The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-14 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

LIVES OF THE PRINCESSES OF ENG-
LAND. By Mrs. .Everttt Green. Vols. I and 11.
This work is a worthy co rpanion .to Miss
Strickland's admirable "Queens of England," and in
saying so much we are pronouncing no mean com-
mendation. In one respect the subject-matter of these
volumes is more interesting, because it is more diver-
sified, than that of the " Queens of England." That
celebrated work, altht.ugh its heroiees were, for the
most part, foreign Princesses, related.almost entirely
to the history of this country. The Princesses of
England, on the contrary, are themselves English,
but their lives are nearly all connected with foreign
nations. Their biographies, consequently, afford us a
glimpse of the manners and customs of the chief Euro-
pean kingdoms, a circumstance which not only gives
to the work the charm of variety, but which is likely
to render it peculiarly useful to the general
reader, as it links together by association
the contemporaneous history of various nations.
Thus, for instance, of the three daughters of King
Henry 11., Matilda, the eldest, became the wife of
Henry the Lion, the great Duke of Saxony; her
sister Eleanora espoused Alphonso of. Spain, and their
histories make us acquainted with the simultaneous
vicissitudes of two very dissimilar Courts and coun-
tries ; while the life of Joanna, the youngest sister
of the Duchess of Saxony, and the Queen of Spain,
is throughout a fragment of romance. Married to
the King of Sicily, after his death imprisoned by the
usurper Tancred, liberated by her brother Richard
Coeur de Lion, and accompanying him and his Queen
in the crusade to the Holy Lund, and ultimately re-
married to the famous Raiti,ond of Toulouse, Joanna
is continually a heroine of romance. The readers of
Madame Cottin's enthralling tale " Mathilch"—one of
the most interesting romances ever penned—will find
in the history of Joanno while in the Holy Land the
origin of that celebrated story--Joanna (not Ma-
thilde), the sister of King Richard, having been be-
loved by Alelcch A ett'us (the Malak Adel of the
French tale), the chivalrous brother of the chivalrous
Saladin. From this enumeration it will be seen of
what very various characters are the biographies
contained in this work. Dissimilar in their lives,
and divided in their deaths, as the occupants of Mrs.
Hemans's " Gravc s of a Household"—
" Parted thus, they rest who played
Beneath the same green tree,
Whose voices mingled as they prayed

Around one mother's knee
are the daughters of royal houses, but the dissimilarity
adds to the history of their various careers. Cecilia,
the eldest child of William the Conqueror, lived and
died the peaceful Abbess of the convent of the Holy
Trinity, while Adele, the youngest of the Conqueror's
five or six daughters, the wife of the Count of Blois,
and the mother of the English King Stephen, dis-
played, both as Queen-Consort and as Regent,iat mar-
vellous excellence in all the requirements of a good go-
vernor, and moreover she was said to equal her warlike
father in courage, and, says Baldric of Anjou, would
have borne arms herself " did not custom forbid her
tender limbs to be weighed down with armour." The
history of Matilda, daughter of Henry I. of England,
widow of Henry V. of Germany, and mother of
Henry IL, the first Plantagenet King, the acknow-
ledged Queen of England, and the unsuccessful rival
of Stephen of Blois (son of the Adela above-
mentioned), is naturally full of interest and adventure.
At one timewe find the Empress Queen, the daughter
and mother of sovereigns, escaping from danger in a
coffin, and at another passing undiscovered over the
snow-covered :country in a robe; of similar whiteness.
After perusing the histories of queens and duchesses,
we pause with a mournful interest over the brief
record of Katharine, the third daughter of King
Henry child so beautiful that its mother, then
Regent, shortly after its birth mentioned it in a State
Mandate as " a certain beautiful daughter who is
recently born." This little princess, beloved by
her parents with a most tender affection, was born
deaf and dumb; and, notwithstanding all the efforts
of kingly power and paternal love, she only lived
three years and a half. The King and Queen were
inconsolable for her loss. This short history is here
related with an exquisite pathos. The two volumes
now before us contain the histories of the Prin-
cesses of England from the time of William
the Conquerer to that of Edward I. The
lives of the remaining Princesses will of course form
the subjects of future volumes. Judging from the
specimen already issued, we can entertain no doubt as
to the entire success of the work. The summary we
have given will give some idea of the interesting
matter with which it is filled, and the style is fully
equal to the subject. The various histories are related
with an earnest simplicity and copious explicitness.
The reader is informed without being wearied, and
alternately enlivened by some spirited description or
touched by some pathetic or tender episode. We
cordially commend Mrs. Everett Green's production
to general attention ; it is (necessarily) as useful as
history and fully as entertaining as romance.

COURT CIRCULAR.
OSBORNE, THURSDAY.

Her Majesty and the younger members of the
Royal Family, walked this forenoon in the park an
grounds of Osborne.
His Royal Highness Prince Albert, attended by
Colonel Bouverie, Equerry in Waiting, left Osborne
at eight o'clock thi4 morning, and crossed to Gosport
in the Fairy yacht, en route to Windsor Castle, to be
present at the funeral of the late Queen- Dowager.
his Royal Highness is expected to return to Os-
borne by seven o'clock this evening.
There was no addition to the royal dinner party
yesterday.

The Lords of the Committee of her Maj?sty's
Privy Council for Trade and Foreign Plantations,
had a meeting yesterday, at the office of the Board
of Trade. Earl Grey, Secretary of State for the
Colonies; Lord Campbell, Chancellor of the Duchy
of Lancaster; and Sir Edward Ryan wer* present.
The Marquis of Lansdowne returned to town yes-
terday evening, after attending the funeral of her
Majesty the Queen Dowager, in St. George's Chapel.
Lord John Russell returned to his residence, Pem-
broke Lodge, Richmond Park, yesterday, after
attending the funeral of the Queen Dowager.

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 28.—Some months since
Dr. Coolidge, of Waterville, Maine, was condemned to
death for murder, and to avoid an ignominious death on
the scaffold he committed suicide in his cell. An inquest
was held and he was buried. But, strange to tell, he
has come to life again, and is now (private letters say)
digging for gold in Celitornia I It is supposed that
justice was cheeted by the substitution of a dead body
for the living Coolidge.
THE EAST LANCASHIRE RAILWAY' COMPANY.—
We understand that the men who struck have resumed
their duties on the line, the directors undertaking to
yield to the demand for the dismissal of Mr. Royle, the
inspector, to obtain tbia having been apparently the
chief object of the men.—Manchester Guardian.
The Earl and Countess of Gainaborough are, we
understand, abut to leave Douglas's Hotel, where they
have resided two months, to occupy a house in Char-
lotte-square, so that their stay in this city will be pro•
longed for some time.—Edinburgh Witness.
DEATH OF SIR ROBERT KEITH DICE, BART., OF
PRFSTONFIELD.—This gentleman died at his seat in the
vicinity of our city at the end of last week. Sir Robert
was in the 77th year of his age. He returned to his na-
tive country a yt ar or two ego, after a lengthened resi-
dence on the Continent.—Edinburgh Witness.
DEATH OF THE MAYOR OF LIMERICIE.—It is our
melancholy duty „to announce the death of Alderman
John Boyse, Esq., J.P., Mayor of Limerick. This sad
event took place at his residence in Dublin, cn the
u oreing of Saturday, Bth instant. In every relation of
life this excellent man was esteemed and respected, and
his death is a seu-ce of the cleepeA sorrow to his afflicted
family, and of sincere regret to an extensive circle of
friends and acquaintances.—Cork Examiner.
Large quantities of herrings were caught last week
in Irvine Bay, evidently en route from King-endue Sound,
the Kylt s Bute, or Lechflne, for their usual spawning-
ground at BAllantrae. S. me boats procured twenty
hundred at a take. They are making their appearance
south earlier this season than formerly. They, are
beautiful in appearance, but their contents clearly indi-
cate they are foul. The very great impropriety, in every
respect, of citehing them in this condition, is now very
generally admitted.— Greenock Advertiser.
INDIGENT BLIND SCHOOL—A meeting of the
patrons and friends of this institution was yesterday
held ut the London Coffee-house, Ludgate-hill; Mr. R.
Tubbs in the chair. The business transacted was of the
ordinary routine character. It appears that there were
at present 177 persons, male and female, in the asylum.
The treasurer's account to the 30th November, as
audited, was laid before the court. and showed a balance
5181; 50`q. „: hnd borr,:,w(d
from the Bank. Oa the motion of Mr. fiterry, Lord
Viscount Cranbourne was elected a Vice-President of
the Corporation, and the meeting adjourned,