but having large stores of provisions, which he gave away with great liberality, Augustus succeeded in hastening both the retreat of the French and the pursuit of the victorious Prussians and their allies, and his duchy was consequently soon delivered from those dangerous visitors. After the peace of Paris, in 1814, Augustus was admitted among the sovereign members of the German Confederation, and spent the following years between literary occupations and the cares of government. He died suddenly on the 17th of May, 1822, and having left no male issue, was succeeded by his brother Frederick, the last duke of Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg. Augustus was the maternal grandfather of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the husband of Queen Victoria, his only daughter, whom he had by his first wife, having married, in 1817, Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg, the father of Prince Albert. Duke Augustus was a liberal patron of the fine arts and literature, and he wrote several philosophical and æsthetical novels, in which he displayed a fertile imagination. Only one of these works was published. This is 66 Kyllenion," or "Auch ich war in Arkadien," Gotha, 1805, 8vo., a series of idyls and reflections on the beauty of nature, interwoven with songs set to music by the author. His other works, however, though not printed, became known by circulating in MS. (Wolff, Encyclopädie der Deutschen National-Literatur, vol. i. p. 102, &c.; Conversations - Lexicon; Jacob, Vermischte Schriften, vol. i.; Memoria Augusti Ducis Saxoniæ, Principis Gothanorum, &c. 2nd edit. Gotha, 1823.) W. P.

AUGUSTUS I., Elector of SAXONY, surnamed "the empire's heart, eye, and hand," held a conspicuous rank among the German princes of the sixteenth century. He was the second son of Henry the Pious, Duke of Saxony, and Catharine, daughter of Magnus, Duke of Mecklenburg. He was born at Freiberg, on the 31st of July, 1526. Being the younger son of a younger son of the head of a younger branch of the house of Saxony, he had little chance to rise to power. He rose under the following circumstances :

Frederick II., the Pacific, Elector and Duke of Saxony, who died in 1464, left two sons, between whom he divided his dominions: Ernest, the elder, received the electorate, and became the founder of the Ernestine, now ducal branch of Saxony; and Albert, the younger, received a considerable portion of those dominions which his father possessed besides the electorate, and which the son acquired as the duchy of Saxony: Albert was the founder of the younger, or Albertine, now the royal branch of Saxony. A descendant of Ernest was the Elector John Frederick the Magnanimous, who, being the chief of the league of Schmalkalden, ventured on a war with the Emperor Charles V., but was defeated in the battle of Mühlberg,

in 1547, made prisoner, and sentenced to be beheaded. However, he was pardoned by the Emperor, and only kept in prison, on condition of renouncing his electoral dignity, the whole extent of the electoral dominions, and all those territories which he possessed under any other title, except his allodial property, or, in short, the dominions of the Ernestine branch, except the principality of SaxeCoburg, with which his brother John Ernest was invested. All these dominions and the electorship were given to Moritz, Duke of Saxony, a descendant of Duke Albert mentioned above. This is the same Moritz who assisted the Emperor Charles V. when powerless, and made war upon him when powerful, for his own interest, as well as for the oppressed Protestant faith, and compelled Charles to conclude the peace of Passau (30th of July, 1552), by which Moritz obtained his objects. Moritz was the elder brother of Augustus, the subject of this article, who thus suddenly got the chance of becoming the most powerful prince of the empire, Moritz having no male issue. Moritz having been killed in the battle of Sievershausen (1553), which his troops gained over Albrecht Alcibiades, Margrave of Brandenburg-Culmbach, Augustus succeeded him in the electorate, as well as in his other dominions; the succession to the electorate, to which he had originally no legal title, was granted him in 1548, at the Diet of Augsburg, where he did homage for it to the Emperor.

Augustus had received a very careful and learned education. In his youth he went to the grammar-school of his native town Freiberg, carrying his books under his arm, like other boys, and playing with them after school in the pleasure-grounds and public places of the town. For some time he was at the court of the Roman king Ferdinand I., at Prague, and there formed a lasting friendship with the Archduke Maximilian, who afterwards succeeded his father Ferdinand as emperor, and was early known for his learning. Thence he was sent to the university of Leipzig, and intrusted to the care of John Rivius, a good scholar, who was head-master of the school at Freiberg, but left that place after having been appointed instructor to Augustus. When he became of age, his brother Moritz ceded to him the revenues of some districts near Weissenfels, where he used to live in a very retired way, except when he was called to govern the electorate during the frequent absences of Moritz, who had great confidence in his brother. In 1548 Augustus married Anne, daughter of Christian III., King of Denmark, an excellent woman, who had received an education which made her worthy of her husband.

Having succeeded his brother in 1553, Augustus was soon involved in great difficulties, which arose from the deposition of

the Elector John Frederick. Being released from captivity, this prince contested the legality of his deposition; but, after long negotiations, he at last signed the treaty of Naumburg (24th of February, 1554), by which the title of Elector was granted to him for life; but he was obliged to give up all his other claims, in return for which he received as his own a considerable portion of the Saxon dominions in Thuringia. This portion was augmented, after the death of his brother, John Ernest, who died childless, by the principality of Saxe-Coburg, and the whole was afterwards divided among the sons of John Frederick, who founded the present branches of Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-CoburgGotha, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Altenburg.

While Moritz founded the power of his house by the sword, Augustus augmented and consolidated it by profitable transactions and a wise administration. His conduct towards his cousins of the Ernestine branch, however, was not generous. Wilhelm von Grumbach, an assassin, who was under the ban of the empire, having been received as guest and protected by John Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Gotha, a son of the Elector John Frederick, the ban was likewise pronounced against the duke, and Augustus did not blush to accept the commission of proceeding against him according to the constitution of the empire, that is, sword in hand. The unfortunate duke was defeated, made prisoner, and compelled to cede to Augustus a considerable portion of his dominions, on condition, however, that he might purchase it back within a certain time. But in order to prevent this, Augustus refused to restore the duke to liberty, and after a captivity of twenty-eight years, John Frederick died in prison, and the territory in question was permanently united with the electorate. Augustus was no less blameable in his conduct towards the sons of John William of SaxeWeimar, another son of the deposed Elector; he forced himself upon them as their guardian, and deprived them of half of the county of Henneberg, to the whole of which they were entitled. Within the limits of the electorate there were three sovereign bishoprics, Merseburg, Naumburg, and Meissen, the inhabitants of which were then mostly Protestants. With regard to these, Augustus imitated the policy of the other Protestant princes, who, since the Reformation, tried to reform the bishoprics, and to convert them into secular territories, hereditary in their respective families, although they still preserved the name of bishoprics, by which term all hereditary succession was apparently excluded. These three bishoprics became the prey of the Electors of Saxony, who for a long period had them governed by younger sons of their family, with the title of administrators, till they were finally incorporated with

the electorate. The Counts of Mansfeld having been involved in great pecuniary difficulties, Augustus, their principal liege lord, and the Bishops of Magdeburg and Halberstadt, to whom the counts owed allegiance for some smaller fiefs, contrived the sequestration of the fine county of Mansfeld, the administration of which was henceforth regulated by the three liege lords, who undertook to divide the revenues among the creditors, till the whole debt should be paid off. In 1579 Augustus became the sole trustee. It does not appear how much the creditors received, but it is known that when the last Count of Mansfeld died in 1780, the county was still under sequestration, having been so during two hundred and ten years (1570 to 1780): it was finally united with Saxony. However equivocal the means were by which Augustus aggrandized his dominions, he governed them with wisdom, and his reign is the first instance of a complete system of government having been constructed in a German state, on the basis of those numerous rights and privileges which the German princes gradually wrested from the emperor and the empire, till the emperor was completely destitute of all power, and they themselves were sovereign princes. Augustus began with reforming ecclesiastical affairs. The principles of Philip Melanchthon having been adopted by a great number of Saxon divines, who, being more tolerant than Luther, made some successful steps towards a complete union between the Lutheran faith as laid down in the Confession of Augsburg and the belief of the Zwinglists and Calvinists, those divines received the name of Philippists, and were accused of Crypto-Calvinism. Augustus was an orthodox Lutheran, but not well informed of the intentions of the Philippists, which he would never have sanctioned if he had known them, and he consequently supported their exertions, ordering that the "Corpus Doctrinæ Christianæ," which was published by Vögelin at Leipzig in 1560, and contained several of the principal treatises of Melanchthon, should be a symbolical book of the Lutheran church in Saxony. Encouraged by this success, the Philippists published in 1574 a work entitled "Exegesis perspicua Controversiæ de Coena Domini," in which they not only laid down their opinion on the eucharist, but attacked the opinion of Luther on that subject. The Electress Anna now showed Augustus that the Philippists did not intend to unite the three creeds by introducing Luther's principles into the faith of the Reformed and the Calvinists, but by adapting the Lutheran creed to the dogmas of the Swiss reformers, and no sooner had Augustus perceived that difference than he gave way to anger, and ordered the principal leaders and protectors of the Philippists to be punished. Stössel and Schütz, both divines, and Caspar Peucerus, the learned physician, were ba

clearly, and they put an end to the existing confusion; the spirit of the Roman law is especially visible in the new system of civil and criminal procedure, which was so well regulated that the Saxon procedure was henceforth considered in the German universities as a model, and lectures on it were delivered in many states where the administration of justice was not so well regulated as in Saxony. Among the laws issued separately, and which were not called Constitutiones, the principal were those on police, issued in 1555, the mint, issued in 1558, the ecclesiastical courts, schools, and the like matters, issued in 1550, and those on mines, issued during the period from 1554 till 1573, and which not only regulated the law as to the opening of mines, but also the technical part of mining. The Saxon mines were so rich that the country, and especially the princes, drew a considerable part of their wealth from them; the silver produced by the mines of Freiberg only, during the course of the eighteenth century, amounted to about three million two hundred thousand thalers, and the yearly produce of the mines in the Erzgebirge amounts at present to one million and a half of thalers. Ever since the regulations of Augustus, Freiberg has been renowned for its mining academy, which is not surpassed by any in Europe. The finances were equally well administered, the people were no longer arbitrarily taxed, and manufactures were extended and improved by many thousands of Flemings and Dutchmen, who fled from the Spanish tyranny in the Netherlands, and were well received in Saxony. Augustus was fond of agriculture, and by the good management of his private estates he showed his subjects how they ought to cultivate their own. He forced his subjects by a decree to plant yearly a certain number of fruit-trees, of which he had such extensive plantations that he could sell 60,000 in the course of one year. When he travelled he always carried boxes of seeds with him, which he distributed among the peasants: and he wrote "Künstlich Obst und GartenBüchlein” (a book on the art of gardening and training fruit-trees), which was printed, but in what year the authorities do not state. All his regulations were minute in the extreme; in short, he was a methodical, clever man, who had his own peculiar notions of justice, where his own interest was concerned, and kept more to the letter of the law than to the spirit; he put everything in order, right or wrong, and by enforcing his laws wherever he could, he prevented his subjects from acting towards their neighbours as he had acted towards his. He was courted by the emperor and foreign powers, and he was the first among the German princes who kept regular ambassadors at foreign courts; at the diet and in the imperial cabinet he exercised such influence that Thuanus called him

"Conciliator ac moderator rerum Imperii." In 1584 he appointed his son Christian coregent. Having lost his wife in 1585, he married, in 1586, Agnes Hedwig, Princess of Anhalt, who was only thirteen, but he died a few weeks after the marriage, on the 11th of February, 1586. By his first wife he had fifteen children, all of whom died before him, except a son, Christian, and three daughters. (Böttiger, Geschichte des Kurstaates und Königreiches Sachsen, vol. i. p. 211, &c.; Weisse, Geschichte der Chursächsischen Staaten, vol. iii.; Eichhorn, Deutsche Staats und Rechts-Geschichte, p. 469, &c.; Hommel, Elector Augustus, Saxonia Legislator, Leipzig, 1765, 4to.; Diemer, Observationes de Meritis Augusti Ducis Electoris Saxoniæ, Leipzig, 1809, 4to.)

W. P. AUGUSTUS FREDERICK, PRINCE of GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND and DUKE of SUSSEX, the sixth son and ninth child of George III., was born at Buckingham Palace, on the 27th of January, 1773. After having made some progress in his studies under private tuition, he went to the university of Göttingen, and subsequently travelled in Italy. During this tour, and while still under age, he contracted a marriage with Lady Augusta Murray, second daughter of the Earl of Dunmore in Scotland, of which he gave the following account in a letter to Lord Erskine: "In the month of December, 1792, being on my travels, I got acquainted at Rome with Lady Dunmore and her two daughters, who were just come from Naples. Englishmen, when they meet in foreign countries, generally keep their own national society; such was exactly my case. I used to live a great deal with my fellow-countrymen. The well-known accomplishments of my wife, then Lady Augusta Murray, caught my peculiar attention. After four months' intimacy, by which I got more particularly acquainted with all her endearing qualities, I offered her my hand, unknown to her family, being certain beforehand of the objections Lady Dunmore would have made had she been informed of my intentions. The candour and generosity my wife showed on this occasion by refusing the proposal, and showing me the personal disadvantage I should draw upon myself, instead of checking my endeavours, served only to add new fuel to a passion which no earthly power could ever more have extinguished. At length, after having convinced Augusta of the impossibility of living without her, I found an English clergyman, and we were married, at Rome, in the month of April, 1793, according to the rites of the English church." A doubt having arisen whether, according to the principles of the lex domicilii, any marriage performed by a Protestant clergyman in Rome, where there is no British representative, could be valid, the ceremony was repeated at St. George's, Hanover Square,

London, on the 5th of December, 1793. By the act 12 George III. c. 111, called the Royal Marriage Act, it was declared, with certain exceptions, which did not include the Duke of Sussex, "that no descendant of his late Majesty King George II. shall be capable of contracting matrimony without the previous consent of His Majesty," "and that every marriage or matrimonial contract of any such descendant, without such consent first had and obtained, shall be null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever." On the ground of this enactment, and at the instance of the crown, the marriage of the Duke of Sussex was, in 1794, declared in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury to be null and void. Owing to circumstances connected with the conduct of this case, which it would be out of place here to explain, it is considered by lawyers that it leaves the question, which it professes to decide, still open to discussion upon different grounds from those on which it was decided. Among the various causes of complexity, in which a full inquiry into the application of such an Act to parties living abroad, and of whom the one was of Scottish origin, while the other was, in the eye of the law, as much Scottish and Irish as he was English, there is the circumstance that the statute was passed before the union with Ireland, and that it contains provisions which, if they were pleaded in a Scottish court, might be found not to have reference to that part of the island, but to be applicable solely to the statutory marriagelaw of England. An opinion obtained from Dr. Lushington and Mr. Griffith Richards, July 13, 1831, is to the effect that the Royal Marriage Act does not extend to marriages contracted beyond the limits of British jurisdiction, and that the marriage of his royal highness at Rome was not a marriage impeachable under that statute." In fulfilment of a recommendation in this opinion, a bill was afterwards filed in Chancery to perpetuate the testimony of the clergyman who had solemnized the marriage. The duke was for some years separated from Lady Augusta. She died on the 5th of March, 1834; and the fruit of the union was a son, Colonel Sir Augustus Frederick d'Este, born 13th of January, 1794, and a daughter, Ellen Augusta d'Este, born 11th of August, 1801, who both survived their parents. Prince Augustus was raised to the peerage on the 27th of November, 1801, when he received patents as Baron Arklow, Earl of Inverness, and Duke of Sussex. Parliament voted him an income of 12,000l. a year, which was afterwards increased to 18,000l. The Duke of Sussex early adopted, and was to the last days of his life a steady and persevering advocate of the liberal side in politics. In his votes and speeches, at various times, he supported the abolition of the slave-trade and of slavery, and the removal of the Roman Catholic and

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Jewish disabilities. He was a friend to religious toleration in its widest sense, including the abolition of all civil distinctions founded on differences in religious creed. He took a warm and active interest in the progress of the Reform Bill, and gave his support to the principles of free trade. He was also connected with many public and benevolent institutions. On his eldest brother becoming Prince Regent in 1810, the Duke of Sussex became Grand Master of the United Order of Free Masons of England and Wales. In 1816 he became President of the Society of Arts. On the 30th of November, 1830, he became President of the Royal Society. There was much difference of opinion within the Society as to the propriety of this choice, arising out of a fear that it might form a precedent for converting the official stations of office-bearers in learned bodies into appendages of rank. In the choice of new members of the council, preparatory to the election of a president, the list put before the members by the existing council was prepared with the view of elevating Mr. (now Sir John) Herschel to the chair; and, in reality, the appointment of the Duke of Sussex arose out of an appeal from the nomination of the council to the votes of the Society. The votes for the duke as a member of the council were 119; for Mr. Herschel, 111. The duke retired from the presidency in 1839. It was said that his limited income prevented him from dispensing to his satisfaction the hospitalities which were expected from him in such a situation. Some years before his death he contracted a second marriage, without acceding to the terms of the Royal Marriage Act, with the Lady Cecilia Letitia Buggin (widow of Sir George Buggin), who, on the 30th of March, 1840, was raised to the dignity of Duchess of Inverness. His royal highness died at Kensington Palace, on the 21st of April, 1843. The events of his life portray his character. He was free from all ostentation and all pride of rank. In whatever class of society he might have been placed, he would have been one of those whose sympathies extend as much to those below them as to those above them; and the fear expressed at the commencement of his presidency of the Royal Society, "that a check would inevitably be given to that freedom of language and conduct which is indispensable to the business of an institution having for its primary objects the discovery and application of scientific truth," however just as a general anticipation, was not exemplified in this particular instance. He was bountiful to many institutions for purposes of charity and social improvement; and, notwithstanding this drain on his comparatively limited means, he left behind him one of the most magnificent private libraries in Britain. His librarian, Dr. Pettigrew, commenced an account of the more valuable works in this collection, with critical remarks, biographical