posing together little pieces of music; yet these tête-à-têtes were of a sombre cast. The apartment in which we sat

was hung with old red damask, with two candles only, and on the table a pair of loaded pistols, (instruments not at all congenial to my fancy,) which he would often take up, examine, and again replace on the table; yet the manners of this Prince were always mild, affable, and pleasing."

When the separation took place between Charles and his consort, the former,-anxious to have some one, connected with him by the ties of blood, to share his comfortless solitude, and who would do the honours of his establishment,―sent to Paris for his natural daughter, Miss Walkenshaw, who, since her childhood, had been residing in a convent in that capital. In order to insure her a proper reception on her arrival in Italy, he created her Duchess of Albany, by which title he induced the Court of Versailles to receive her, and also to award her the distinction of the droit de tabouret, or privilege of sitting on a stool in the presence of the Queen of France. Accordingly, on her arrival at Florence, she was treated with great distinction; she was attended in public by her lady of honour, and was every where announced and received as Duchess of Albany. A person who saw her at Rome in the winter of 1786, observes,-" She was a tall, robust woman, of a very dark complexion and coarsegrained skin, with more of masculine boldness than feminine modesty or elegance; but easy and unassuming in her manners, and amply possessed of that volubility of tongue, and that spirit of coquetry, for which the women of the country where she was educated have at all times been particularly distinguished. Her equipage was that of the Pretender, with servants in the royal livery of

Great Britain, and with the royal coronet, and cipher of C. R. upon the carriage; and she usually wore in public the magnificent jewels of the Stuarts and Sobieskis, which had been given to her by her father and his brother, the Cardinal of York, whose conduct towards her was said to be full of affectionate attention. Although the Pretender was at that time in the last stage of a life embittered by disappointment, made comfortless by infir. mity, and shortened by intemperance and debauchery, he still loved to show his once noble, but then enfeebled and melancholy figure at the operas and assemblies, and to see his palace frequented by strangers of every country, with which, in times of peace, Rome usually abounds in winter; and as the English were received by the Duchess with the most marked attention, there were few who had any scruples about partaking in the gaieties of a house, whose master was become an object of compassion rather than of jealousy, and whose birth and misfortunes entitled him to a sort of melancholy respect."

During the last years of his life, Charles resided principally at Florence, in a palace in the Via Bastiano. Some time, however, before his death, he returned to Rome, where he died in his sixty-eighth year, of an attack of palsy and apoplexy, on the 30th of January, 1788, the anniversary of the execution of his great-grandfather, Charles the First. His remains were interred with considerable pomp in the Cathedral Church of Frescati, of which his brother was Bishop, but were afterwards removed to St. Peter's at Rome, where a monument by Canova, raised, it is said, by the munificence of George the Fourth, bears the names of JAMES THE THIRD, CHARLES THE THIRD, AND HENRY THE NINTH, KINGS OF ENGLAND. Often, at the present day,” says Lord Mahon," does the

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English traveller turn from the sunny height of the Pincian, or the carnival throngs of the Corso, to gaze in thoughtful silence on that sad mockery of human greatness, and that last record of ruined hopes! The tomb before him is of a race justly expelled; the magnificent temple that enshrines it is of a faith wisely reformed; yet who at such a moment would harshly remember the errors of either, and might not join in the prayer even of that erring church for the departed exiles-REQUIESCANT IN PACE!" An urn, containing the heart of Charles Edward, was deposited in the Cathedral Church of Frescati, with some lines inscribed on it from the pen of the Abbate Felicé.

By his Princess, Charles had no issue. He was the father, however, of more than one illegitimate child by his mistress, Miss Walkenshaw,* one of whom only, the Duchess of Albany, appears to have survived him. By a deed, executed a short time before his death, and which is recorded in the Parliament of Paris, he legitimated her, and constituted her his sole heir. The Duchess, who is described as an amiable and accomplished person, died at Bologna, in 1789, when on a visit to the Princess Lambertine, of an abscess in her side occasioned by a fall from a horse, about the fortieth year of her age.

* Clementina Walkenshaw, created Countess Alberstorf, was a lady of a good family in Scotland. She was alive as late as September 1799, in which year she is mentioned in a letter from Cardinal Borgia to Sir John Hippisley as being still in receipt of an allowance of three thousand crowns a-year, with which the personal estate of Cardinal York was burdened.

LOUISA, COUNTESS OF ALBANY.

Relationship of the Countess to the English nobility-Her manners and disposition-Unkind behaviour of her husband towards her-Alfieri's sonnet to her-Escapes to a nunnery -Takes up her residence with the Cardinal York-Wraxall's character of her-Her death.

LOUISA MAXIMILIANA CAROLINA, Princess of StolbergGædern, was born at Mons in 1752, and at the age of twenty became the wife of Charles Edward. She was granddaughter of Thomas Bruce, second Earl of Aylesbury, by which means she was nearly connected by blood with the Duke of Chandos, the Duchess of Richmond, and some of the first families in England. Lord Aylesbury, after his release from the Tower, in 1688, where he had been confined for his allegiance to James the Second, had proceeded to Brussels, where he married Charlotte, Countess of Sannu, of the ancient house of Argenteau, by whom he had an only daughter, Charlotte Maria, who was married, in 1722, to the Prince of Horne, one of the Princes of the Empire. The issue of this marriage were five children, of whom the youngest -the subject of the present memoir-became the wife of Charles Edward.

Beautiful in her person, engaging in her manners, and lively in her disposition, Louisa of Stolberg possessed all those engaging and endearing qualities which would probably have conferred happiness on a prince whose years and tastes at all assimilated with her own. With Charles Edward, however, she had no feeling in common.

It is possible that, before marriage, her imagination may have been inflamed by the tale of his chivalrous exploits and romantic adventures, and that consequently she bestowed her hand with less reluctance on a man so many years older than herself. But the Charles Edward of 1772 had little in common with the young and adventu rous hero of 1745. Old enough to be the father of his blooming bride, and with a mind soured by disappointment, and a body enfeebled by debauchery, it is natural that a young and high-spirited Princess should have witnessed with disgust the degrading habits of her sensual lord, and that she should have sighed, in their seclusion at Albano, for those pleasures and pursuits in which she was of an age and temperament to take a keen delight.

If we are to believe the statement of Dutens, nothing could be more brutal than the Prince's treatment of his young wife. Painfully jealous of her, he is said not only to have kept her constantly in his sight, but to have locked her up whenever he was unavoidably absent from home, and even to have frequently struck her in moments of his ungovernable rage. Harsh and unfeeling as the Prince's conduct unquestionably was towards his wife, the statement of Dutens must nevertheless be received with some caution. Charles, there can be no doubt, was an ardent admirer of his wife's beauty; and if the acts of violence referred to by Dutens were really committed, it was probably after she was known to have listened with favour to Alfieri's passionate protestations of love, and when the jealousy of Charles had consequently become painfully awakened.

Louisa and Alfieri are said to have first met about the year 1778, in the Great Gallery of Florence. On this occasion, while standing near a portrait of Charles the