the receipt of a note from the queen, dated yesterday; and begs permission to return her best thanks to her Majesty, for her gracious condescension, in the willingness expressed by her Majesty, to have communicated to the illustrious strangers, who will in all probability be present at her Majesty's court, the reasons which have induced her Royal Highness not to be present.

"Such communication, as it appears to her Royal Highness, cannot be the less necessary on account of any publicity which it may be in the power of her Royal Highness to give to her motives; and the Princess of Wales therefore entreats the active good offices of her Majesty, upon an occasion wherein the Princess of Wales feels it so essential to her that she should not be misunderstood.

66 Connaught House, May 26th, 1814."

"CAROLINE, P.

FROM THE QUEEN TO THE PRINCESS OF WAles.

"Windsor Castle, May 27th, 1814.

"The queen cannot omit to acknowledge the receipt of the Princess of Wales's note, of yesterday, although it does not appear to her Majesty to require any other reply than that conveyed to her Royal Highness's preceding letter.

"CHARLOTTE, R."

Such was this strange correspondence, which must have astonished the public.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE QUEEN'S LAST TRIALS AND SORROWS.

In this year the queen had a fresh trial in the loss of her brother, the reigning Duke of Mecklenberg-Strelitz, who died from a stroke of apoplexy on November 6th. He had had his share of troubles, his dominions having been overrun and ravaged by the insatiable conqueror. At the peace he had been restored and became Grand Duke. He had succeeded his brother in 1794. He had married two sisters of the house of Darmstadt.

It was in the year 1817 that the first symptoms of a critical malady gave warning to this excellent lady that her troubled course was about to close. The usual visitation of exceptional trials and annoyances had tried her health and spirits severely. The death of her brother and the attack on the Prince of Wales as he was on his way to the House of Lords, had much shaken her. She was about to hold her drawing-room, in April, when, in the night of the 23rd, she was seized with a spasmodic attack of a very serious kind. From this she recovered in a few days, but the physician's bulletin declared that it had been a fever, with pain in the side.

The indefatigable lady, however, set off for Eton to see the montem, then went on visits to country seats-and various noblemen. One of the Minor Canons of Windsor, Mr. Roper, died at this time, leaving a family unprovided for, when her Majesty showed the deepest interest in the case, visiting the widow, though weak and ill herself, putting down five hundred pounds as a subscription, and helping to raise two thousand. She promised to provide for the daughters, and get the prince, her son, to do the same for the sons.

Ill as she was, the intrepid queen never relaxed a moment, and continued to take her part in the numerous public duties and ceremonials that called for her presence. She heroically bore the burden of the marriages and drawing-rooms that now succeeded each other. But there was one trial which she scarcely reckoned on. Attending a meeting of the National School Society at the Mansion House on April 29th, she was pursued through the city by the groans and hisses of an infuriated mob, who crowded round her chair. The sick and aged lady was not in the least intimidated, only expressing her indignation, in imperfect English, that after her long service she should have been thus insulted. Nor was this the only occasion on which she was so treated. She had gone to one of the Regent's entertainments, and on leaving was surrounded by the mob and assailed-as she herself complained, "shpit upon "—and was with difficulty rescued by some of the guests.

When in February, 1818, Mr. Rusli, the American minister, was presented to the queen, he thus described the scene :- -"At five o'clock they conducted me to the audience room, which I entered alone. Immediately before me was the queen. On her right was one of the princesses; on her left another. All were in full court dresses, and all standing. There was also present a couple of ladies-in-waiting; the Duke of Montrose and the Lord Chamberlain. All was silence," adds our awestricken American. He presented his "letter of credence -with some complimentary remarks, adding that he had it in charge from the President so to bear himself as to give hope of gaining her Majesty's esteem, which it would be his constant ambition to do. The queen answered that the sentiments he expressed were very obliging," and then conversed with him for some quarter of an hour, putting questions about the United States." She was then seventy-six, and her birthday was to be kept on the following day. He describes the scene. "As I entered the room," he goes on, "there was a benignity in her manner which in union with her age and rank was both attractive and touching. The tones of her voice had a gentleness, the result, in part, of years; but full as much. of intended suavity to a stranger." He then recalls how his predecessor, Mr. Adams, had when presented to her, made allusion to the qualities in her character, "which I came to learn through a good source was advantageously remarked at the English court." After an allusion to the dissensions that had arisen between the nations,

he said that no matter what they were, "the reverence commanded by the queen's private virtues had been subject to no such charges, and had been invariably felt by his government."

In the case of a person enjoying health, and not advanced in life, these would have been sore trials enough; but for one broken with age, and beginning to suffer from a mortal malady, they were almost overwhelming. The series of shocks and agitations that overwhelmed her during this last year could scarcely have been more oppressive. As we have seen, the death of her brother, in 1816, was the earliest of these shocks, which was followed by the attack in the streets on the regent as he was returning from the House of Lords in January, 1817, and it was shortly after this that the first symptoms of her malady declared themselves. She had, however, rallied, and with her usual fortitude took her share in public entertainments, visiting the Duke of Marlborough at his seat of Whiteknights, in Berkshire.

This was followed by what was a calamity for the whole nation, the death of her granddaughter, the amiable and much-loved Princess Charlotte. Having, as we have seen, barely recovered from some acute attacks, the queen had been ordered by her physicians to visit Bath and drink the waters. Three houses were taken at Sydney Place, close to the pleasant "Parade." She was attended by the faithful Princess Elizabeth; and the good old city-more charged with memories of this kind than