reception of the Prince was most cordial on every side; and on the 5th of the following month the Queen and Princesses returned to Windsor to make preparations for the approaching nuptials, which, however, did not take place so soon as was expected, owing to the time necessarily occupied in the settlement of preliminaries, and the severe illness of Prince Leopold, who was confined at Brighton till the middle of April. On the 26th of that month, being the birthday of the Princess Mary, the Queen gave a grand entertainment at Frogmore, where the Prince Regent was received by his royal daughter, the Prince Leopold, and several members of the family, attended by a numerous party of the nobility, who had been invited to dine with her Majesty on this occasion. In the evening the Regent returned to London, and three days afterwards, the remainder of the family followed, to be in readiness for the nuptials; the Princess Charlotte going to Carlton House; Prince Leopold to the apartments of the Duke of Clarence in St. James' Palace, and her Majesty, with the Princesses, to Buckingham House, where the next day, being the 30th, a drawing-room was held according to etiquette, for the purpose of giving the young Prince a formal reception at the British court.

At length, the 2nd of May arrived, the day appointed for the celebration of the marriage, and accordingly the ceremony was performed in the great crimson room at Carlton House by his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the presence of her Majesty the Queen, his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of York, Clarence, and Kent, their Royal Highnesses the Princesses Augusta, Sophia, Elizabeth, and Mary, her Royal Highness the Duchess of York, her Royal Highness the Princess Sophia of Gloucester, their Serene Highnesses the Duke and Mademoiselle D'Orleans, the Duke of Bourbon, the great officers of state, the Ambassadors and Ministers from foreign states; the officers of the household of her Majesty the Queen, of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and of the younger branches of the royal family, assisting at the ceremony. At the conclusion of the marriage service, the registry of the marriage was attested with the usual formalities, after which her

Engraved by A Roffe, from an original Picture:

in the popression of the Publisher.

Majesty the Queen, his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, the bride and bridegroom, with the rest of the royal family, retired to the royal closet. The bride and bridegroom soon after left Carlton House for Oatlands, the seat of his Royal Highness the Duke of York. Her Majesty the Queen, his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and the rest of the royal family, passed into the great council chamber, where the great officers, nobility, foreign ministers, and other persons of distinction present, paid their compliments on the occasion. Immediately after the conclusion of the marriage the Park and Tower guns were fired, and the evening concluded with other public demonstrations of joy throughout the metropolis.

Prince Leopold was naturalized by an Act of Parliament, passed previously to his marriage; and referring to this subject in the speech of the Regent from the throne at the prorogation, he announced another royal marriage, between the Princess Mary and the Duke of Gloucester. Thus, in the course of one year, the prospect of the legitimate succession of the Brunswick line presented itself under the most favourable auspices; but the manner in which that prospect was blighted belongs to a future part of our history.

Ecce iterum Crispinus. The marriage of the Princess Charlotte had scarcely taken place, when the public attention was again drawn to the expensive habits of the Prince of Wales, through whose profusion the Civil List was constantly in arrear. His rage for the interior decoration of his palaces appeared to bid defiance to every principle of economy or of prudence. If his eyes were dazzled by the splendour of his gewgaws-if he could behold his Adonis-like form reflected from a hundred mirrors-if he could lie entranced in the lap of some meretricious dame, or brutalize himself with his nocturnal potations of the most stimulating liquors—what were to him the distresses of the country, the impoverished state of its finances, the depression of its commerce, or the starving condition of the people? Heedless of all but the gratification of his own inordinate desires, he persisted in a system of extravagance, profuse as it was vicious-immoral as it was ruinous. Agents were employed abroad to select the most costly pieces of furniture, which, after having been paid for,

and submitted to his royal inspection, were found not to suit his taste, and were restored to the cases in which they had been imported, to be consigned as tenants of the lumber-room, Like Charles II. of Spain, he had always some ruling hobbyhorse (query, hobby-mare?), which always galloped away with him into the treasury of the country, from which, returning with the requisite load, it was in a short time neglected to make room for another still more expensive in its support and keeping. De gustibus non est disputandum; but perhaps no prince ever displayed so much frivolity and littleness in the choice of some of his hobbies, as the Prince of Wales, but in the keeping of which he obtained the envied title of a magnificent patron of the arts. The zoologists lauded him, because he knew a parrot from a kangaroo. The architects, with Sir Jeffrey Wyatville at their head, praised him because he knew the difference between a Chinese pagoda-videlicet, at Virginia Water-and a Turkish mosque, invented by Nash at Brighton. The antiquarians placed him at the head of their learned body, because, when the furor antiquitatis was upon him, they obtained 250l, from him for the candlestick which Paris used when he lighted Helen to her bed and Mr. Ustonson of Fleetstreet, of piscatorial celebrity, bruited it about in the vicinity of Temple-bar, that George IV. was the greatest monarch that ever filled the throne of this country, because his bill amounted every year to several hundred pounds for fishing-rods, bloodworms, and gentles. Let not these things be considered as derogatory to royalty, or that they are indicative of a little mind-Buonaparte often amused himself with a game at marbles-George III. with turning a needle-case or a tobaccostopper-Gustavus of Sweden employed his leisure hours in building houses with cards-and a far greater man than either of them, Isaac Newton, delighted at playing at push-pin. Sterne says, 'I quarrel not with the hobby of any man's choosing, unless he rides over me, or so bespatters me with mud, that my friends cannot recognize me;'-and it is on this account that we find fault with the hobbies of the Prince of Wales for their support, he rode rough-shod over the people; he so bespattered them with the consequences of his extravagance, that nothing but the strong arm of military power could

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