MARGARET OF ANJOU.

No wandering princess of poetic fiction ever sustained more strangely varied chances during the course of her career than Margaret of Anjou. Her fitful periods of happiness and prosperity were bright as they were brief; while the magnitude of reverse she experienced,

"Downright violence and storm of fortunes

May trumpet to the world."

From her very birth, she entered upon this extraordinary blending of the most brilliant circumstances with the most calamitous events, which attended her through life, chequering her existence with alternate bursts of sunshine, and long dreary watches of deepest midnight, until death and the grave put their final shadows around her tempest-tost body, opening a prospect of endless light to her soaring spirit.

Her father, René of Anjou, had claims to a long train of titles; being the second son of Louis II., King of Sicily and Jerusalem, Duke of Calabria and Anjou, and Count of Provence. But his titular dignities brought him more harass than honour, and more adversity than advantage. Her mother was Isabella, heiress of Lorraine; a direct descendant of the renowned Charlemagne, and a princess endowed with virtue, eloquence, and beauty. But with