MEMOIRS

Of Her late Royal Highness Princess Charlotte of Wales,
AND OF SAXE-COBURG SAALFELD.

NEVER in the Annals of our History has there happened an event which has so universally excited the deep and generous sympathy of the country as the lamented decease of the Princess Charlotte of Wales. Memory does not furnish, nor perhaps does History record, a public loss, which the nation has so generally and so sincerely deplored; and the grounds of this universal sorrow render it truly honourable to the character of the country. It may be fit to observe, that the personal character and the domestic virtues of the amiable and beloved object of our regard, seemed to justify that universal feeling of regret which has been experienced from one end of the country to the other, as well in the palace of the princess as in the habitation of the subject. That she was religious, in the sober and rational understanding of the term,—that she had learned the heavenly rule of “setting her affection on things above,”—her conduct on a trying occasion will sufficiently manifest. “A woman,” saith our meek and compassionate Redeemer, “when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come.” Her hour came; and truly this illustrious daughter of woman knew this sorrow, for never was sorrow like unto that wherewith it pleased the Lord to try her patient and resigned spirit, through the protracted period of her travail. She talked of her portion of sorrow, but where was her portion of joy? The powers of remembrance were indeed left to her, but where was their energy? When called upon to do their work, did they support and reanimate exhausted nature by the assurance, so joyous to the parent’s heart to hear, that “a man is born into the world, that the child liveth?”—No!—witness here the constancy of the saint! Behold the triumph of religion!—she lived to know that her offspring was dead, and died herself, exclaiming “Not my will, but thine, be done.”

To our children, and our children’s children, the character of this illustrious and virtuous female should be handed down as the brightest pattern of moral excellence, of conjugal affection, and of strict conformity to the dictates of her God. Her spotless and angelic soul was suddenly called into the presence of its Creator; and may the bright example which she has left behind her be an inducement to her survivors to tread in the same path; that their sun may set like hers, and the darkness of the tomb be irradiated by the splendour of their virtues!

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