Amid that scene, if some relenting eye Glance on the stone where our cold relics lie, CALAMITIES OF ROYALTY. As the convulsions of nature are produced in mountainous regions, and the fury of the tempest sweeps over the heights, so are eminent stations in society exposed to perils and wrecks, which, to a reflecting mind, ought to render them objects of anxiety and apprehension rather than of desire and pursuit. It is well observed, that Fortune never appears in a more extravagant humour than when she reduces monarchs to mendicants. Half a century ago, or thereabouts, it was not imagined that our own times would have to record many such instances. After having contemplated kings raised into divinities, we see them now depressed as beggars. Our own times, in two opposite senses, may be emphatically distinguished as the age of kings. In Voltaire's Candide, or the Optimist, there is an admirable satirical stroke. Eight travellers meet in an obscure inn, and some of them with not sufficient money to pay for a scurvy dinner. In the course of conversation, they are discovered to be eight monarchs in Europe, who had been deprived of their crowns! What added to this exquisite satire was, that there were eight living monarchs at that moment wanderers upon the earth! Adelaide, the widow of Lothario, King of Italy, one of the most beautiful women of her age, was besieged in Pavia by Berenger, who resolved to constrain her to marry his son, after Pavia was taken: she escaped from her prison with her almoner. The Archbishop of Reggio had offered her an asylum; to reach which, she and her almoner travelled on foot through the country by night, concealing herself in the day-time among the corn, while the almoner begged for alms and food through the villages. The emperor, Henry the Fourth, after having been deposed and imprisoned by his son, Henry the Fifth, escaped from prison. Poor, vagrant, and without aid, he entreated the Bishop of Spires to grant him a lay prebend in his church. "I have studied," said he, "and learned to sing, and may therefore be of some service to you." The request was denied, and he died miserably and obscurely, at Leige, after having drawn the attention of Europe to his victories and his grandeur ! Mary de Medicis, the widow of Henry the Great, mother of Louis the Thirteenth, mother-in-law of three sovereigns, and Regent of France, frequently wanted the necessaries of life, and died at Cologne in the utmost misery. The intrigues of Richlieu compelled her to exile herself, and live an unhappy fugitive. Her petition exists, with this supplicatory opening: "Supplie Marie Reine de France et de Navarre, disant, que depuis le 23 Fevrier elle aurait été arretée prisonniere au chauteau de Coinpiegne, sans être ni accusée ni soupçonnée." &c. Lilly, the astrologer, in his "Life and Death of King Charles the First," presents us with a melancholy picture of this unfortunate monaich. He has also described the person of the old queen-mother of France: "In the month of August, 1641, I beheld the old queenmother of France departing from London, in the company of Thomas Earl of Arundel. A sad spectacle of mortality it was, and produced tears from my eyes, and many other beholders, to see an aged, lean, decrepid, poor queen, ready for her grave, necessitated to depart bence, having no place of residence in this world left her but where the courtesy of her hard fortune assigned it. She had been the only stately and magnificent woman of Europe; wife to the greatest king hat ever lived in France; mother unto one king, and unto wo queens." In the year 1595, died at Paris, Antonio, King of Portugal: his body is interred at the Cordeliers, and his heart deposited at the Ave Maria. Nothing on earth could compel this prince to renounce his crown. He passed over to England, and Elizabeth assisted him with troops; but, at length, he died in France, in great poverty. This dethroned monarch was happy in one thing, which is indeed rare in all his miseries he had a servant, who proved a tender and faithful friend, and who only desired to participate in his misfortunes, and to soften his miseries; and, for the recompense of his services, all be wished was, to be buried at the feet of his dear master. This hero in loyalty, to whom the ancient Romans would have raised an altar, was Don Diego Bothei, one of the greatest lords of the court of Portugal, and who drew his origin from the kings of Bohemia. Hume furnishes us with an anecdote of singular royal distress. He informs us that the queen of England, with her son Charles, had "a moderate pension assigned her; but it was so ill paid, and her credit ran so low, that one morning, when the Cardinal de Retz waited on her, she informed him, that her daughter, the Princess Henrietta, was obliged to lie a-bed for the want of a fire to warm her. To such a condition was reduced, in the midst of Paris, a Queen of England, and a daughter of Henry IV. of France!" We find another proof of her excessive poverty. Salmasius, after publishing his celebrated political book, in favour of Charles II. the Defensio Regia, was much blamed by a friend, for not having sent a copy to the widowed queen of Charles, who, he whites, though poor, would yet have paid the bearer. The daughter of James the First, who married the Elector Palatine, in her attempts to get her husband crowned, was reduced to the utmost distress, and wandered frequently in disguise as a mere vagrant. A strange anecdote is related of Charles the Seventh of France: our Henry the Fifth had shrunk his kingdom into the town of Bourges. It is said, that having told a shoemaker, after he had just tried on a pair of boots, that he had no money to pay for them, Crispin had such callous feeling that he refused his majesty the boots! "It is for this reason," says Comines, "I praise those princes who ar on good terms with the lowest of their people; for they know not at what hour they may want them." Many monarchs, at this day, have probably experienced, more than once, the truth of the reflection of Comines. It may be added here, that, in all conquered countries, some descendants of royalty have been found among the dregs of the populace. An Irish prince has been discovered in the person of a miserable peasant; and in Mexico, its faithful historian, Clavigero, notices, that he has known a locksmith, who was a descendant of its ancient kings; and a tailor, the representative of one of its noblest families. Among other remarkable instances of royal infelicity, the following is deserving of record:-Lady Frances Brandon was the daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, by his consort, Mary, daughter of King Henry the Seventh, and widow of the great and good Louis XIII. King of France. Lady Frances married Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, created afterwards Duke of Suffolk, and by this nobleman she was the mother of Lady Jane, Lady Catharine, and Lady Mary Grey. After the violent death of the duke, the duchess dowager, unmindful of her 1oyal descent, married a private gentleman, Mr. Adrian Stokes; after which, history informs us, she was so piteously reduced, that she was obliged to lie in the porch of a church all night, for want of the means to procure herself a better lodging. The duke, her first husband, with her daughter Lady Jane, and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley, were executed on the same day. Her second daughter, Lady Catherine, was first married to Henry Lord Herbert, (son of William, Earl of Pembroke,) from whom she was divorced. She then married Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford; but this last marriage being without the license of the arbitrary Elizabeth, they were both imprisoned in the Tower, in separate apartments. COSTUME OF FORMER DAYS. During the long and eventful reign of Henry the Eighth, female dress, it appears, as well as religion, underwent an incipient reform. The dress of females of rank at this period, was restrained by limitations of a nature somewhat similar to those which restricted the absurdities of male attire, and was less extravagant. The gown, composed of silk or velvet, was shortened or lengthened according to the rank of the wearer. The countess was obliged by the rules of etiquette to have a train both behind and before, which she hung upon her arm, or fastened upon her girdle; the baroness, and all under her degree, were prohibited from assuming that badge of distinction. The matron was distinguished from the unmarried woman, by the different mode of their head attire: the hood of the former had recently been superseded by a coif or close bonnet, of which the pictures of Holbein give a representation; while the youthful and the single, with characteristic simplicity, wore the hair braided with knots of ribbon. The materials of the dresses at this period were costly; and were sometimes enriched by embroidery, and by the addition of precious stones. Such was the demand for cloths of gold and silver, for velvets and damasks, that three or four thou sand pieces were in one year imported from Italy. The number may appear trifling at the present day, when such materials of dress are not confined to any particular class or rank of persons, but may be worn by all who can afford to purchase them; but in those times of aristocratic pride, persons of inferior rank were obliged to adhere to a simple and serviceable garment, made of woollen or of hempen cloth, somewhat resembling the Saxon tunic; and from this picturesque mantle or gown, the frock of the waggoner, still in use in most of the counties of England, is supposed to have been derived. Henry the Eighth placed so much importance upon dress, that during his reign the wardrobes of the nobility increased to many times their former value, while his own exceeded in costliness that of any preceding monarch. The manifest advai tages resulting to trade, as well as a taste for ostentatious display, may have been the motive for the encouragement which this monarch bestowed upon those who, in this respect, did most honour to his court; and, in an age when the distinctions of mental superiority were less understood or acknowledged than at present, it is not surprising that external advantages should have been held in undue estimation. The dress of the nobility during the reigns of Richard and Henry VII. was grotesque and fantastical, such as renders it difficult at first to distinguish the sex. Over the breeches was worn a petticoat; the doublet was laced, like stays of a pregnant women, across a stomacher; and a gown or mantle with wide sleeves descended over the doublet and petticoat down to the ankles. Commoners were satisfied, instead of a gown, with a frock or tunic, shaped like a shirt, gathered at the middle, and fastened round the loins by a girdle, from which a short dagger was generally suspended. But the petticoat was rejected after the accession of Henry VIII. when the trauses or light breeches, that displayed the minute symmetry of the limbs, were revived, and the length of the doublet and mantle diminished. The fashions which the great have discarded are often retained by the lower orders, and the form of the tunic, a |