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as she was in sorrow, and nursed in the school of grief, she had, by her dignified conduct, in prudently abstaining from any interference in the great political questions of the day, and, more than all, by her private worth, by her amiable qualities, and by the unlimited exercise of those eminent virtues which constitute the Christian character, gained the confidence, the esteem, and the love of the whole nation, She was the pole-star of its hopes, the tenderest object of its solicitude. Her ripening years were regarded with the anxiety bestowed on the culture of a tender exotic, transplanted from a better clime; and in the full blow of her beauty she charmed the gazer, and well repaid the care of those who nurtured so sweet a flower. Though outwardly invested with the regalia of royalty, and placed in a sphere of life, in which, in general, the minor considerations of the world lose their influence, and the practice of all the tender charities is absorbed and lost in the outward forms of ceremony and etiquette,―she, in the unsophisticated spirit of her native goodness, assumed the character of the private station, and descended from the sphere of the princess to become the benefactress of her people.

It is in our moral as it is in our political system :-The inhabitants of a city sleep in peace, when, on a sudden, the earthquake splits the earth, and ingulphs them in one common ruin ;—the sailor sings at his helm, and the next moment his vessel strikes against the sunken rock, and the waves close over him; the eye that beamed with joy in the morning may in the evening, be closed in tears; and the proudest hopes of a nation may, on the very eve of their consummation, be converted into lamentation and woe. Such is now the fate of Britain; her tutelary angel is gone! She shone like a bright meteor in the splendid track of her course, and on a sudden vanished from our eyes, no more to bless us with her radiance. The shock was felt the more, as coming unexpected; it came like the charged shell, shell, exploding amongst us with a horrible crash, destroying at "one fell swoop" the hopes, the happiness of a nation! Nor came it singly: a two-fold horror accompanied it; for the mother and the offspring fell together! They now press one silent bed; and death lies upon them like an untimely frost on the fairest flowers of the field!

It is near the cold and lifeless remains of

youth, beauty, and moral loveliness, that a lesson addressed to young and old will operate with irresistible force. It is leaning over the shroud that covers departed greatness that kings learn that they are mortal, and feel that to be good is more solacing than to be great. To be thus lamented, princes must furnish the same noble example in public and private life. No flattery penetrates the tomb: Justice holds the scales, and weighs the merits of the dead. May the lesson that is communicated in the event which the country so strongly deplores make a due impression on the governing and the governed! May it teach the former that a constant and sacred regard for the nation's rights, as well as for public and private morals, presents to them the only chance of being loved in life, and lamented in death! The country has shewn, by its acute grief on this occasion, that it is capable of the highest and most disinterested affection for the family of its rulers: but it is not for the trappings of royalty that they have this veneration: this tribute is reserved for virtue; and may the people ever make this discrimination! In closing this sad tribute to the illustrious dead, let the great moral lesson which is conveyed in her sudden and

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ture loss be not urged in vain: no event could contain a more striking instance of the vanity of human hopes,the instability of worldly grandeur, and the frailty of human ties. But the memory of her virtues, public and private, will live for ever; and, after the lapse of ages, the name of the princess will be pronounced with love and respect; and her conduct will be adduced as a bright example to persons of her own sex, and particularly to such as shall hereafter move in her elevated station.

What an awful, what an important lesson, does this sudden and unexpected event present to our contemplation !-The hand of Heaven has weighed heavily upon us; and, deeply as we deplore the keenness of the affliction with which it has visited us, we yet must bend in mute submission to its will, and adore the inscrutable Power, which, from "seeming ill, produceth real good."

The decease of this amiable princess places before our chilled imagination the frailty of life, and the uncertainty of our dearest connexions. It is felt like a ravage committed by the inscrutable will of Providence in the bosom of all regular society; and it induces the awful and solemn reflection, how invete

rate those maladies must have been in the moral and political body which required such a sacrifice to bring us to a due sense of our situation; for we feel-deeply feel-not only in a moral but a political sense-that we have lost, in the death of our princess, a blooming daughter; while our progeny lament in unfeigned sorrow the deprivation of a beloved sister, whose loss the whole earth cannot replace, for to all the ends of the earth has gone forth the fame of her polished manners, her social virtues, and her benevolent heart. Who can, without being paralyzed at the sight, behold the cold and inanimate remains of one, who but a short time before possessed youth, health, beauty, and the highest rank? To think that the object which there lies insensible-deaf to the loudest invocationsindifferent to the poignant grief caused by her loss-and heedless of the tears which flow to the memory of her virtues-was but a few moments before alive to all the endearments and charities of our nature-isa reflection that fills the mind more with awe even than with pity. At such a sight how baseless do all the fondest visions of felicity appear! how weak and fragile our most cherished hopes! Can a stronger evidence be afforded of the limits,

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