one. Twelfth of Sweden, she happened to remark that she thought the costume very far from being an unbecoming Alfieri-the most passionate and indiscreet of poets -overheard the words, and two days afterwards, to the astonishment of the Florentines, appeared publicly in the streets in a dress exactly similar to that in which the Swedish monarch was represented in the picture. It was shortly afterwards that he celebrated the Princess in a sonnet, entitled "A Description of my Mistress," which has been thus translated: "Bright are the dark locks of her braided hair; Grecian her brow; its silken eyebrows brown; Her eyes-oh lover, to describe forbear! Life can their glance impart, and death their frown! Her mouth no rosebud, and no rose her cheek, May emulate in freshness, fragrance, hue: Adorned by every grace and gift of Heaven." The attentions paid by Alfieri to the Princess, and the enamoured poet's undisguised admiration of her beauty, led to fresh acts of harshness, if not of cruelty, on the part of Charles, and to his watching her movements with increased vigilance. At length, eager at all hazards to escape from the miserable mode of life she was leading, she applied to Alfieri-her lover and her friend-to devise the means for effecting her release. The persons whom the poet selected to be his accomplices were the Signior Orlandini and his wife, who appear to have cheerfully entered into his views. On the 9th of December, 1780, at the suggestion of Alfieri, the Signora invited the Princess to inspect the works of some nuns in a neighbouring convent. The invitation was accepted; and while Charles, whose progress was retarded by his bodily infirmities, ascended at his leisure the flight of steps which led to the door of the building, Orlandini escorted the Princess and his wife to the entrance, where, as had previously been arranged with the nuns, they were immediately admitted. Orlandini then returned to meet the Prince, whom he found panting up the stairs. "These nuns," said the former, "are very unmannerly-they shut the door in my face, and would not let me enter with the ladies." To this Charles replied unconcernedly, that he would soon make them open it. However, he soon found himself mistaken. After knocking at the door for some time, the Abbess at length made her appearance, and coldly informed him that the Princess had taken refuge there, and could not be disturbed. On receiving this intimation, Charles is said to have flown into a violent paroxysm of rage; but at length, finding all his clamours and entreaties of no avail, he was induced to withdraw himself, and never saw his wife again. After a short residence in the convent, the Princess sought and found an asylum in the house of her brotherin-law, Cardinal York, at Rome, where she resided for some time under the protection of the Pope. Alfieri, notwithstanding the frequent remonstrances of Charles, was allowed by the Cardinal to have free access to her, for which the latter was much blamed at the time. As it is impossible, however, to believe that so virtuous and rightminded a prelate could have consented to become an accessory to his brother's shame, we must come to the conclusion, either, as has been confidently asserted, that there was nothing of criminality in the intercourse between Louisa and Alfieri, or else that the lovers had succeeded in duping the Cardinal into that belief. Wraxall has bequeathed us the following interesting notice of the Princess, with whom he was personally acquainted :-" -"Louisa of Stolberg," he says, “merited a more agreeable partner, and might herself have graced a throne. When I saw her at Florence, though she had been long married, she was not quite twenty-seven years of age. Her person was formed on a small scale: she had a fair complexion, delicate features, and lively as well as attractive manners. Born Princess of Stolberg-Gædern, she excited great admiration on her first arrival from Germany; but in 1779, no hope of issue by the Chevalier could be any longer entertained; and their mutual infelicity had attained to such a height, that she made various ineffectual attempts to obtain a separation. The French Court may indeed be censured, in the eye of policy, for not having earlier negotiated and concluded the Pretender's marriage, if it was desired to perpetuate the Stuart line of claimants to the English Crown. When Charles Edward espoused the Princess of Stolberg, he had passed his fiftieth year, was broken in constitution, and debilitated by excesses of many kinds. Previous to his decease she quitted Italy, and finally established herself at Paris. In the year 1787, I have passed the evening at her residence, the Hôtel de Bourgogne, situate in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, where she supported an elegant establishment. Her person then still retained many pretensions to beauty; and her deportment, unassuming but dignified, set off her attractions. In one of the apart ments stood a canopy, with a chair of state, on which were displayed the royal arms of Great Britain; and every piece of plate, down to the very teaspoons, were ornamented in a similar manner. Some of the more massive pieces, which were said to have belonged to Mary of Modena, James the Second's queen, seemed to revive the extinct recollections of the Revolution of 1688. A numerous company, both English and French, was assembled under her roof, by all of whom she was addressed only as Countess d'Albany; but her own domestics, when serving her, invariably gave her the title of Majesty. The honours of a queen were in like manner paid her by the nuns of all those convents in Paris which she was accustomed to visit on certain holidays or festivals. After the death of her husband, in 1788, there is every reason to believe that the Princess was secretly married to Alfieri, with whom she lived till the death of the poet in 1803. Her residence was chiefly in Paris, till the breaking up of the French Revolution, when she repaired to England, where she not only found protection, but had a pension of two thousand a year conferred on her by George the Third. Some years after the death of Alfieri, Louisa is said to have formed a secret marriage with his friend, Francis Xavier Faber, a French historical painter, whom she constituted her sole executor: some doubt, however, has been thrown on the fact. The Princess passed the last years of her life at Florence, where she died on the 29th of January, 1824, at the age of seventy-two. HENRY STUART, CARDINAL YORK. Gray's early character of him-Receives the Cardinal's hat at the age of twenty-three-His conduct at the breaking out of the French revolution-His villa plundered by the French troops-George the Third's kindness to the Cardinal-Correspondence between the English Minister and the Cardinal -His character and death-Bequeaths the crown jewels to the Prince of Wales. THE life of a churchman, and more particularly of one who gave the preference to virtue and seclusion over the intrigues of courts and the bustle of politics, is likely to present but few incidents of importance or interest; nor does the subject of the present memoir form a very remarkable exception to the general rule. Henry Benedict Maria Clement—the last of the Stuarts, and one of the most amiable of that unhappy race,-was the second and youngest son of James Frederick Edward Stuart, commonly called "the old Pretender," and was born at Rome on the 26th of March, 1725. The little that is known of his early history, affords sufficient proo that his adoption of the ecclesiastic robe was neither attributable to pusillanimity of character, nor to his being disqualified to struggle with the ills or to discharge with credit the active duties of public life. Gray, the poet, in a letter from Florence, dated July 16th, 1740, speaks of the future cardinal, then in his sixteenth year, as dancing incessantly all night long at a ball given by Count Patrizzii, and as having "more spirit" than his elder brother. In 1745, we find him hastening to Dunkirk for the pur |
