His Royal Highness was tall in stature, of a manly and noble presence. His manners were affable, condescending, dignified, and engaging; his conversation animated; his information varied and copious; his memory exact and retentive; his intellectual powers quick, strong, and masculine; he resembled the King in many of his tastes and propensities; he was an early riser; a close economist of his time; temperate in eating; indifferent to wine, though a lover of society; and heedless of slight indisposition, from confidence in the general strength of his constitution; a kind master, a punctual and courteous correspondent, a steady friend, and an affectionate brother. With a distaste for the boisterous and fatiguing scenes of public meetings and entertainments, he was ever present at the call of humanity, or where art or talent was to be encouraged and sustained. With lips scarcely moistened, or only moistened with water, he sat and seemed to share the convivial excitation around him. He ever willingly sacrificed his own arrangements when he could be useful to his fellow creatures. To this he applied talents of no common order. He was eloquent-deeply eloquent-without seeming to have ever studied eloquence, or to be conscious that he possessed it. He never affected the passionate or figurative in public speaking, but he had the justness of perception and sentiment, which, by its precision, as well as force, ruled the assent of the hearer, and drew from him, involuntarily, an acknowledgment of his possessing the precious qualities of intelligence and goodness. He was in an eminent degree what the French, in their happy shaded manner of expression, would call un esprit juste. ance with his character, though that circumstance enables me with confidence to stand full before the whole world, and do it justice; but to my union with the daughter of one, whom, in his own words, he was accustomed to call his oldest and his earliest friend. Lieutenant-Colonel Watson, of whom I speak, was Brigade-Major to the forces in Canada, when the Duke of Kent, then Prince Edward, first arrived in North America. The occasion which brought my late father-inlaw into the notice of the Duke of Kent, is one which will ever reflect the highest honour on both parties. The Duke had formed an acquaintance with a person, which, however the peculiarity of his situation, and his long fidelity to her, might in some measure subsequently excuse, could not at that time be viewed as creditable to himself, or becoming the son of the Monarch of England. Colonel, then Brigade-Major Watson, deeply feeling for him, ventured to address him a respectful but manly letter, in which he pointed out his error, and urged him to abandon a connection which reflected no honour on himself, in his public character, either as commanding the forces on that station, or as descended from Royal lineage. I cannot say that this address succeeded in making the Duke renounce the acquaintance he had then but just formed, but it most unexpectedly succeeded in making his Royal Highness the sincere and faithful friend of my father-in-law, even to the hour in which he was massacred by the rebels in Wexford, and subsequently to the widow and her fatherless children, until the hour of his death. The proofs of this are before me. The facts of which I am in possession, would, I am persuaded, never be known until the day when the seThat this delineation of the charac- crets of all hearts shall be revealed, ter of his Royal Highness, is not an ar- (for I am convinced that neither my tificial picture, indebted more to the co-mother-in-law, nor one of her family, louring of fancy than to existing facts, for the representation which it gives, the following extracts we hope will make apparent. They are taken from a letter written by the same gentleman to whose authority we have already appealed, who had served as an officer under his Royal Highness in Gibraltar. "I am not indebted to the almost accidental circumstance, of my having been under his Royal Highness's command at Gibraltar, for an acquaintNo. 14.-VOL. II. would ever unfold them,) did I not feel it my duty, in compliance with the wishes contained in your letter, to give publicity to those facts, which will ever endear the memory of the Duke of Kent to the sorrowful hearts of my family. "Colonel Watson accompanied his Royal Highness to America and the West Indies; and from the severity of the campaign, and the badness of the climate, nearly lost his life. In this K situation, the Duke remarking, that my father-in-law had left a wife and children in America, to follow his fortunes, manifested the greatest possible concern for him; brought him home with him in the very frigate in which he sailed; nursed him in his own cabin, with the tenderness of a son to a parent; and to his condescending attention, my mother-in-law has often told me, Col. Watson attributed, under God, his recovery. vices of one, whom he had hoped to see one day a bright ornament to the profession; yet he could not but applaud his zeal for that religion to which he was so honourably attached; and while he confessed, that he did not see how the two characters of a teacher of religion and a soldier could be united, yet he was prepared to do every justice to the sincerity and piety of his views, and urged him to seek consolation in the pursuit of the religion he had embraced; and concluded with the most kind expressions of his regard. "When about two years past I was in Brussels, and his Royal Highness was residing there, I had in my possession a letter from my brother-in When, after 35 years of service, my father-in-law wished to retire from the army, the Duke used all his interest to promote that object in the most satisfactory manner to himself and his numerous family. I have alluded to the death of my excellent father-in-law now in India, and who was then law, whom I had never the happiness of knowing, but by reputation. He fell in 1798, defending his country's cause, after he had retired from the fatigues of a long military life, when serving in the yeomanry of Ireland; and it was then, when this event was made known to the Duke of Kent, that the sincerity of his friendship and the excellence of his disposition became more fully conspicuous. I have myself read his letter to the widow of his friend, couched in sentiments of the warmest affection, in which he sympathized with her sorrow, and mingled his tears with hers; he bade her consider him as her friend, apply to him on all occasions, and adopted all her sons as his own. Nor did he ever forget his promise. Unlike those who are given to change, to his last hour he was the same: for her eldest son, now high in the East India Company's service, he obtained a cadetship; for another he procured a commission in the army; and as often as my mother, though with reluctance, applied to him, he seemed to anticipate her wishes. 66 "When, after the happy and triumphant death of one of my brothers in Gibraltar, my brother Edward, who was an ensign in the ninth regiment, was by persecution almost forced out of the army, for exhorting the soldiers of that corps to flee from the wrath to come;" he made the Duke of Kent acquainted with the steps he had taken. The answer he received from His Royal Highness, which I myself have seen, reflects the highest honour on the writer. He could not, he said, but regret that the army had lost the ser in England, which he wished me to present to him. It so happened, that the letter was written the evening before the death of the lamented Princess Charlotte, and which, as I mentioned in a note I wrote to His Royal Highness, was my apology for intruding on his sorrow, at a time when he was so deeply afflicted at an event, which, in common with his Royal Highness, the whole family of England in deepest sorrow mourned; but that, as I was obliged to leave Brussels the next day, I should wait on his Royal Highness the following morning to receive his commands, not knowing then, that the next day was appointed for the funeral of the Princess. I received a very polite answer immediately, written by his Secretary, stating his ready attention to the wishes of my brother, in giving him a recommendatory letter to the highest authority in India, which he should put into my hand himself; but that as the next day was appointed for the funeral of the Princess, he did not intend to see any one; nevertheless, if I was obliged to leave Brussels, he would see me before eight on the morning of that day; thus shewing that even the deep sorrows of his heart on account of the death of his lamented niece, could not prevent his evincing his regard for the memory of his friend, by condescending to admit into his presence on such a day, and on such an occasion, the bearer of a letter from his son. "I did not of course obtrude upon his grief that day, and the next morning when honoured with an interview, as he had said, he placed the letters and inclosures in my hand, and then expressed his warmest and best wishes for the success of the application, which, to use his own words, he had made at a time when his heart was bowed down with sorrow. Adverting to the death of the Princess, he said, it was a severe blow to all the Family, that he felt it acutely, and it required all his religion to bear up against it. He condescended, at the same time, to advert to the time of my serving under him in Gibraltar, on which I shall ever reflect with pleasure, and observed, alluding to the insubordination of the troops, who were part of the army that had served in Egypt-Had I commanded that army in Egypt, there would never have been any disturbance or misconduct.' But those, who were not pleased with the exactitude of his admirable discipline, were in the habit of saying, Of what use are these manoeuvres? we beat the French without them, and therefore do not want them.' Ten thousand tears will embalm his memory-(Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam chari capitis.) But we know that He who has called him hence, is too wise to err, too good to be unkind; we sorrow not as those who are without hope, but adopting the introductory words of the proclamation which announced the lamented decease of our late most gracious King, let us add, It hath pleased Almighty God to call to his mercy a Prince of blessed memory ;-and let us learn to say, Thy will be done." In addition to the titles of his Royal Highness prefixed to this article, he was distinguished with those of a knight of the Garter, Thistle, and St. Patrick, a knight grand cross of the Bath, keeper and paler of Hampton Court Park, colonel of the Royal Scots Regiment of Foot, and, since the year 1805, a Field Marshal in the army. While his Royal Highness was engaged in the active service of the pub lic, his attention was too much en“After indulging some time on the grossed with the duties of his professubject of his command in that garri- sion to permit spectators to discover, son, and the admirable state of the in his general conduct, the benevolent troops while serving under him, he feelings of his heart. But since his adverted to my present situation in comparative retirement from public life; asked me several questions rela- life, his latter years have been distive to our body, and to our discipline; tinguished by the exercise of talents and learning that my object in going and virtues in the highest degree to Valenciennes was to preach to the worthy of an enlightened and benefitroops, expressed his wishes that I cent British prince. We are not might be useful to them, assuring me aware that any want or misery ever of his full approbation of us as a reli- came to his knowledge, to which his gious body, and his full persuasion of fortune could extend, that he did not our utility to the empire. He con- cheerfully relieve; nor was there any tinued to converse with me in the most public charity, which his time, his familiar and condescending manner, presence, and his eloquence, were not for nearly three-quarters of an hour, combined to promote. The traces of and then politely bowed; on which I his intercourse with the inhabitants of retired, charmed with his affability the metropolis, on all occasions which and his goodness. tended to soften the distresses, to improve the morals, and to promote the happiness of his fellow-creatures, will long be recollected with grateful affection. This amiable disposition, accompanied him in his retreat into Devonshire, where the affability of his manners, and the kindness and benevolence which he displayed, com manded the respect and admiration of all, and endeared him to those who were favoured with an opportunity of beholding his munificence and condescension. "Since the period in which he has been recalled from the government of Gibraltar, his time has been employed in promoting the best interests of mankind. Baffled in his warmest hopes, of acquiring military honours, let ten thousand acts of charity declare, whether he has not obtained a more extensive and a more imperishable fame, in protecting the widow and the orphan, in befriending the outcasts of Israel, and in supporting the Bible. "But he is gone. It has pleased an unerring Providence, whose ways are It is well known, that the example unsearchable, to remove him from this of exalted life, gives a tone to the manscene of trial and disappointment.ners which prevail in all the grada tions of subordinate society. This has been happily exemplified in the chaInracter of his Royal Highness. fluenced by his conduct, many in the higher circles of life have advocated the cause of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and that of the prevailing system of education; and, from a full conviction of their public utility, we feel confident, that they will not abandon those noble institutions, to the support of which they were originally invited by so illustrious an example. The stability of his friendships was on all occasions deserving praise, and worthy of imitation. He was never known to estrange himself from an individual, who had at any time been distinguished by his patronage, unless some obvious impropriety had merited the estrangement. Hence, the friends of his youth, were those of his mature years, and his attachments were neither impaired by time, nor diminished by the accidents of life. In politics he took no decided part; but his sentiments were manly and unequivocal; and all parties were willing to allow, that he possessed the enlightened and constitutional principles which ever ought to characterize a British prince. ASTRONOMICAL OCCURRENCES FOR APRIL. BY AN OBSERVER. THE Sun enters Taurus on the 20th, at forty-five minutes past four in the morning. The Moon enters her last quarter on the 6th; she is now on the 12th; enters her first quarter on the 20th; and is full on the 28th. She will pass the Georgian planet on the 4th, Jupiter on the 9th, Saturn on the 11th, Mercury on the 12th, Venus on the 15th, Mars on the 19th, and the planet Ceres on the 20th. Mercury sets on the 1st, at nine minutes past eight in the evening, and is in his inferior conjunction on the 12th. From his favourable position he will be discovered under the three first stars of the Ram on the 1st; and a few following days in W. by N. as he is on the 1st, an hour and a half above the horizon after sun-set; but his height above the horizon rapidly diminishes. After the conjunction he will be too near the Sun to be visible. Venus is an evening star setting on the 1st about twenty minutes past ten, and on the 30th about three-quarters past eleven. She is first seen above, but near to the small stars in the tail of the Ram, and under the Pleiades. These latter stars she passes on the 6th, directing her course between the horns of the Bull, passing between the twenty-second and the tenth of this constellation on the 13th, but nearest to the latter star. She passes above the nineteenth on the 17th, and is between the two stars in the tips of the horns on the 28th, being nearest to the second, or star in the tip of the northern horn. Mars is on the meridian on the 1st, about seven in the evening, and is in quartile, or three signs distant from the Sun, on the 20th. He is first Around the death-bed of princes, the seen in a line nearly with the two first curtains of silence are in general of the Twins, and of course nearest to drawn so closely by the hand of the second. On the 11th, he passes etiquette, that the emotions of the de- above and near to the twelfth of the parting spirit are but rarely heard or Crab, and he directs his course to the scen. To his Royal Highness it nebula in the Crab, finishing it just must have been peculiarly pleasing, to above and near to it. Ceres is on the find himself encircled by his amiable meridian on the 1st, about half-past Duchess and her afflicted Brother, seven in the evening, and on the 19th, whose solicitude for his recovery, the about sun-set. At first, when on the warmest proofs of affection continued meridian, the small stars called the to evince. In his last expressions of twenty-first of the Crab, will be a diresignation, he commended his soul rection to her, as a telescope of orto God; and the events which his life dinary power directed above them will has furnished, enable his biographer discover her, and she is directing her to recommend his example to posterity.course to the tenth of the Crab, above In dometic economy, the strictest attention to his affairs was exemplified in his conduct. His books were kept with a degree of regularity that would have been worthy of a merchant's counting-house; and although involved in debt, through causes which have been already stated, every department of his household was conducted with that order and exactness, which enabled him to detect and check every article of extravagant expenditure, inconsistent with the dignity of his exalted station. and near to which she passes on the 20th, and she finishes her course between this star and the small stars called the seventeenth of the Crab, but nearest to the latter star. The Georgian planet is on the meridian on the 1st, at nine minutes past five in the morning, and on the 30th, at seventeen minutes past three. When on the meridian, the twelfth of the Archer is a good direction to him, as it is above, to the east of, but near to the meridian, and at the distance of about two degrees and a half from him. Jupiter rises on the 1st at forty minutes past four in the morning, and on the 30th at five minutes past three. He is first seen under and near to the eleventh of the Water-bearer, the small star at the western margin of the stream from the Urn, and he finishes his course on the eastern margin, above and near to the twenty-second of this constellation. Saturn rises on the 1st at thirty-four minutes past five in the morning, and on the 30th at fifty minutes past four. He is too near the Sun to be visible this month. The Death Watch. MR. EDITOR, SIR,-That superstition which first denominated this curious insect as above, still continues in numerous instances to render it more an object of terror, than a subject of curiosity. Being desirous of exciting the attention of some entomologist to this diminutive part of natural history, permit me to lay before you the following circumstances respecting this creature, which I have recently witnessed. thousands of which we have constantly preying upon the wood work of our furniture, about the size of a louse, and uncommonly nimble and shy. Towards the close of the late summer, after a removal to a new situation, I was again repeatedly amused with similar performances at various hours of the day. They were assembled on a blue paper lining to a perfoiated door of a book case. Prior to these observations, I always considered them to be solitary disturbers of the wakeful hours of repose, only one of which I had heard with much dismay, in the course of 50 years, and that was when I was a boy. One of our learned cyclopædists says, that this watchlike ticking is a signal between the sexes. If this be correct, the circumstances I have witnessed, might have been some great festival or merry-making amongst them. As our ideas are frequently involuntary, the sometimes accumulated and confused ticking of many of them at once, put me forcibly in mind of one of our poetic or prose writers on the battle of Waterloo, when describing the last great charge of cavalry, that it resembled to a by-stander the noise of a thousand tinkers, hammering their utensils. In what way such mites as these can effect so great a sound, and by what anatomical mechanism that sound shall so exactly imitate the beating of a watch in quick time, may be equally difficult to resolve, if not more so than the hitherto mysterious performance of the automaton chess-player; but as the former belongs to those works of the Almighty, which are sought out by One evening, about eight or nine all those who have pleasure therein, o'clock, my attention was called to an some of your learned correspondents unusual clicking, which at the distance may be able to add to our scanty ineven of eight or nine feet, resembled formation on this subject; which, conexactly the noise made in a watch-temptible as it may seem, is an inmate maker's window, excepting that the in almost every house, an active detime was from 10 to 15 minutes a day predator, and sometimes, through sufaster than the beats of a well regulat-perstitious fear, the terror of the faed watch. I soon found that the I am, Sir, scene of this hurry, was on a screen Yours, &c. of stretched silk paper, stiffened with glue water. My approach with the candle, a little disturbed the performers; and some of them desisted entirely. On a close inspection, I saw one or two of them, running from the light, and found them to be of the species of little white worms or insects, which we sometimes call book-worms, mily. Paradise-street, J. F—L. On the Eternal Sonship of Christ. |