N the morning of the 23d of December 1793, the city of Berlin presented a scene of unusual gaiety and bustle. At an early hour, the whole of its inhabitants seemed to pour forth in living streams, joyful anticipation lighting up every countenance. Short but expressive greetings were exchanged. From all parts of the country there arrived crowds to swell the moving mass. Thousands of spectators were seen gazing from the windows and from the roofs of the houses, and the whole city was decked as for a festival; for on that day, at noon, two young and lovely princesses were to make their formal entrance into Berlin-the betrothed brides of the crown-prince and his younger brother. Public rumour had loudly vaunted the extreme beauty of her who was to be their future queen; and when the stately procession was seen at length to advance, amidst the loud sounding

No. 58.

1

of drums and trumpets, curiosity had reached its highest pitch, and every eye was strained in search of one object. It were impossible to describe the shouts of welcome that burst forth on the first appearance of this charming princess, whose loveliness surpassed all expectation.

At the entrance to the Linden Allee, one of the widest streets in the world, on the spot where now stands the monument to Frederick the Great, a splendid triumphal arch, having Corinthian pillars adorned with a variety of allegorical emblems, had been erected in honour of the occasion. Here the procession paused; the drums and trumpets were still, and a deputation of the citizens advanced to greet and welcome the princess in the name of the whole city. A group of pretty children, dressed in white, with green wreaths, emblems of Purity and Hope, then advanced and surrounded the royal bride. One of them, a lovely little girl, presented to her a crown of myrtle blossoms, repeating at the same time, with so much sweetness and expression, a simple little poem of welcome, that the princess, yielding to the impulse of her open loving nature, drew the child towards her and kissed her tenderly. This gush of natural feeling charmed the whole assembled multitude, save one, the lady in waiting, the Countess von Vosz, a very incarnation of etiquette, who, shocked, but too late to arrest the hasty deed, exclaimed: My God! what has your Royal Highness done? It is contrary to all court rules and precedents.' But the young princess, with a serene and innocent countenance, only replied ingenuously: What! may I no longer do so?'

On Christmas-eve, the nuptials were celebrated with all due pomp and splendour. At six in the evening, the diamond crown of the royal house of Prussia having been placed on the head of the bride, the whole court repaired to the apartments of the widowed queen of Frederick the Great, to invite her to attend the ceremony, which took place in the White Saloon, in presence of the ministers of state, foreign ambassadors, nobility, and a considerable concourse invited as spectators. At the conclusion of the solemn benediction, a discharge of seventy-two cannons announced the completion of the ceremony. Amongst all classes of the citizens, the king had issued tickets of admission to the interior of the palace, and the people seemed to gaze with unwearied delight on the lovely, graceful, and dignified bride of their favourite prince. At nine, a banquet was spread for the royal family in the Hall of the Knights, under a baldachin of crimson velvet, embroidered with gold, the dishes being placed on the table by two generals of Prussia, the whole of the ladies and gentlemen of the court waiting on the royal party until after they had drunk for the first timea usage introduced by Frederick I., as practised at the French court under Louis XIV. After the banquet, there followed the solemn torch-dance, a relic of the middle ages, everywhere fallen into disuse except at the court of Prussia. On a signal from the lord high-chamberlain, and to sound of trumpet and drum, the

ministers of state advanced in couples, each bearing in his hand a lighted wax-taper, in imitation of a torch. Then followed the royal family, the king leading the bride, and the bridegroom the queen his mother and the widowed queen of Frederick the Great. We are told, 'the entire procession went slowly and solemnly round,' which, rather than rejoicing, carries the mind far back to the high and dark times of medieval superstition, and further still, to heathen rites and Eleusinian mysteries. Thus ended the festivities of the day; and on the second day after Christmas, Prince Louis was united to the Princess Frederica, who was two years younger than her sister—the elder princess being seventeen, the younger fifteen years of age.

Louisa, daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and of a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, was born at Hanover on the 10th of March 1776. When only in her seventh year, she had the misfortune to lose her mother, which she felt the more deeply, that both her intellect and her affections had been very early developed; and even when, in after-years, the misfortunes of her country bowed her to the earth, the memory of her beloved mother she ceased not fondly to cherish. This excellent parent, by her wise and affectionate instructions, laid the foundation of a sound and enlightened education, which was afterwards happily completed under the care of her maternal grandmother, the landgravine of Hesse-Darmstadt, who, together with two happily chosen governesses, Mesdames von Wollzogen and Gelieur, was the means of fostering and maturing those virtues and graces which raised Louisa, Queen of Prussia, to be the model of her sex and the admiration of all Europe. In addition to solid and elegant accomplishments, she was also taught the exercise of benevolence, in which she ever found high enjoyment, visiting frequently the abodes of poverty and sickness, and never failing to bestow pity, consolation, and relief. In company with her grandmother, she made frequent journeys to visit relatives in different parts of Germany, traversed the banks of the Rhine, and also many of the provinces of the Netherlands. Her gentle and inquiring mind was thus strengthened and enlarged, and her great power of discrimination, which had already begun to shew itself, happily and profitably exercised.

While Louisa was yet young, her eldest sister Charlotte had been married to the reigning Duke of Hildburghausen; and some years after, her second sister Theresa, to the Prince of Tour and Taxis, which latter alliance was the occasion of several visits to Frankfort, where, in the end of the year 1792, she first met with her future husband, who, with his brother, and the king their father, were then in head-quarters in that city. The contagion of the French Revolution, destined in its effects to be so fatal to the kingdom of Prussia, had already overspread Germany, and was shaking the political relations of the whole of Europe. The Prussians marched an army across the Rhine, commanded by

Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick. So strong was the delusion of the Prussians in this, the first of these campaigns which erelong issued in the total loss of the left bank of the Rhine, that the officers were told: 'Do not purchase too many horses —the affair will soon be over;' and the Duke of Brunswick remarked: Gentlemen, not too much baggage; this is merely a military trip. The insolent French general Custine, on entering Frankfort, had predicted to the citizens the fall of the Holy German Empire, which followed so soon after. 'You have beheld,' said he, 'the coronation of the emperor of Germany: well, you will not see another.' This Custine, with his rapacious army, had just been expelled from that city by the Prussians, when Louisa and her sister chancing to pass through, were introduced to the king and the two princes. What wonder if this young princess, who charmed every one who beheld her, should have instantly captivated the crown-prince? for she was rich in those nameless graces which, even with no great personal beauty, exert so powerful an influence over the hearts of men. But her beauty was perfect. She was indeed one of those rare beings who seem to be endowed with every perfection of mind and body; and all so harmoniously blended, that the biographer is embarrassed between the two feelings, that enumeration is useless, and that truth will be called hyperbole. This may seem like exaggeration, but here we have the testimony of Germany's greatest poet, Goethe, who was in the suite of the Grand Duke of Weimar at the siege of Mayence, in May 1793, just after the double betrothal had taken place, and who there saw the two princesses of Mecklenburg. He says: In my sojourn with the court, I had the opportunity of observing them closely as they passed to and fro in unconstrained freedom amidst the assembled company, and the effect they produced on me was such, that I could only compare them to two celestial beings, whose impression on my mind could never be effaced.'

The crown-prince, who was then about twenty-three, is described as tall and well proportioned, with a military bearing, a countenance expressive of intellectual repose, agreeable but somewhat serious; a high forehead, a mouth indicating firmness with a tinge of satire. When he had reached his prime, he was considered the handsomest man in Prussia; and when he appeared in public or on parade, no one had ever to ask, which is the king?" Bishop Eylert, court-preacher at Potsdam, in his interesting, but somewhat cumbrous and truly German, Memoirs of Frederick-William III., thus describes the prince and princess: He was grave, she affable; he curt, she copious; he full of care, she cheerful; he absorbed, she sympathetic; he prosaic, she poetic; he practical, she ideal; he satirical, she playful; he cautious, she ingenuous; he irritable, she tranquil; he inquiring, she anticipating; he simple, she kindly; he wholly a man, she wholly a woman, full of grace and love: both one in heart and soul.' "Such were this royal pair, who lived

6

together a life of rarest harmony for seventeen years, the last four darkened by misfortunes, which, though uniting them only the more closely in love, broke the heart of the lovely queen, and brought her down to the grave in the flower of her age.

The first four years of their union were spent almost entirely at Paretz, a small estate purchased by the crown-prince near Potsdam. Here they lived with the utmost simplicity, Louisa regulating her own household, diligently cultivating her understanding, reading history, ancient and modern, translations from the classics, taking especial delight in the old Greek tragedy and in our own Shakspeare. She also wrote with great facility, elegance, and intelligence. During these four years, two sons were born to her -in 1795, Frederick-William, the present king of Prussia, and William, Prince of Prussia, presumptive heir to the throne. Death came, too, to chequer the scene, for Prince Louis was carried off by malignant fever, leaving her beloved sister Frederica a widow when not yet nineteen; the widow of the illustrious Frederick, greatly venerated by Louisa, died at the age of eighty-two; and in 1797, died the reigning king, Frederick-William II., nephew and successor of the Great Frederick.

When, at rare intervals, Louisa had appeared in the court-circles and in the assemblies of the great, she was the chief ornament and centre of attraction-the cynosure of every eye; but she turned away from such scenes to the far higher enjoyment of domestic life. Now, however, she must come forth from the retirement which she loved, to be the queen of a great nation, by whom, from the instant she ascended the throne, she was, even at the early age of twenty-one, universally hailed as 'the mother of her country,' a title of which she was justly proud, and never ceased to merit. It has often been remarked, that a life of happiness is singularly barren in events calling for especial record. It certainly presents few of an exciting nature; many, however, from which high and holy lessons may be drawn; and from none more than from the life of rare felicity enjoyed by the king and queen of Prussia for the next eight years. So far as was consistent with their duty to the state over which they were called to preside, they continued to live a life of retirement, and always of simplicity, making frequent journeys through their dominions, to the great delight of their simple loving subjects. The year after their accession, the sovereigns visited the remote eastern provinces of their dominions, where scarcely an inhabitant had ever beheld a queen, and whose appearance everywhere was the signal for the most hearty though rustic rejoicings; the royal pair being likened, in the poetic language of the people, to the embodied genius of Justice and Mercy.' The queen frequently joined in the dance, and excited the utmost enthusiasm by her queenly air and gentle condescension, and the appreciation she shewed of whatever was presented to her, by instantly making use of it-such as ornaments of amber, which she constantly wore during her stay in the places where she