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invitation; and desired that Prince Leopold would not again neglect it. His Serene Highness became thus involved in such delicate circumstances, that he resolved to call upon the Duke of York, and request bis advice how to proceed. The Duke of York advised Prince Leopold to consult the Prince Regent; who informed him, that the intercourse could not then be allowed: in consequence of which, His Serene Highness instantly took his departure for the Continent, without communicating to any one the real cause of his journey.

The House of Saxe-Cobourg-Saalfeld.

THE following particulars of the illustrious House of Saxe-Cobourg-Saalfeld will, no doubt, be found sufficiently interesting, on account of their direct relation to the excellent Prince, who was soon to be identified with the British nation, by his marriage with the Heiress to the throne; especially as he has since endeared himself to an admiring people, by his entire devotion of himself to the promoting of her happiness, and also by the extreme severity of mental suffering, which he has been doomed to undergo.

Most of the German Princes deduce their lineage from the same origin as that already assigned to the House of Brunswick, in the commencement of this work. The principality of Cobourg appears to have belonged to the House of Saxony, until it was ceded to John-Ernest, half-brother to John-Frederick the Magnanimous, Elector of Saxony, who died in 1554. This half-brother of the Elector married a daughter of Philip I. Duke of Brunswick-Grubenhagen, and built the castle of Ehrenberg, the usual residence of the Princes of Cobourg, but died without issue in

1553, when the principality reverted to the Elector; upon whose death the Albertine and Ernestine branches of the House of Saxony were united in Maurice, the son of Duke Henry of Meissen, to whom the electorate had been given by Charles V. The Protestant religion owes the greatest obligations to the Princes of the Ernestine line, as we have before seen.

Frederick, the elder son of Ernest, was Luther's first patron and defender. John, the second son of Ernest, was the chief promoter of the protestation against the church of Rome; from which the Protestants have derived their appellation. This John was surnamed "The Constant."

Maurice was killed by a silver ball in a battle with Albert, Margrave of Brandenburg, near the village of Sivenhausen, in the duchy of Luneburg; but it was supposed, that as the ball perforated his back, it was fired by one of his own people.

Augustus succeeded his brother Maurice, whose first wife was Anna, daughter of Christian, King of Denmark. On her decease he married, in his 60th year, a daughter of Prince Joachim-Ernest of Anhalt, who had not quite completed her 13th year. This Prince was what would now be termed an eccentric character. Alchymy was his favourite study; and, having impressed the idea upon the minds of his subjects, that he was most profoundly skilled in the transmutation of metals, no murinurs arose at the apparent extravagance which he displayed in the erection of his institutions; for, by the powers of his art, he was supposed to possess an inexhaustible source of riches, and therefore had no cause to apportion the revenues of the state to the promotion of his scientific pursuits. He died, notwithstanding, immensely rich, being more the fruits of rigid economy in his private affairs, than of his skill in the science of alchymy. Wherever he went, he always planted stones and seeds of the best and choicest

fruits, having always a bag full of them in his pocket. He was succeeded by his son, Christian I. in 1586, who died in 1591, in the 31st year of his age. Of the succeeding branches of the Albertine line, a very brief notice will be necessary, until its elevation to the throne of Poland; on which occasion Frederick-Augustus I. to qualify himself for that dignity, exchanged the Protestant for the Catholic faith, to which his successors have ever since adhered.

Christian II. died in 1611, at the early age of twenty-seven years, and was succeeded by his brother, John-George I.; during whose reign Saxony was devastated by the contending armies, in the thirty-years' war.

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John-George II. succeeded his father in 1656, and died in 1680. This Prince had three brothers, Augustus, Christian, and Maurice. By these persons the Houses of Saxe-Weissenfels, Saxe-Merseburg, and Saxe-Zeitz, were founded; but which are all now extinct, and their dominions reverted to the electoral family.

John-George III. died in 1691; he was commander-in-chief of the army of the empire employed against the French.

John-George IV. in right of his mother, was declared the heir-apparent to the throne of Denmark. He was the first Saxon Prince who was honoured with the order of the garter. He died in 1694, and was succeeded by

Frederick-Augustus I. who, in 1697, was elected King of Poland. Although successful in his wars against the Turks, he experienced the most disastrous defeats in his campaigns against Charles XII. of Sweden. Some most singular anecdotes are related of the astonishing muscular strength which this Prince possessed, and some of them certainly border upon the miraculous. He broke an iron bar like a stick; he could take a silver or a copper plate, and roll it up like a sheet of paper. He

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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY.

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

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