should leave England. He was sent to Rochester, the very place to which he had intended going. The house appointed for his reception was strongly guarded in front, but the back part was not secured, by which means he made his escape to France.

"Louis acts divinely towards the royal fugitives; for is it not being the image of the Allpowerful Being, to support a king, at a time when he was betrayed and abandoned by his subjects, and obliged to fly from his kingdom?

"The magnanimous soul of Louis performs this great part. He set out with his retinue and a hundred coaches and six, to meet the queen and the prince of Wales. When he perceived the prince's coach, he alighted from his carriage, and embraced the child tenderly; he then ran to the queen, saluted her, and conversed with her some time; he seated her on his right hand in his own carriage, and carried her to Saint Germain, where she found herself treated like a queen; was provided with clothes and every accommodation, and was presented with a small box, containing six thousand louis'd'ors.

"The following day James arrived at Saint Germain. Louis went to the end of the hall to receive the king of England; James bowed very low, as if he would embrace his knees; Louis prevented him, and embraced him very cordially; and then said to him, "This, sir, is your house; when I shall come here you will do the honours, and I will pay them to you when you come to Versailles.'

"Louis sent ten thousand louis'd'ors to the fallen king. James appears old and worn out; the queen is thin, and distress is painted on her countenance; but she has fine black eyes, beautiful

teeth, an elegant shape; and is possessed of a superior understanding. On seeing Louis caress the prince of Wales, who is a lovely child, she said to him, I have often envied the happiness of my son because he cannot feel the weight of his misfortunes, but now I pity him because he is insensible to the value of the caresses and the kindness of your majesty.'

"Her husband forms a total contrast to her character; he has great personal courage, but an inferior understanding, and relates, with an astonishing degree of insensibility, the unparalleled adventures which have befallen him in England.”

Many efforts were made by Louis to restore James to the throne, but they all proved ineffectual. The queen entered into correspondence with several of the English nobility, who were favourable to her cause; but all her attempts to procure a revolution were fruitless.

She had much more spirit and far greater ambition than James, who was satisfied with the empty title of king, which he enjoyed in France, and what he valued still more highly, the appellation of saint; for which he relinquished a crown, and even prided himself on the loss. His principles of religion were sincere, and he frequently was heard to declare, that he owed more to the prince of Orange than to all the world besides, as by seizing the crown, he had proved to him the nothingness of all human grandeur, and rendered him fitter for the kingdom of heaven.

On his death bed, almost his last words were, that he entreated God to pardon all his enemies, and particularly the prince of Orange; and he said to his son, with a mixture of philosophy and religion, "whatever may be the charms of a crown, the time must come when it will be of no value;

respect your mother, love the king of France, and prefer your religion to all earthly grandeur." Louis the fourteenth had long hesitated, whether he should acknowledge the son of James the second, after the death of his father.

On the day previous to that on which James died, Maria, introduced by madame de Maintenon into the presence of Louis the fourteenth, conjured him not to affront the memory of a king, whom he had so warmly protected, and who was soon to be no more, by withholding from his son a simple title, the sole remains of all his grandeur, nor to heap such disgrace on her innocent son, whom he had already treated as prince of Wales, and whom he ought therefore to acknowledge as king after the death of his father. His glory by such a conduct, she added, would be sullied and his interests would not be advanced: for whether he acknowledged, or refused to acknowledge, the son of the unfortunate king, England would equally arm against France, and he would only experience the regret of having sacrificed the feelings of humanity and dignity of sentiment, to useless précautions. Louis, affected by her tears, which were ably seconded by the representations of madame de Maintenon, immediately repaired to the apartment of the dying king: "I come sir," he said, "to acquaint your majesty, that whenever it pleases God to remove you from this world into a better, I will take your family under my protection; that I will treat your son, the prince of Wales, in the same manner as king of England, as will be his undoubted right."

All who were present shed tears at this speech, some threw themselves at his feet and embraced his knees; some uttered incoherent expressions;

others testified, by gestures, more expressive than words, their sensibility at so generous an action. Louis himself was so affected at this touching scene, that he wept; and the dying monarch was seen struggling, almost in the agonies of death, to signify his gratitude and joy.

Not long before the death of Anne, Maria indulged the fond hope that her son would be called to the succession; but saw that hope frustrated almost as soon as it was conceived. She heard that, on the accession of George, the English nation was filled with discontent, and that a large party was ready to declare in favour of her son. She embraced him at his departure, in order to put himself at the head of the mal-contents, and said, "My son, return king, or do not return at all;" yet in a few months she had the mortification to see him return without a crown, and the still greater mortification to behold the regent-duke of Orleans in close alliance with George the first; and the court of France, which had hitherto protected her son, compel him to retire in disgrace from that kingdom in which he had taken an asylum.

She lived, however, to hear, that he was received at Madrid with royal honours, and that great preparations were making to restore him to the throne, but death saved her from the chagrin of finding her sanguine expectations again frustrated, and of beholding him a fugitive, wandering without any settled abode, and avoided by the principal powers of Europe.

Maria died at St. Germain, on the 7th of May, 1718, in the sixty-first year of her age; a princess whose meekness in prosperous, and dignity in adverse circumstances, attracted the esteem

of her own age, and deserve the admiration of posterity.

QUEEN MARY,

CONSORT OF WILLIAM THE THIRD.

MARY, eldest daughter of James, duke of York, by Anne Hyde, daughter of the earl of Clarendon, was born in April, 1662, and by the command of Charles the second, was educated in the protestant religion, in direct opposition to her father, who professed the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church.

Charles, though without religion himself, had sense sufficient to perceive and calculate its effects and influence over the public mind, and in order to quiet the suspicions of the people, and to stem the torrent of popular discontents, offered lady Mary in marriage to his nephew, William, prince of Orange.

During the course of the negociation for the marriage, Mary experienced a satisfaction which few princesses ever enjoy, that of being convinced that her person and disposition, no less than her rank and situation, were the motives which influenced the choice of William.

On his arrival in England he declined acceding to the offer of the princess's hand, until he had seen and conversed with her. He declared, that, contrary to the usual sentiments of persons of his rank, he placed a great part of his happiness in domestic satisfaction; and would not, upon any consideration of interest or policy, unite himself with a person who was not perfectly agreeable to