VOL. 2.] Naturalists' Diary for January. er than between the particles of water, this liquid, when frozen, though it is not heavier, yet it occupies more space than before. From this principle of expansion, water-pipes often burst, and hoops fly off from barrels, during an intense frost. To this cause may be attributed the annual diminution of the bulk and height of lofty mountains. The different crevices being filled with water in the summer, this water becomes frozen in the winter; and, by the power of expansion, rolls down vast masses of rock or earth into the neighbouring valleys. By the same operation, the clods of ploughed fields are loosened, and rendered fit for the work of the husbandman. The flowers of the rosemary (rosmarinus officinalis) begin to open. This shrub has ever been treated with great respect, for its efficacy in comforting the brain and strengthening the memory; which has made rosemary an emblem of fidelity in lovers. It was, ac eordingly, worn at weddings; and perhaps, on the same principle, at funerals; on which latter occasions, in some parts of England, it is still distributed among the company, who frequently throw the sprigs into the grave along with the corpse.+ Rosemary is a principal ingredient in what is known by the name of Hungary water; and the herb is taken as tea by many persons, for the headache, and disorders called nervous. + Sweet scented flower! who art wont to bloom Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now, And, as I twine the mournful wreath," Come, funeral flow'r! who lov'st to dwell And we will sleep a pleasant sleep, So peaceful and so deep. And, hark! the wind-god, as he flies, Sweet flower! that requiem wild is mine; The cold turf altar of the dead: My grave shall be m yon lone spot, Where, as I lie by all forgot, A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed. KIRKE WHITE, 311 Be careful now, ye swains, your tender flocks The bleating charge should be left, .... or, if no snow is seen, BLOOMFIELD. Shooting is a favourite amusement at this season of the year: other sports also are resorted to, when the weather permits. The skater fleetly thrids the mazy throng, The winter of England, however, allows but few of those sports which continue for so long a time in more northerly regions, where Eager, on rapid sleds, The ice-hills of St. Petersburgh, during the carnival, are well deserving of notice. Every ice-hill is composed of a scaffold, having steps on one side for ascending it; and, on the opposite side, a steep inclined plane covered with large blocks of ice, consolidated together by pouring water repeatedly from the top to the bottom. Men, as well as women (the latter, however, only of the lower orders), in little low sledges, descend, with amazing velocity, this steep hili; and, by the momentum acquired by this descent, are impelled, to a great distance, along a large field of ice carefully swept clear of snow for that purpose, which brings them to a second hill; by the side of which they alight, take their sledge on their back, and mount it by the steps behind, as they had done the former. Some young people venture to ascend the dangerous precipice on skates. The following very curious circumstance is recorded by Captain Monk, who was deputed by Christian IV. King of Denmark, to attempt the discovery of a north-east passage to China. He wintered on the shore of Hudson's Bay, heaven, [VOL 2. in the year 1619; and relates that the Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! cold was so intense, that neither beer, Who made you glorious, as the gates of wine, nor brandy, could resist it. These Beneath the keen full Moon? who bade the Sun were all frozen, and the vessels which Clothe you with rainbows? who with living contained them were split into pieces; flowers and, before they could use the liquors, they were obliged to hew them with hatchets, and dissolve them by fire. Virgil speaks of hewing wine, in his description of a Scythian winter :- caduntque securibus humido vina.' In illustration of the severity of an Alpine winter, we quote the following lines from Mr. Coleridge's little known, but sublime Hymn before Sun-rise in the Valley of Chamouny.' Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow And stopp'd at once amid their maddest plunge! GoD! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice plains echo, God! sounds! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like Within a few paces of the Glaciers, the Gentiana major grows in immense numbers, with its flowers of loveliest blue.' N MEMOIRS OF EMINENT PERSONS. From the London Literary Gazette, Nov. 8, 1817. DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE. TEARLY all the features of this with faintings, which, in her exhausted week's news are dark and af- state, put a period to her mortal existflicting. Besides the general calamity, ence, at about half past two o'clock, on each one seems to have a particular the morning of Thursday. The grief grief. In our young Princess the hopes and consternation at this most lamentaof the nation have been disappointed- ble event has spread from Claremont by the birth, at 9 o'clock, P.M. of a throughout the country. Never did memorable day, Wednesday the 5th of England display a scene of such real sorNovember, of a still-born male child. row. The blow is given so high, the af Her Royal Highness's preceding illness fliction is so heavy, the lesson to humanwas prolonged and painful: but the ity is so impressive, that every living sou! medical report immediately ensuing, af- seems to feel it as a peculiar and awful forded the most cheering anticipation of dispensation of Providence. In every recovery. Fatally deceptive were all these auspicious prognostics, and that period which had been so fondly contemplated as an era of jubilee and rejoicing became indeed a day of calamity and mourning, The mighty, the happy, the young, felt the stroke of death, and the great object of a nation's interest was in a few hours -nothing. No mind, that's honest, But in it shares some woe. The Princess, it is officially announced, went on favourably for nearly four hours after her delivery; but was then seized eye a tear is seen, and the hearts of Britain are as the heart of a single parent on this woful occasion. No language can describe the shock which all have felt; and for the nearer picture of domestic misery, we should be sorry to attempt its faintest outline. Yet there is one trait, not known through the public accounts, which adds, if possible, a new pang to this tragic story. It is said that our late dear and admired Princess was going on most cheeringly, when she asked for her infant and learnt that the fulfilment of a mother's hopes were denied to her. The disappointment was too VOL. 21 Memoirs of the Princess Charlotte. 313 much for her weak frame to bear ;-con- intermission, till evening. This labour vulsions ensued, and in two hours she was no more. may have been too severe, and rather devised with a view to the knowledge deNovember 15th. In our last publica- sirable in the station which she was yet tion we mentioned the great calamity to fill, than to the health which should which has befallen the British Empire in have been the first consideration. But the death of Her Royal Highness the her acquirements were certainly of an Princess Charlotte. We shall now enter order much superior to those of females into a few of the particulars of a life, in general society. We have understood which, from this time, takes a melancholy that she was acquainted with the principal place in History. writers of the classic languages; that The Princess CHARLOTTE AUGUSTA, she was solidly informed in the history the only child of the Prince and Princess and policy of the European governments, of Wales, was born in Carleton House, and peculiarly of the constitution and on the 7th of January, 1796. Her distinguishing features of her native hisMother, Carolina Amelia Augusta, was tory. She spoke French, German, Itathe second daughter of the Duke of lian, and Spanish, with considerable Brunswick, and Augusta the eldest sister fluency. The lighter accomplishments of bis present Majesty. The long period were not forgotten, and she sang and during which the Prince of Wales had re- performed on the piano, the harp, and mained unmarried, and the disastrous the guitar, with more than usual skill. prospects of a broken succession, turned Nature had been kind to her in indulging the general eye with peculiar anxiety to her with tastes which are seldom united; the birth of a Royal Heir. The accouche- in addition to her talent for music, she ment of the Princess of Wales was con- had a fine perception of the picturesque ducted with the most solemn formalities, in nature; and a portion of her earliest the great Officers of State were in at- hours, and subsequently of those haptendance, and the ladies of her Royal pier ones which she spent in the society Highness's court waited on the illness, of her husband, were giving up to drawwhich at one period seriously threatened ing. She wrote gracefully, and had a her life, and in which, it is said, that she passionate fondness for the nobler ranks was saved by the intelligent friendship of of English poetry. a distinguished Statesman. The Prince Those were fine and singular acquiof Wales was present on this interesting sitions; in any place or society, they and important occasion. The earlier would have made an admirable woman. years of the young Princess were spent And it may be a lesson from her grave, in probably the most advantageous manner for a constitution naturally infirm, and a mind, which, from all that has transpired of it, seems to have been vigorous, original, and fond of acquirement. Her first years were spent with her mother, who appeared to take a peculiar interest in this promising and noble child. At a more advanced period she was put under the immediate superintendance of Lady De Clifford. The Bishop of Exeter As she advanced beyond childhood, was nominated to direct her studies, and she had trials to encounter which ex-a sub-preceptor was also chosen among hibited the strength of her resolution, la the English clergy. Those studies were the painful differences which occurred urged with singular assiduity. Those in the establishment of the Prince of who look upon Royal life as unmixed in- Wales, she took the part of her mother, dulgence, may be surprised to know, The question of her sound judgment on that with the Heir-apparent of England, this distressing subject, is now beyond the day's tuition generally began at six discussion. But she took the side to in the morning, and continued, with slight which an affectionate cbild, equally at 2R ATHENEUM. Vol. 2: to the youth and rank who turn away from exertion through fear of its difliculty, or through the pride that looks upon their station as exempt from the necessity of knowledge, that this mass of delightful intellectual enjoyment and preparation for the deeper duties of life, was acquired by a girl who died at twentytwo, and that girl heir to the first throne, of the world. 314 Memoirs of the Princess Charlotte. [VOL. 2 tached to both parents, would naturally eye and admiration. The private life of have turned. Even if crime had been the highest rank seldom transpires in its distinctly fixed on her mother, she might youth. But the comparative seclusion in have adhered to her with the pity that which the young Princess passed those belonged to her sex and early fondness. years in which the character is formed, Her marriage now excited the public gave unusual opportunities of ascertaining solicitude, and the young Prince of Orange her temperament. The anecdotes of her was selected for her husband. This youth all give the same impression of a prince promised well. He had been judgment fond of deciding for itself, of chiefly educated in England, and was a temper hasty but generous, of a disrelargely acquainted with the habits, spirit, gard of personal privation, and of a spirit and interests of the nation. He had peculiarly, and proudly English. She undergone that more valuable education frequently spoke of Queen Elizabeth as which seems so necessary to invigorate the model for a British Queen; and it men intended for the superintendance of has been remarked that in her ample kingdoms. He had spent a large share forehead, large blue eye, and steady, of his life almost in the obscurity of a stately countenance, there was a strong private person. His family had been similitude to the portraits of Elizabeth in exiled from their throne, and sent to be the days of her youth and beauty. wanderers and dependants upon the In 1814, the Prince Leopold of Coprecarious bounty of the tottering Powers bourg visited England. He had distinof the Continent. They had at length guished himself in the French war, and been invited into England, the general came over in the train of the Allied Sovrefuge of fallen royalty, and were sub- ereigns. His graceful manners attracted sisted on a public pension. The Prince, the young Princess, and he was perafter completing his studies at Oxford, mitted to become a suitor for the honour set out for the British army in the Pen- of her alliance. insula, and made the principal campaigns His family were of high distinction of the Spanish war as aide-de-camp to among the Saxon Princes. His grandthe renowned Wellington, the greatest father was the celebrated Prince of Comilitary genius of Europe since the days bourg, who had commanded the Ausof Marlborough. This match was trians arms against the Turks in the time finally broken off by some circumstances of Joseph, and subsequently stayed the which have not yet been distinctly ex- falling fortunes of the Empire in the Ausplained. The interference of the Princess of Wales, of the Duchess of Oldenburgh, the difficulty of adjusting the residence of the young bride, and he personal reluctance, all given as grounds, and possibly all combined, put an end to an alliance which seemed to offer a striking combination of public and individual advantages. The usual epochs of high life passed over the Princess without any peculiar effect on her habits. Her birth-day was for the first time kept at Court in 1815, on her commencing her twentieth year; and on May the 18th of the same year, she was introduced to the Queen's drawing-room. The assemblage was unusually full; and her sudden appear ance in the splendid dress of the Court, glittering with jewels, and with a diamond tiara shaded by the Prince's plume, above a countenance of ingenuousness, animation, and dignity, attracted the universal trian Netherlands against the French. The marriage, an union of free-will rare among the great, was solemnized on the 2d of May, 1816. The favours of the Court were crowded upon the man whose merit had obtained the heart of the general hope of the Royal family. The garter, and a regiment of horse, were given to the Prince. He was made a General in the British service, and was offered the revived Dukedom of Kendal, The popular bounty was not less generous, and an annuity of 50,000l. a year was, with an ominous provision, settled on him, in case of surviving his wife. The settlement for the married pair was munificent, 50 0001, a year, with 60,000l. as an outfit; 10,000l. a year for the independent use of the Princess, a splendid suit of jewels, and Claremont purchased by the nation as their residence. This offered a happy prospect. The Prince was an amiable and honourable VOL. 2.] Memoirs of the Princess Charlotie. 315 Funeral of the Princess Charlotte. Nov. 22.-On Tuesday, pursuant to parade of death, while death itself was to be looked upon within ;-terrible in the change it had made on the young, the lovely, the happy, and the exalted. man, and he loved his wife. The Princess increased day by day in fondness for him whom she had chosen from the the preparations made, the mortal remains world. Their time was spent in the hap- of the Princess Charlotte and her infant piest enjoyments of active, private life, were solemnly removed from Claremont They were seldom asunder; they rode to Windsor for interment; and, at a lit together, visited the neighbouring cottages the past 8 o'clock on the evening of and relieved the peasantry together, and Wednesday, were deposited in the royal seemed made and prepared for the truest sepulchre of St. George's chapel. To and most unchanging happiness of describe the pomp and ceremonies attenwedded life. They seldom left Clare- dant upon this afflicting occasion, would mont, and never came to London but on be unsuitable to our columns; and perthe public occasions which required haps we think their minute details have their presence. But at home they were already been carried too far. Alas! we busy in all the pursuits of diligent and could but tell that the richest products of accomplished minds. The morning was the loom, the most exquisite performanchiefly given to exercise and occupation ces of human ingenuity, the most gorgeous in the open air. After dinner, the Prince trappings of woe, diverted, in some meastudied English, or assisted the Princess sure, the minds of the congregated multiin her sketches from the surrounding ude from the more impressive lesson Country; the evenings generally closed which the innerinost part of the splendid with music: and thus glided away the bier could have unfolded. Alas! we hours which, with the inferior multitude could but say that all the nodding plumes, of the great, and gay, and profligate, and glittering 'scutcheons, and costly orwere laying up remorse, and poverty, naments, and splendid cavalcades, and and shame, for every year to come. We royal grandeur, were merely the external cannot go into the melancholy details of the fatal illness which at once doubly deprived us of a sovereign. They are universally known, and known with the minuteness that deep sorrow demands for We will not follow the precedent to its sad satisfaction. Within our memory record the funeral rites; let it suffice that no public misfortune has stricken so after lying at the Lower Lodge till the deep. The death of Nelson had its appointed hour, the coffin of this lamenconsolations. He was a great spirit re- ted Princess was carried to the tomb, acleased after he had gone his round of cording to wonted forms, amid the lamenglory. He parted upwards in the thunder tations of assembled thousands. Grief and whirlwind of victory. His grandeur more general and sincere never pervaded had ascended through all the steps of the British nation; and Wednesday, earthly renown. Like the ancient demi- throughout the sphere of our observation, god, building his funeral pile on the and as far as we can learn from the best mountain, he had completed his labours, sources of intelligence, was indeed a day before he flung himself into that splen- of religious observance and mourning to did extinction; he felt the touch of the intire population of this great kingdom. death only to spring upward in an im- The affectionate sorrows of Prince mortality of fame. But this fair and Leopold; his noble feeling and Christian gentle being lived only in promise. Her conduct thro' the whole of these trying goodness and beauty, her spirit and pub- scenes have been such as to endear him lic heart, rose upon us like the purple to the country, and even at an hour when clouds of a summer's dawn, to be sud- her calamitous fate has almost deified the denly turned to chillness and gloom :-- memory of " the expectancy and rose of like infancy with its bloom and its soft- this fair state," it is acknowledged with ness, to be stricken before our eyes into one voice that her husband was every way frightful decay-like the forms of a worthy of the station which the love of delightful dream, leading us through his adored Charlotte, and the approbation prospects of loveliness and hope, and of her royal Father, and the wishes of suddenly sinking into the fresh grave. England universally elected hin, |