more tyrannical in its nature than this law, the only difference is, that it extends no further than to the Royal Family, whereas the feudal despotism extended far and wide; but it is not the extent of the operation in which consists the justice or injustice, or the wound inflicted on religious and moral principle, but in the nature of the law itself.

No nation ever preserved liberty, or was prosperous long after its manners became corrupted, and nothing tends more to preserve purity of manners than respect for the marriage. bed, without that, the bonds of society are loosened and the last age is always more degenerate than that which preceded it. The history of Rome affords ample proof of this, and no other people had so regular a rise, so high an ascent, or so perceptible a decline as the Romans. Amongst that great people, nothing important was effected by chance or accident; the moral and physical causes of their rise, their grandeur, and their fall, are all as evident as the connexion between cause and effect could well be. From a consideration of the whole, nothing is more certain than that when their manners were pure and virtuous, they rose; when they grew vicious and licentious, they began rapidly to decline. The periods are as distinctly marked, as in the age of a plant, or of an animal, and, therefore, the conclusion is not vague, but certain, and it is shortly this, that on purity of manners depends the prosperity of a state, and on holding sacred the ties of marriage, depends in a great measure, the purity of manners amongst a people.

Another and important truth, that is learned from the history of all civilized countries is, that the example of the higher ranks influences those below, and that, therefore, the greatest importance ought to be attached to giving good examples by the higher classes.

In a free country, manners are of more importance in many cases, than laws, for they have no influence on the conduct of men where laws cannot interfere, aud no vice is ever prevalent, unless it can, by some concurrence of circumstances

be freed from that reproach, opprobrium, or contempt, which are more terrible than the minor punishments inflicted by law. The expedient or invention of not permitting Princes to marry with subjects is but a recent one, before that was adopted, and even when it was adopted, people were ignorant, and acted on principle and from motives, which they would now consider as the most ridiculous. This is similar to the laws made against the Roman Catholics, which at the time might be wise, but which a more enlightened age have annulled. The wars of York and Lancaster, are just as incompatible with the present times, as the burning of the Protestants at Smithfield; neither the policy, nor the manners of this age, would admit of a repetition of such things.

Some laws are made for permanent, and some for temporary or occasional purposes. The laws against Catholics were of the latter sort; they were to prevent certain evils, which the existing manner of thinking gave reason to apprehend; when that manner of thinking ceased, then the law might have been revoked, as we extinguish our light when the day appears, or as the traveller lays aside his arms of defence, when returned from his journey.

It is not a little singular that the human mind is so framed, that where there is no hope, there is seldom any desire, but amongst so many beautiful and accomplished women, who at the period of which we are now writing, graced the British Court, it was by no means an improbable case, that at least some of the Princes would find one, on whom to fix his affections, and whose affections he might gain, could he pay his addresses as other men; on the other hand, neither Lady Sarah Campbell nor Miss. Fortescue could ever hope to see themselves the acknowledged wives of the royal Princes, and therefore the assiduous attentions of one of the Princes to any particular lady, was tantamount to the ruin of her character.

We have been led into this discussion of the principles and propriety of the royal Marriage Act, by the effects which have displayed themselves, and are about to display themselves in

certain branches of the Royal Family, which morally and politically speaking are of paramount interest to the country. If we consider the condition in which that act placed the heir apparent to the Crown, we find that it rendered him both a bigamist and an adulterer; if we direct our look to the Duke of York, we find him living with a prostitute, in a state of separation from his wife, his marriage being one of state necessity. If we look to the Duke of Clarence, the consequences of his connexion with Mrs. Jordan are now beginning to show themselves. in the ejection of his illegitimate offspring from the court of Queen Victoria, and their probable departure from the country altogether. If we look to the Duke of Sussex, we see his legitimate offspring bastardized by the act of his father, and which politically considered, is attended by some curious circumstances. The Marriage Act of George III. does not extend to Hanover, and there is no law existing in that country which dissolves the marriage of the Duke of Sussex, or illegitimatises the children of that marriage. On the event of the present King of Hanover, and his son dying without issue, the Crown of Hanover devolves to the Duke of Sussex, and at his death, the present Colonel D'Este as the legitimate son of the Duke in Hanover, though illegitimate in England would ascend the throne; thus the political paradox would be exhibited of an individual sitting on the throne of a continental power, and exercising all the privileges of monarchy, who in his native country could not inherit an acre of land, who bears the name of D'Este by courtesy and not by right, and who is deprived of many of the political privileges of the meanest subject.

We will willingly draw the veil over one of the female branches of the royal family, who in an estrangement from the world and in solitude is deploring the power of nature over law. To the unnatural Marriage Act is she indebted for the hermit life which she is now leading, a stranger from the court of which she was once a distinguished ornament, and repudiated by society as a fallen being. These are thy glories, George III., these thy triumphs over the laws of God and nature. It is this

thy triumph which now throws such a depressing gloom over the political horizon of the country. We are no flatterers nor sycophants of a court. We listen with indignation to the pompous eulogies which are so profusely scattered around, of the benefits to be derived by the nation from the government of an inexperienced girl of eighteen years old, we know well what they all mean, as well as the purpose which they are meant to serve. But weak as our affection has hitherto been for royalty, that weakness of affection has now been considerable increased, as we have a convincing proof before us, that the affairs of this country can be carried on as well without a monarch as with one, for it is an actual burlesque upon the government of this country, monarchically speaking, to hear of the ministers of the country having an audience of her Majesty to take her commands on certain points, on which she cannot but be profoundly ignorant-to see the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Lord Chancellor prostrating themselves to receive her Majesty's commands respecting church preferments, of which her Majesty knew not a tittle before the said Archbishop or the said Lord Chancellor presented themselves before her-to see Lord Hill bending before her, himself bending with the load of promotions in the army for individuals, who as far as Majesty knows anything of them, may or may not know the difference between a bayonet and a sword-all these things shew us that monarchy is after all but a name, for which the people are called upon to pay most enormously, and that the ministers of the day, are in fact, the sovereigns of the country.

From this digressive matter, which has in a certain degree been forced upon us, by the relative situation of the Princes of the blood royal at that important period of their life, when the affections of the human heart are beginning to unfold themselves, we return to Prince William, and in the language of the sailor, to "the girl of his heart." The grave has now closed upon her, and she is beyond our censure or our praise,but a more lovely creature never blessed the earth with her presence. Her family, at the time of her first acquaintance with Prince William resided in Piccadilly, fronting the Green Park, and as

the royal family resided at St James's during the winter, many a stolen interview did he obtain with her, at which, he little thought of the inseparable barrier, which the love of royal legitimacy, inhabiting his father's breast, had placed between them. It was not, however, to be supposed, that situated as Prince William was, surrounded by a hundred eyes, and the greater part in the heads of females, who are ever on the alert to satisfy their curiosity on any subject, with which the least mystery is concerned, could not long remain undetected in his stolen interviews, and they, having come to the knowledge of a few of the antiquated gossips of the palace, the information was privately communicated to the Queen; and the pride of the Mecklenburg Strelitzes was aroused to the highest pitch at the bare thought of one of her sons forming an attachment for any female below the rank of a German princess, who, if we may judge by the samples which have been imported into this country are a race of women the most deficient in personal beauty, or any of those charms that captivate the human. heart, that can be found in Europe. The transgression which Prince William had committed was communicated to the royal father, who congratulated himself on his wisdom in the enactment of the Marriage Law, and forgetting that he himself had in his youth formed an attachment for a person of much more ignoble birth than the object of his son's affections, and which, as some living witnesses can attest, went considerably further than the connexion had as yet gone between Prince William and Miss Fotescue, he thought, (but wisdom is not always the attendant on the thoughts of kings,) that the most efficacious method of eradicating from his son's breast so dangerous a propensity as that of love, was to hurry off to his ship, where he he would have other subjects to think of and other scenes to engage his attention than the Green Park of London, and the beautiful form of Matilda Fortescue. Kings are powerful beings; but where the affections of the heart are concerned, and which they wish to bring under their control, they are powerless and impotent. The lovers were to be separated,