"The princess is described as having been very handsome, though very small; fair, with blue eyes; and Prince Albert is said to have been extremely like her. An old servant who had known her for many years told the Queen that when she first saw the Prince at Coburg in 1844, she was quite overcome by the resemblance to his

mother.

"She was full of cleverness and talent; but the marriage was not a happy one, and a separation took place in 1824, when the young duchess finally left Coburg, and never saw her children again. She died at St. Wendel in 1831, after a long and painful illness, in her 32d year.

"The Duchess Dowager of Gotha, her stepmother, writes to the Duke the following account of her on the 27th of July, 1831:

"The sad state of my poor Louise bows me to the earth. . . . . The thought that her children had forgotten her distressed her very much. She wished to know if they ever spoke of her. I answered her that they were far too good to forget her; that they did not know of her sufferings, as it would grieve the good children too much.'

"The Prince never forgot her, and spoke with much tenderness and sorrow of his poor mother, and was deeply affected in reading, after his marriage, the accounts of her sad and painful illness. One of the first gifts he made to the Queen was a little pin he had received from her when a little child. Princess Louise (the Prince's fourth daughter, and named after her grandmother) is said to be like her in face.

"On receiving the news of her death, the amiable Duchess of Gotha again writes to the Duke of Coburg:

"MY DEAR DUKE,-This also I have to endure, that that child whom I watched over with such love should go before me. May God soon allow me to be reunited to all my loved ones. It is a most bitter feeling that that dear, dear house [of Gotha] is now quite extinct.' The Duchess Louise was the last descendant of the family. Many years later, her earthly remains were brought to Coburg, and she now reposes next the duke and his second wife in the fine family mausoleum at Coburg, only completed in the year 1860, where the Queen herself placed a wreath of flowers on her tomb in the autumn of that year."

Prince Albert was born, as has been already stated, at the Rosenau, a summer residence of the duke's, about four miles from Coburg. His grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg-Saalfeld, resided at this time at Ketschendorf, a small villa about a quarter of a mile on the other side of Coburg. A little before seven in the morning of the 26th of August, 1819, a groom from the Rosenau rode into the court-yard of Ketschendorf to summon the duchess to the former place, bringing the news of the safe confinement of her daughter-in-law and of the birth of the young Prince. But let the duchess give her own account of the event. She thus writes to her daughter, the Duchess of Kent, the following day:

"Rosenau, August 27, 1819. "The date will of itself make you suspect that I am sitting by Louischen's bed. She was yesterday morning

safely and quickly delivered of a little boy. Siebold, the accoucheuse, had only been called at three, and at six the little one gave his first cry in this world, and looked about like a little squirrel with a pair of large black eyes.* At a quarter to seven I heard the tramp of a horse. It was a groom, who brought the joyful news. I was off directly, as you may imagine, and found the little mother slightly exhausted, but gaie et dispos. She sends you and Edward (the Duke of Kent) a thousand kind messages.

"Louise is much more comfortable here than if she had been laid up in town. The quiet of this house, only interrupted by the murmuring of the water, is so agreeable. But I had many battles to fight to assist her in effecting her wish. Dr. Müller found it inconvenient. The Hof-Marshal thought it impossible-particularly if the christening was to be here also. No one considered the noise of the palace at Coburg, the shouts of the children, and the rolling of the carriages in the streets.

"The little boy is to be christened to-morrow,† and to have the name of Albert. The Emperor of Austria, the old Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen, the Duke of Gotha, Mensdorff, and I, are to be sponsors. Our boys will have the same names as the sons of the Elector Frederick the Mild, who were stolen by Kuntz of Kauffungen-namely, Ernest and Albert. Ernest minor" (he was then just 14 months old) "runs about like a weasel. He is teething, and as cross as a little badger from impatience and

* The eyes, however, were blue.

This, however, was not the case. He was christened on the 19th of September, in the Marble Hall at the Rosenau.

liveliness. He is not pretty now, except his beautiful

black eyes.

"How pretty the May Flower will be when I see it in a year's time. Siebold can not sufficiently describe what a dear little love it is. Une bonne fois, adieu! Kiss your husband and children.

AUGUSTA."

The May Flower above spoken of was the Princess (now Queen) Victoria, who had been born on the 24th of May preceding. And it is a curious coincidence, considering the future connection of the children, that Mdme. Siebold, the accoucheuse spoken of above as attending the Duchess of Coburg at the birth of the young Prince, had, only three months before, attended the Duchess of Kent at the birth of the Princess.

The Dowager Duchess, whose letter announcing the young Prince's birth we have just read, had thus written to her daughter on that occasion.

"June, 1819.

"I can not express how happy I am to know you, dearest, dearest Vickel, safe in your bed with a little one, and that all went off so happily. May God's best blessings rest on the little stranger and the beloved mother.

"Again a Charlotte* — destined, perhaps, to play a great part one day, if a brother is not born to take it out of her hands.

"The English like queens, and the niece† of the ev *The Princess Charlotte of Wales had died the preceding year, and this made the young Princess heiress presumptive to the throne on the death of her father and uncles.

+ She was first cousin, but niece as well-the Princess Charlotte having married the little Princess's uncle, Prince Leopold.

er-lamented, beloved Charlotte will be most dear to them.

"I need not tell you how delighted every body is here in hearing of your safe confinement. You know that you are much beloved in this your little home."

The Duke of Kent lived but a short time after the birth of his daughter. On the 23d of January, 1820, only a few days before his father, King George III.,* he died, and left his duchess a widow for the second time.

On the 19th of September the young Prince was christened in the Marble Hall at the Rosenau, when he received the following names in the order in which they are given: Francis Charles Augustus Albert Emmanuel. The name by which he was known, Albert, being the last but one.

When the Queen was at the Rosenau in 1863, the Prince's former tutor, M. Florschütz, gave her a copy of the address pronounced on the occasion of the baptism by the Superintendent Genzler, whose daughter M. Florschütz had married. Nor is it without interest to note in passing that Professor Genzler had before officiated at the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, which took place in the Palace at Coburg in 1818, and that he received the Queen and Prince at Coburg when they paid their first visit to it after their marriage, in 1844.+

In this address there are two passages so strikingly and completely realized and fulfilled in the beloved Prince's great, pure, and spotless character-so absolutely prophetic of his after life-that it would be an unpardonable omission not to insert them here.

*He died January 29th, 1820.

+ Memorandum by the Queen.