becoming brevity. We will not even suffer our genealogical knowledge to betray us into a luminous recapitulation of all the sovereign houses of Germany with whom, by descent or intermarriages, the illustrious personage is connected, whose greatest glory we hope yet remains to be accomplished, that of giving a wise, prudent, prosperous and beloved QUEEN, to the British empire.

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, is more immediately descended from that branch of the Saxon stock called Saxe Coburg Saalfield. Her mother was Augusta Caroline Sophia, daughter of Henry, twenty-fourth Count of Reuss Ebersdorff, and gave birth to nine children, of whom her Royal Highness was the fourth of five daughters, and her brother Prince Leopold, the third of four sons. She was born at Coburg, August 17th, 1786, and is of course now in her forty-fifth year. When she was only sixteen, the earnest entreaties of her father, who perceived his end approaching, induced her to give her hand to the then hereditary Prince of Leiningen. The disparity of age between them, was too great to secure even the probability of much conjugal felicity, for the bridegroom was twenty-eight years older than the bride. Nor was this all, if the voice of common rumour may be believed. The person, the manners, the qualifications, and the habits of the Prince of Leiningen, were little calculated to throw a veil over that disproportion of years which the hand of time had marked. Irritable and violent in his temper, and solely devoted to the pleasures of the chase, his youthful consort could hardly hope to find in his society a compensation for the sacrifice which her filial feelings had prompted. But even at that early age, when the passions are wildest, and

the reason is all too weak to moderate them, her Royal Highness gave evidence of that deep self-respect, which is the only secure basis of virtue. She did not suffer the reflection of how much happier her lot might have been, to influence for a moment the discharge of its duties. Her conduct during the twelve years she was the wife of the Prince of Leiningen (who died in 1814), was so exemplary, as to protect her even from the ready calumnies of

suspicion, which never requires more than a shadow out of which to build its substance. The same strict and irreproachable demeanour, obtained for her the same exemption from reproach during her widowhood; and has since won for her the respect and attachment of her adopted country, during the brief period of her second marriage to his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent, and the longer state of second widowhood to which his lamented death consigned her.

By her first husband, her Royal Highness had two children, both of whom are still living; a son, who was born in September, 1804, and a daughter, born in 1807.

It may be doubted, whether a sound discretion was exercised by George III. or his ministers, in not recommending earlier marriages to the male branches of the royal family, so that the succession to the throne might have been duly provided for, and the country exposed neither to the inconveniences of a minority, nor the danger of a failure in the direct heirs. The heir apparent (his late Majesty, Geo. IV.) and the heir presumptive (the late Duke of York), were the only two who had contracted matrimonial alliances; and they, not till a comparatively advanced period of life. The Duke of York had no issue; the Prince of Wales an only child; and from circumstances, no likelihood of more. What was the consequence? When the Princess Charlotte died, the succession to the crown was confined to the six brothers of George IV. (then regent), two alone of whom were married, and both without issue, and the whole of whom were like so many tapers burning out together. But what might have been the consequence, when in 1818 the Dukes of Clarence, Kent, and Cambridge, contracted their marriages? -the throne filled by an infant of two or three years old, and the country subjected, in its councils, to all the intrigues, factions and conflicts, inseparable from such a state of things. Contingencies much within the average uncertainty of human life, which would have produced this evil, were hanging over us for years. Are we, indeed, wholly free from them yet? And have we escaped all the results which it would have been better for us to escape,

flowing from this unwise neglect during the first thirty years of the reign of George III.? But to return from this digression.

The marriage of her Royal Highness with the late Duke of Kent, was solemnized at Coburg, in May, 1818, and again at Kew, in July following; and on the 24th of the same month, in the ensuing year, the Princess Victoria was born. She was christened after her illustrious mother, whose names are Victoria Maria Louisa.

"What is there in a name?" asks our immortal bard. We answer, a great deal; notwithstanding his philosophy, that a rose would smell as sweet, called by any other name; for we agree rather with Mirabeau than Shakspeare, who said, "names are things;" inasmuch as in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, we are influenced more by names than by that which they represent. We do hope, therefore, as an Act of Parliament can do any thing, and has been known to fix a place in Europe, which was before in Asia or Africa, an Act of Parliament will, ere long, declare that our future sovereign shall bear a name more in harmony with English ears and English feelings, than Victoria. Queen Victoria! By the Statute, 4th Victoria, ch. x. sect. 7! Victoria, by the grace of God, Queen, Defender of the Faith! Out upon it! Half, and the best half, of the loyalty and affection of her subjects, would be chilled, or stunted in its growth, by such a foreign appellation. Charlotte, has some hold upon our attachments: but Elizabeth, a firmer one upon our national pride. The blemishes that sullied her renown as a queen, and her character as a woman, must be hunted for in the page of his tory; but the familiar glory of her reign, the bright recollections that cluster round it, the valiant generals, the great statesmen, the noble writers that adorned it, are so many golden links which bind its memory round the hearts of Englishmen. Could our voice be potential, therefore, we would have an ELIZABETH THE SECOND; the very name would have a talismanic power.

Till there is the authority of an Act of Parliament, however, we must continue to speak of the Princess Victoria, and to say, being all we are able to say, that every thing which has transpired

respecting her natural endowments, her manners, her disposition, and her various acquirements, justify the nation in looking forward to a sovereign, who, whether she be called Elizabeth, or Anne, or Charlotte, will give it reason to be proud. Would to Heaven we could add, there is a future for her, in which she will have reason to rejoice! But we cannot. The sceptre will pass into her hands, heavily laden with cares. A state of society is preparing, by measures now in progress, and by the operation of others that have been completed, which will demand from whoever may wear the imperial crown of England ten or twenty years hence, duties, and virtues, and sacrifices, greater than were demanded from any who have worn it during the last century; we might almost say, the last century and a half.

Most sincerely do we wish it had been the will of Providence she should have had the benefit of her illustrious father's example in the discharge of the regal functions. The combined authority of the monarch and the sire, would have been irresistible. We do not profess to know in what political sentiments the youthful princess is being trained. We doubt not in such as will yield wholesome fruit. But we do know what were the political sentiments of the late Duke of Kent, and we are free to confess they were those which, in our opinion, are identified with, and inseparable from, the true welfare, the best interests, of the country. We know, too, what was the manliness of his character, the princely dignity of his notions, the firmness of his principles, the capacity of his mind, and, above all, the just perception he had of what should belong to royalty near the throne, or upon the throne. Without degenerating into sullen haughtiness or offensive arrogance, he had the art (a rare art) of never forgetting what he was himself, yet of never making others feel it; while it was impossible they should overstep the line which birth had drawn between them. Such a model could not but have been a valuable study for a daughter, destined one day to stand where he stood.

The Duke of Kent had all the simplicity of habit which distinguished his father, but united with more expansion