the rich, there is apt, at times, to rankle an injurious and unworthy impression of the poor-and just because these poor stand at a distance from them—just because they come not into contact with that which would draw them out in courteousness to their persons, and in benevolent attentions to their families. Amongst the poor, on the other hand, there is often a disdainful suspicion of the wealthy, as if they were actuated by a proud indifference to them and to their concerns; and as if they were placed away from them at so distant and lofty an elevation, as not to require the exercise of any of those cordialities, which are ever sure to spring in the bosom of man to man, when they come to know each other, and to have the actual sight of each other. But, let any accident place an individual of the higher before the eyes of the lower order, on the ground of their common humanity-let the latter be made to see that the former are akin to themselves in all the sufferings and in all the sensibilities of our common inheritance-let, for example, the greatest chieftain of the territory die, and the report of his weeping children, or of his distracted widow, be sent through the neighbourhood -or, let an infant of his family be in suffering, and the mothers of the humble vicinity be run to for counsel and assistance—or, in any other way, let the rich, instead of being viewed by their inferiors through the dim and distant medium of that fancied interval which separates the ranks of society, be seen as heirs of the same frailty, and as dependent on the same sympathies with themselves— and, at that moment, all the floodgates of honest sympathy will be opened--and the lowest servants of the establishment will join in the cry of distress which has come upon their family-and the neighbouring cottagers, to share in their grief, have only to recognise them as the partakers of one nature, and to perceive an assimilation of feelings and of circumstances between them.

Let me further apply all this to the sons and the daughters of royalty. The truth is, that they appear to the pubeye as stalking on a platform so highly elevated above

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the general level of society, that it removes them, as it were, from all the ordinary sympathies of our nature. And though we read at times of their galas, and their birth-days, and their drawing-rooms; there is nothing in all this to attach us to their interests and their feelings, as the inhabitants of a familiar home, as the members of an affectionate family. Surrounded as they are with the glare of a splendid notoriety, we scarcely recognise them as men and as women, who can rejoice and weep, and pine with disease, and taste the sufferings of mortality, and be oppressed with anguish, and love with tenderness, and experience in their bosoms the same movements of grief or of affection that we do ourselves. And thus it is, that they

labour under a real and heavy disadvantage.

Now, if, through an accidental opening, the public should be favoured with a domestic exhibition-if, by some overpowering visitation of Providence upon an illustrious family, the members of it should come to be recognised as the partakers of one common humanity with ourselvesif, instead of beholding them in their gorgeousness as princes, we look to them in the natural evolution of their sensibilities as men-if the stately palace should be turned into a house of mourning-in one word, if death should do what he has already done,-He has met the Princess of England in the prime and promise of her days; and, as she was moving onward on her march to a hereditary throne, he has laid her at his feet.-Ah! my brethren, when the imagination dwells on that bed where the remains of departed youth and departed infancy are lying—when, instead of crowns and canopies of grandeur, it looks to the forlorn husband, and the weeping father, and the human feelings which agitate their bosoms, and the human tears which flow down their cheeks, and all such symptoms of deep affliction as bespeak the workings of suffering and dejected nature-what ought to be, and what actually is, the feeling of the country at so sad an exhibition? It is just the feeling of the domestics and the labourers at Claremont. All is soft and tender as womanhood. Nor is there a peasant in our land, who is not touched to the very heart, when he thinks of the unhappy stranger, who is now spending his days in grief, and his nights in sleeplessness-as he mourns alone in his darkened chamber, and refuses to be comforted-as he turns in vain for rest to his troubled feelings, and cannot find it—as he gazes on the memorials

replaced by any living descendant of royalty-he has broken the direct succession of the monarchy of England -by one and the same disaster, has he awakened up the public anxieties of the country, and sent a pang as acute as that of the most woful visitation into the heart of each of its families.

Amongst the rich, there is apt, at times, to rankle an injurious and unworthy impression of the poor-and just · because these poor stand at a distance from them-just because they come not into contact with that which would draw them out in courteousness to their persons, and in benevolent attentions to their families. Amongst the poor on the other hand, there is often a disdainful suspicion of the wealthy, as if they were actuated by a proud indiffer ence to them and to their concerns; and as if they were placed away from them at so distant and lofty an elevation, as not to require the exercise of any of those cordialities which are ever sure to spring in the bosom of man to man when they come to know each other, and to have the a tual sight of each other. But, let any accident place an individual of the higher before the eyes of the lower order on the ground of their common humanity-let the latte be made to see that the former are akin to themselves in all the sufferings and in all the sensibilities of our commo inheritance-let, for example, the greatest chieftain of the territory die, and the report of his weeping children, or o his distracted widow, be sent through the neighbourhood -or, let an infant of his family be in suffering, and the mothers of the humble vicinity be run to for counsel and assistance-or, in any other way, let the rich, instead of being viewed by their inferiors through the dim and dis tant medium of that fancied interval which separates the ranks of society, be seen as heirs of the same frailty, and as dependent on the same sympathies with themselvesand, at that moment, all the floodgates of honest sympathy will be opened and the lowest servants of the establish ment will join in the cry of distress which has come upon their family-and the neighbouring cottagers, to share in their grief, have only to recognise them as the partakers of one nature, and to perceive an assimilation of feelings and of circumstances between them.

Let me further apply all this to the sons and the daughters of royalty. The truth is, that they appear to the public eye as stalking on a platform so highly elevated above