THE QUEEN of WURTEMBURGlate PRINCESS ROYAL of ENGLAND

Engraved June 1. 1806. for Ichn PiellSouthampton Stress. Atrand.

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Bell's

COURT AND FASHIONABLE

MAGAZINE,

For MAY, 1806.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OF.

ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES.

The Fourth Pumber.

THE QUEEN OF WIRTEMBURGH.

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS CHARLOTTE Her Royal Highness, the present Queen AUGUSTA MATILDA, Princess Royal of of Wurtemburg, can scarcely be said to England, and wife to his Majesty the pre- have lived a public life till her marriage. sent King of Wurtemburg, was born In the domestic retirement of her own from the report of many who have travelled in Germany, and who have acknowledged, with much sensibility, the liberality and kindness they have met at the Court of Stutgard.

In the late storms of the Continent the ancient Duchy of Wirtemburgh has been | thrown into a new shape, and assumed the rank it ought to fill among the States of

However this may be, it is certain that the first Duke of Wirtemburgh was created by the Emperor Maximilian the First, in 1495. He was called Eberhard the First. He reigned over the Duchy but a year, and was succeeded by Eberhard the Second. Eberhard, with a singular modesty, thinking himself incapable of reigning, abdicated in favour of his brother,

Germany. With this country every Eng-who, in a short time, followed the example lishman has a natural relation; some ac- of Eberhard, and the sceptre passed to count of it, therefore, will not be deemed

uninteresting.

Wirtemburgh in fertility, in natural beauties, in diversity of mountain and plain, of wood and water, yields to no province of Germany. The wines of Wirtemburgh are celebrated not only in France, Italy, Hungary, and in the Grecian Isles, but in the extremest parts of the North and of the East, -in Russia and Persia. Wirtemburgh has likewise to boast other favours of Providence; baths and mineral waters; and her three celebrated rivers, the Necker, the Ens, and the Rems. The country is divided by a small chain of mountains in two parts. Unter Steig is the name of that portion of country beyond the mountains; Oter Steig is the name of the expanse below them.

The Castle of Wirtemburgh, delightfully ituated on the Necker, is the residence of the Princes of Wirtemburgh; a family as ancient as any in Germany, but whose origin, with that of many other dynasties, is lost in the obscurity of feudal genealogies, and the confusion of remote

alliances.

The antiquity of the House only is known; the stream cannot be traced to its

source.

By some it is said that the House of Wirtemburgh descended from the French Kings, and that Clovis bestowed upon a German Baron, of his own blood, the territory of Wirtemburgh as a royal fief.Some contend that Conrad, the first Earl, or Count, of Wirtemburgh, received his dignities from Henry the Fourth of Germany. The confusion is easily cleared up. A French King, Clovis or some other, gave the original fief at a time when the French Monarchs had the whole sway of Germany, and the Emperor of Germany conferred the personal honours.

his son Ulrick, who, being an infant, submitted to a regency, which he was fortunate enough to shake off in his sixteenth year.

Under the reign of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, Ulrick was deprived of his kingdom by the league of Swabia; and saw it bestowed upon Ferdinand, the brother of his Conqueror. The duchy remained under the Austrian dominion from 1519 to 1534, when Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse, assisted by France, re-established Ulrick, and, a league having dethroned him, a league was made to protect him. A condition however was attached to the duchy, that the Princes should receive their investitures from the hands of the Emperor.

The children of Ulrick died without posterity in the year 1795. Frederick, the nephew of Ulrick, succeeded to the estates of his uncle, and became the origin and founder of the present House of Wirtemburgh.

Frederick obtained from Rodolph the Second an exemption from all kinds of vassalage by the payment of 425,000 florins; but it was agreed, should the House of Wirtemburgh become extinct, that the line of Austria should inherit the duchy. The Lay Electors, who refused to acknowledge the original vassalage of Wirtemburgh, disputed likewise the right of succession in Austria, alleging, in case of the extinction of the Wirtemburgh family, that the succession, eventually, belonged to the Empire.

In 1740, on the death of Charles the Sixth, the male race of Charles the Fifth becoming extinct, the Dukes of Wirtemburgh considered themselves exempt from all feudal dependence; but it was pretended that the House of Lorraine succeeded to all the rights of the House of Austria. This question would have remained unde

cided to this day but for the treaty of Presburgh, which, by elevating Wirtemburgh to the dignity of a kingdom, has emancipated her from all feudal, obsolete, and oppressive vassalage.

Under Ulrick the Protestant religion was established in Wirtemburgh.

Among the Princes of Wirtemburgh the

raised his country so high in the estimation of Europe.

The population of the States of Wirtemburgh does not exceed 700,000; their revenue is about five millions of florins.

The five cities of the Danube; Ehingen, with the rich Abbey of Benedictines; Munderhingen, in a position naturally for

name of Charles Eugene is most cele-tified; Riedlingen, Mengen, and Swalgau,

brated; he was a patron of the arts and sciences, and several useful establishments were formed under his reign, which was long and glorious. He protected industry and commerce; he collected a splendid library at Stutgard, and augmented the glory and power of his family.

In 1782, the niece of Charles Eugene, the mother of the present reigning Emperor of Russia, was married to the Grand Duke Paul, who afterwards became Emperor of alf the Russias, and whose folly and tyranny caused him to be cut off by private assassination. This alliance was a glorious epoch for the Sovereigns of Wirtemburgh, and particularly for that Prince who had

with their fertile territories; the Upper and Lower Province of Hohenburgh, which contains so many wealthy seignories, and which, by its situation in the Black Forest, gives a superior compactness to Wirtemburgh, are among the valuable possessions of this duchy.

It can cause no regret that this ancient state is thus raised in the scale of empire, and though we may all lament the circumstances which have occasioned it, and the hands which have constructed the edifice; it must be the common wish that it may flourish with safety and glory through all the storms and contentions which we foresee in Germany.

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE,

CRITIQUE ON HUMOUR

THE celebrated St Evremond gave the following advice to his friend the Count d'Olonne, who was exiled from the Court of Louis XIV. "The unfortunate ought not to read books which excite affliction at the misery of men, but rathe such as invite them to amuse themselves at their folly; prefer then, Lucian, Petronius, and Don Quixote, to Seneca, Plutarch, and Montagne." In my early youth, chance made me acquainted with this passage, and I have since sometimes reflected on this grand truth, that events, apparently of little importance, have often the greatest influence on the happiness or misery of men, in the course of their lives.

The lively impression which the counsel of St. Evremond made on my mind, engaged me early to follow it; and as often as vexatious events, or other causes, affected me too strongly, I had recourse to his remedy, and always with the most happy success. An enquiry into the nature of this powerful antidote against inelancholy, will not perhaps be displeasing to those who, tormented by its black vapours, may stand in need of such assistance. A celebrated physician of

the mind, who, by this remedy, has affected many miraculous cures, shall be my guide. The English call this antidote humour. Aristophanes, among the Greeks, was the first inventor of is; and, after him, Lucian, and subsequent authors, carried it to perfection. Plautus, Horace, Petro nius, Seneca, among the ancient Romans; and Jamong the modern Latinists, Erasmus, Chancellor Moore and Holberg Among the Italians, Pulci, Ariosto, Cæsar Caporali, Passeroni, Gozzi, Gol, doni. Among the Spaniards, Cervantes, Quevedo, Mattheo Allemann, Hustado de Mendoza, Liego de Luna, Duis Velez de Guevara, and Father Isla, Among the French, Rabelais, Cyran de Bergerac, Sorel, Moliere, Regnard, Dufresnoy, la Fontaine, and Scaron in his Roman Comique. Among the English, Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, Butler, Congreve, Farquhar, Swift, Addison, Steele, Arbuthnot, Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, &c. &c. I say nothing of the Germans, and beg my readers will fill up the chasm. By mentioning no one, none of that country, who may have pretensions to humour, can be offended at being forgotten.

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