how essential it is to the best interests of the nation, that his Royal Highness should be enabled to make suitable provision for the marriage of his brothers; and after having received so many proofs of affection to his person and family, his Royal Highness has no room to doubt the assistance of the House, in making the necessary arrangements for this important purpose." Ministers then proposed an augmentation of the allowances of all the junior princes, except the duke of York, who declined receiving any increase of income. It was moved, that an addition of ten thousand a year should be made to the duke of Clarence, and six thousand to the duke of Cambridge. The latter sum was voted; but the former, on the motion of Mr. Holme Sumner, was resisted, and the same grant fixed for both. Upon this, the duke of Clarence, conceiving that he had superior claims, on account of his professional services and his peculiar circumstances, declined accepting the proffered boon. In consequence, the matrimonial negotiation on his part was suspended, but not broken off; for the queen, whose heart had been much set upon this alliance, urged him so strongly to communicate her wishes for the union, to the duchess of Meiningen and her daughter, that they both frankly expressed their desire that the ceremony should speedily take place. The princess observed that she had no inclination to form a splendid establishment; but would rather, as she had hitherto done, live in a private manner. Upon this, Lord Castlereagh announced to the House of Commons, soon after, that the late proceedings had made no change in the sentiments of his Royal Highness or his intended bride. This declaration afforded general satisfaction; but the opposition in parliament to the proposed grant redounded little to the national honour. Much has been said on the extravagant conduct of some branches of the royal family; and there have not been wanting political moralizers to pass heavy censures upon the irregular connexions which some of the princes have formed. The best answer to this, perhaps, is a reference to the act which parliament itself passed on occasion, of the alarm excited, in the minds of George the Third and his ministers, by the marriage of the late dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland. Now, whatever may be thought of those alliances, they were not less respectable than the one which, by placing Mary and Anne on the throne, secured the Protestant succession, and brought in the house of Brunswick. The royal marriage act may, however, be said almost to have defeated itself: for though the family of George the Third was large, and the descent might have been lineal; yet, as we have just seen, owing to this legislative interdict, there arose an extreme danger of an interrupted succession. Even as it now stands, the nation has no other prospect than that of long minorities and troublesome regencies. But we must now turn from these disagreeable contemplations to subjects of immediate interest. As Queen Charlotte was in such a state, that it could not be expected she could live many weeks, the Princess Adelaide and her mother were requested to hasten to England, that her Majesty might have the satisfaction of seeing the nuptials solemnized in her presence. They complied; and the office was performed, according to the rites of the established church, in the royal apartments at Kew, on the 11th of July, 1818; and, at the same time, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, who had been previously married in Germany, went through the same ceremony, pursuant to the provisions of the statute. Having spent a few days at Bushy Park and St. James's Palace, the Duke and Duchess of Clarence took an affecting farewell of the Queen, and proceeded to Hanover, where they spent that winter, and the following spring. Her Royal Highness was soon declared to be in a state that furnished pleasing anticipations of her giving a heir to the crown of Britain. But, in the month of March, she caught a severe cold, which terminated in a violent pleuritic attack; and, in the seventh month of her pregnancy, she was delivered of a princess. Though the child was small, it was so well formed and lively, as to afford some hopes of its being preserved. It was baptized immediately by the names of Charlotte Augusta Louisa, but expired shortly afterwards, and was deposited in the royal vault at Hanover, where lie the remains of the Grand Elector Ernest Augustus, and his grandson George the First. The recovery of the Duchess, after this severe shock, was very slow; but a change of air and scene being deemed advisable, she proceeded, as soon as she was able to travel, to her native place, taking Gottingen and Hesse Philipsthal by the way. The joy of the good people of Saxony, at again beholding their much-loved Princess, knew no bounds, and it was, perhaps, the more fervent, on account of the information they had received of her recent illness, and almost miraculous recovery. The moment she entered the precincts of the duchy, she was met by the vassals of her brother, and conducted in triumph thirty miles to the capital. Here fetes and all kinds of rejoicing continued to enliven Meiningen, and the country around, almost every day for the space of a month. The royal Duke, too, by his condescending affability, as well as his devoted attention to his amiable spouse, soon gained the affections of these honest-hearted people, who began almost to regard him as one of their own native princes. After residing six weeks at the castle of Meiningen, the whole court went to Liebenstein, a place famed for its romantic beauty, and its healing mineral springs. Here the health of the Duchess was perfectly restored in a very short time, to the great joy of all her illustrious family, and particularly to her royal consort. Knowing the Duke's desire to return to England, the Duchess now urged his speedy departure, saying, that they could live as comfortably and economically at Bushy Park as in Germany, or any other part of the world. The sentiment was affectionately considerate; but the resolution formed upon it proved unfortunate. Towards the end of the month of October, 1819, the royal pair took leave of their friends at Meiningen, and set out through heavy roads for the coast. The journey proved too much for the delicate state of the Duchess, who was again in the family way, and, on reaching Dunkirk, she miscarried. When sufficiently recovered to bear the voyage, she embarked, and, on landing at Dover, took up her residence in the Castle, where she and the Duke remained six weeks. At the expiration of that time, they removed to St. James's Palace; and, as the house at Bushy was then under repair, they spent the winter in town. On the 10th of December, 1820, the Duchess was suddenly taken in labour, upon which the Duke of York, the Lord Chancellor Eldon, and Mr. Canning, hastened to the Palace, to be in attendance to witness an event of so much importance as that of an heir to the throne. Her Royal Highness suffered much; but though the birth was premature, the child, which was a female, exhibited every appearance of health. It was baptized the same day, by the name of Elizabeth, in obedience to the express command of the king. For some time the infant princess grew and increased in strength daily; but, when about three months old, she was attacked with a bowel complaint, which carried her off in a few hours. Some time afterwards, the Duchess had another miscarriage; since which, all hope of issue in this branch of the royal line has ceased. The summer of 1822 was spent by their Royal Highnesses in Germany; and in 1825 they repeated their visit, to be present at the nuptials of the reigning duke of Saxe-Meinengen with the princess of Hesse Cassel. On the 21st of May, 1826, they made another continental tour, and returned to England at the end of September the same year. As the death of the Duke of York, in 1827, placed his next brother in the situation of heir-apparent to the crown, it was deemed proper that a suitable addition to the income of the Duke of Clarence should be made. Accordingly, on the 16th of February, the Earl of Liverpoool, in the upper, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the lower house, proposed an increase of three thousand a year to the Duke, and the settlement of a jointure of six thousand a year to the Duchess. These motions passed, though not without some opposition from the economists in the House of Commons. The same year, on Mr. Canning's coming into power, the Duke of Clarence was appointed to the station of Lord High Admiral; an office that had not been held, but by commission, for above a century. In consequence of this promotion, his Royal Highness undertook a personal survey of the several dock-yards; and at Plymouth he was joined by the Duchess, who afterwards went across the county of Devon, to the romantic watering-place of Ilfracombe, whence she proceeded in a steam-packet to Milford. The next year, the Duchess was gratified by the arrival of her excellent mother, with whom she made another tour to the southern coast, delighting all who had the pleasure of approaching her, by the sweet affability and condescension of her behaviour. courtesy was not an assumed habit, put on for the sinister purpose of gaining popularity. It was the same at home as abroad; in the relations of domestic, as well as in the movements of public, life so that, what excited the admiration of strangers produced no such effect in those who witnessed it every day. This The elevation to the highest possible rank has made no difference in this respect: what the Duchess of Clarence was in her beloved residence of Bushy, she has been, and still continues to be, amidst all the attractions of regal splendour; dignified without pride, cheerful without levity, and bountiful without extravagance. The regal household is governed with the strictest regard to economy; and the example of Queen Adelaide will, we trust, render the court of Great Britain similar to what it was under the bright influence of that mirror of her sex, Mary, the Queen consort of William the Third. Like that accomplished Princess, the living ornament of the throne is a pattern of active virtue and unostentatious piety. She encourages the arts and industry, patronizes literature, and discountenances every thing that has the least tendency to licentiousness and luxury. The mode of living adopted by her and the King is extremely regular; much of her Majesty's time is spent in needle-work with the ladies of her suite, and her only recreation is music, of which she is exceedingly fond. In all these respects, she perfectly resembles Queen Mary, of whom we are told by Bishop Burnet, "that it was a a new thing, and looked like a spectacle, to see a queen work so many hours a day. But she considered idleness as the great corrupter of human nature; and believed, that if the mind had no employment, it would create some of the worst sort to itself; and she thought, that any thing which might amuse and direct, without leaving any ill effects behind, ought to fill up those transient hours that were not claimed by devotion or business. Her example soon wrought, not only on those who belonged to her, but upon the whole town, to follow it; so that it became, in her time, as much the fashion to work, as it had been to sit idle. "While the queen thus diverted herself with work, she took care to give an entertainment to her own mind, as well as to those who were admitted to the honour of working with her. Few of her sex, not to say of her rank, gave less time to dressing, or seemed less curious about it. Those parts of it which required more patience, were not given up entirely to it. She read often, and generally aloud, that those who served about her might be the better for it. When she was indisposed, another was called to do it. The whole was mixed with such pleasant reflections of her own, that the gloss was often better than the text. An agreeable vivacity diffused that innocent cheerfulness among all about her, that whereas, in most courts, the hours of strict attendance are the heaviest part of the day, they were, in hers, of all others the most delightful." The lines of Dr. Watts, upon that pattern of royal virtue, are so appropriate and characteristic of the present sketch, that with them we shall conclude: "Britain beholds her queen with pride, And mighty WILLIAM at her side, Her crown, her robes, her state away, CHOLERA MORBUS. THE idea prevalent at this moment is, that this awful scourge of the human race, which, after traversing Asia, has ravaged the north of Europe, and even reached Britain, is not contagious, but consequent upon a morbid state of the atmosphere in certain places at certain times, or upon some electric changes therein; yet so many cases have occurred of a contagious nature, that we doubt this position, and lean towards contagion. Its attacks frequently occur in the night, so that, on more accounts than one, it may be denominated, "The pestilence that walketh in darkness;" and, as the skill of the ablest physician is at once incompetent to discern its cause, or to effect its cure, the wisdom of man has totally failed in every attempt to lift up its veil, or to ward off its fatal stroke. "Who knoweth not that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this?" However difficult the discovery of its cause, or how dark soever its onset, the mode of attack, and the descriptions of persons most exposed to its awful ravages, are sufficiently obvious; and the character of the disease itself is become so familiar to many of the faculty, that its presence no longer remains in doubt. Britain, it appears certain, is visited; the disease is extending, and who can account himself safe? The Asiatic spasmodic cholera is as malignant in its attacks in Britain as in India: the reports of medical men in Sunderland shew, that about one in five only of the aggravated cases recover, and that the patients generally expire in less than twelve hours from the moment of attack. The persons seized are, in general, those whose constitutions have been previously undermined by debilitating diseases, arising out of excessive efforts, privations of comfort, imprudent conduct, a filthy state of the person or of the habitation, a noxious situation, or out of intemperance or dissolute habits of all descriptions: in fact, all who do not keep themselves sober, clean, and warm. This awful pestilence having reached our shores, it becomes every man, in the fear of Jehovah, to call the attention of his fellow men to such modes of prevention as lie within their reach; leaving the cure, if any mode of cure can be devised by the wisdom of man, to the learned in the art of healing. The poor we have always with us; and if the rich benevolently take the best means of averting this awful scourge from their own doors, by furnishing the poor with warm flannels and hose, extra blankets, solid comforts to their families, and such disinfectors as are within their reach, they may consistently implore the blessings of Him in whose hands are the issues of life and death, upon themselves and their neighbours. To those of the poorer class who owe their debility to the imprudence of their conduct, in wasting their strength and their means upon showy trifles, instead of using them to provide solid comforts for themselves and their families, we must say, we pity their bad taste; and implore them, as they regard their own safety and the safety of those around them, to change their mode to one more consonant with wisdom and discretion. A filthy state, as to the person, is nauseous to the community at large, debilitating to the party indulging therein, and dangerous in the extreme. That poverty must be pitiable, indeed, which does not allow the means of cleanliness in the person, and that idleness which indulges in filth is abominable; a man thus becomes a public nuisance-a walking pestilence. Let shame cover the guilty herein; it requires but an effort to be clean. Wash and be clean, then, lest your filthy habits prostrate you in the dust, to rise no more for ever. A filthy state, as to the habitation, requires, it is true, an effort-a daily effort; but industry is a daily virtue, and some portion of every day might be snatched from labour, or extorted from idleness, to clear the dwelling from accumulating filth, and also to clean it-to wash the floors, the bed linen, and the furniture, and to air the apartments. Those who make the effort succeed; and who would not make an effort to save his or her life, and the lives of their family? Awake, ye sluggards and idle, arise and clean; lest ye sleep the sleep of death. A filthy state, as to the situation, is a much more formidable evil than either of the former. Into these sections the poor are driven by their poverty. There they dwell cheaper than in better situations; and of themselves they are unequal to the task of completely cleansing, ventilating, draining, and applying disinfectors to extensive and closely pent districts. Boards of Health will, no doubt, be constructed in every considerable town throughout the island, and these will benevolently care for the poor therein. Those persons who are able, at this alarming juncture, ought to provide a flannel belt to gird about their loins, a flannel waistcoat or petticoat, stout worsted hose, an extra blanket for the bed, and such other comforts for their persons, by night and by day, as will keep them warm, and induce a free discharge from the pores of the skin. To open the drains upon their premises, remove the filth of privies, cess-pools, dustbins, heaps of decaying vegetables and other nuisances, air and ventilate their shops, rooms, passages, vaults, empty rooms, closets, and every corner beneath the stairs, and throughout their houses, to destroy old filthy rags, papers, decaying boxes, hangings, and every mouldy appendage to the windows, bed-furniture, above and beneath, to wash the floors, stairs and foul furniture, to examine and remove from all cisterns and reservoirs the accumulated sediments, and induce a free circulation of water through the drains of the sinks, and kitchen appendages in general, are requisites which call for immediate attention; for delay may prove deadly-a moment lost may cause the loss of all things; tomorrow may be too late, let this day see it begun. Vegetables contain particles of the earths, water, the gases of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, &c. and it is upon vegetables that the cattle feed. The milch-cow, as well as the goat, ox, sheep, and hog feed upon vegetables; man, also, consumes vegetables from the garden and the field, yea, even his daily bread is vegetable, and the flesh of his table is but one concoction from the grass of the field. The consumption of vegetables, therefore, by the mouth, the digestion thereof by the stomach, and the voiding of the refuse by the discharges of nature, are severally a decomposition of vegetables, and tend to let loose the carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, &c. which they contain. Hence these gases abound near dunghills, heaps of decaying vegetables, small or large, in privies, cesspools, stagnant drains, &c. &c. and combinations of these gases, form carbonic acid,' and other effluvia, dangerous to health in the extreme. Carbonic acid gas, is the choke damp of the mines, of wells, of caverns, of vaults, bogs, stagnant ditches, drains, privies, cesspools, vats, &c. &c. &c, and becomes yearly the executioner of hundreds of the hale and healthy of mankind, and it is highly desirable that this grim executioner should be banished from the dwellings of man; but this gas is frequently generated in destructive quantities, by the decomposition of vegetables, upon his own premises. Limestone is a compound of calcium, oxygen, carbon, &c. But limestone, when treated with heat, gives out its carbon to the atmosphere, and thus losing the bound of union which constituted it a stone, lime united to latent heat, on coming out of this calcination, is loose and uncemented in its particles, and with ease may be reduced to powder. But lime never loses its affinity for carbon it, therefore, extracts it from the atmosphere, re-unites therewith, and thus ultimately re-becomes stone: nor will it give out this carbon, excepting to heat. Lime, then, is the very agent we need, in |