seen passing rapidly on horseback before her house at Marble Hill; but that his motive for doing so was unknown to her, and that afterwards, when they were reconciled, she cautiously abstained from alluding to such topics, as the greatest interruptions to their happiness at that period were his bitter and passionate regrets and selfaccusations for his conduct, which she always met by saying, 'We must look to the present and the future, and not think of the past.' I ventured also to mention another report, that George III., the day before the marriage, had offered to take upon himself the responsibility of breaking off the match with the Princess of Brunswick, should the prince desire it. Of this, too, she told me she knew nothing; but added, that it was not improbable, for the king was a good and religious man. She owned that she was deeply distressed and depressed in spirits at this formal abandonment, with all its consequences, as it affected her reputation in the eyes of the world."

We must here remark the hesitation between right and wrong in the mind of the good old king: it is a pity he did not exhibit equal firmness in this as obstinacy in other trying occasions in his life.

Lady Claremont was the great friend and adviser of Mrs. Fitzherbert on her desertion by the prince. She adopted her advice against her inclination, and opened her saloons. All the fashionable world, including the royal dukes, attended her parties; and with the Duke of York in particular she maintained the most friendly and confidential relations. The queen and royal family acted with the greatest kindness towards her, and the king, from the time she set foot in England till his death, treated her as a father. She made it a rule to have no secrets from the royal family-a rule which saved her from many embarrassments, which must otherwise have occurred in her position. The influence of Lady Jersey with the prince, however, was on the wane; and when she fell, she drew down with her the princess of whose elevation she was the cause, and of whom she was the chief support. To the prince, thus freed from the machinations of the conspiracy between these two women, repentance was once more granted. He pursued his wife in the same earnest and desperate manner as during the first interval of his attachment. "Numbers of the royal family, both male and female, urged a reconciliation even upon a principle of duty."

"However, as she was by his marriage with Queen Caroline placed in a situation of much difficulty, involving her own conscience, and making it doubtful whether public scandal might not interfere with her own engagements, she determined to resort to the highest authorities of her own Church upon a case of such extraordinary intricacy. The Rev. Mr. Nassau, one of the chaplains of Warwick

Street Chapel, was therefore selected to go to Rome and lay the case before that tribunal, upon the express understanding that, if the answer should be favourable, she would again join the prince; if otherwise, she was determined to abandon the country. In the meantime, whilst the negotiation was pending, she obtained a promise from his royal highness that he would not follow her into her retreat in Wales, where she went to a small bathing-place. The reply from Rome, in a brief which in a moment of panic she destroyed, fearful of the consequences during Mr. Perceval's administration, was favourable to the wishes of the prince; and, faithful to her own determination to act as much as possible in the face of the public, she resisted all importunities to meet him clandestinely. The day on which she joined him again at her own house was the same on which she gave a public breakfast to the whole town of London, and to which he was invited."

She had great difficulty in summoning resolution to meet this severe ordeal, but nevertheless went through it. The next eight years she spent with the prince were the happiest in her life; they were extremely poor, but as merry as crickets --so poor, that, at one time, in journeying from Brighton to London, they could not muster 57. between them; and an old servant once endeavoured to force 607. on them he had saved in their service. This period was, however, embittered by political difficulties, especially the "delicate investigation" in which her husband and Princess Caroline were concerned. She was also engaged in healing jealousies between different members of the royal family, though the Duke of York had always acted" beautifully" towards his brother, and had once said, in allusion to Mrs. Fitzherbert's marriage, "Thank God, he never could wish to raise any claim in contravention of the rights of his brother."

As Lady Jersey was the cause of the first rupture between the prince and his wife, so Lady Hertford, an equally bad woman, was the cause of the second. And as Lady Jersey was the tool of the Whig party and Lady Hertford of the Tory, his connection with her fully accounts for the disgrace of his old Whig friends in after-life. The fact is, the chief cause of his abominable conduct seems to us to be his great weakness under the control of his mistresses; so that the conduct of the prince was but a reflection of the will of the mistress for the time being. The period of his two unions with Mrs. Fitzherbert, when not under such control, and when under her influence, was the only time he conducted himself with respectability. Lady Hertford had so led captive this weak-minded prince, and both together heaped such insults on the wife, that Mrs. Fitzherbert was frequently on the point of

that separation which afterwards took place; but was prevented by the influence of the royal family from carrying her resolution into effect. And we may remark, that as the first royal notice she received was from a French king, seated at his table, so at the table of another French king she received that crowning insult which caused her final separation from her worthless husband:

"A dinner given by Louis XVIII. brought matters at last to a conclusion; and, satisfied of a systematic intention to degrade her before the public, she then at last attained the reluctant assent of some of the members of the royal family to her determination of finally closing her connection with the prince, to whom, in furtherance of this decision, she never afterwards opened the doors of her house. Upon all former occasions, to avoid etiquette in circumstances of such delicacy as regarded her own situation with reference to the prince, it had been customary to sit at table without regard to rank. Upon the present occasion this plan was to be altered, and Mrs. Fitzherbert was informed, through her friends at court, that at the royal table the individuals invited were to sit according to their rank. When assured of this novel arrangement, she asked the prince, who had invited her with the rest of his company, where she was to sit. He said, 'You know, madam, you have no place.' 'None, sir,' she replied, but such as you choose to give me.' Upon this she informed the royal family she would not go. The Duke of York and others endeavoured to alter the preconcerted arrangement, but the prince was inflexible; and, aware of the peculiar circumstances of her case, and the distressing nature of her general situation, they no longer hesitated to agree with her that no advantage was to be obtained by further postponement of her own anxious desire to close her connection with the prince, and to retire once more into private life. She told me she often looked back with wonder that she had not sunk under the trials of these two years. Having come to this resolution, she was obliged on the very evening, or on that which followed the royal dinner, to attend an assembly at Devonshire House; which was the last evening she saw the prince previously to their final separation. The Duchess of Devonshire, taking her by the arm, said to her, 'You must come and see the duke in his own room, as he is suffering from a fit of the gout; but he will be glad to see an old friend.' In passing through the rooms she saw the prince and Lady Hertford in a téte-à-tête conversation, and nearly fainted under all the impressions which then rushed upon her mind; but, taking a glass of water, she recovered and passed on."

Thus terminated her connection with the prince; save only that, while he was lying on his deathbed, she wrote him a letter offering her services. The king seized it with eagerness and placed it under his pillow, but sent no answer. The Duke of Wellington told her, that more than once the prince

had desired to be buried with her picture round his neck. And Dr. Carr, Bishop of Worcester, in allusion to the subject, one day said, "O, Mrs. Fitzherbert was very amiable, my faithful friend. Yes, it is very true what you have heard. I remained by the body of the king when they wrapt it round in the cerecloth; but before that was done I saw a portrait suspended round his neck; it was attached by a little silver chain." Surely there must have been some little remnant of good feeling left in him, when not under the control of his mistresses.

Thus died George IV., "that ornament of humanity; whose only fault," according to a celebrated Italian preacher, "was, that he was once heard to mutter in a moment of anger, Sia dannato da Dio O'Connell,-G-d d-n O'Connell;" and of whom it is reported, that when he was told by Bishop Carr to repent of his sins, he replied, "that he did not remember he had committed any."

Soon after the king's death she went to Brighton; and on receiving a message from William IV. to come and see him, she begged him to honour her with an interview at her own house.

"The king kindly complied with her request without delay, and she told him that she could not, in her present circumstances, avail herself of the honour of waiting upon his majesty without asking his permission to place her papers before him, and requesting his advice upon them. Upon her placing in his hands the documents that have been preserved in justification of her character, and especially the certificate of her marriage, and another interesting and most affecting paper, this amiable sovereign was moved to tears by their perusal, and expressed his surprise at so much forbearance with such documents in her possession, and under the pressure of such long and severe trials. He asked her what amends he could make her, and offered to make her a duchess. She replied that she did not wish for any rank; that she had borne through life the name of Mrs. Fitzherbert; that she had never disgraced it, and did not wish to change it; that therefore she hoped his majesty would accept her unfeigned gratitude for his gracious proposal, but that he would permit her to retain her present name. 'Well, then,' said he, 'I shall insist on your wearing my livery;' and ended by authorising her to put on weeds for his royal brother. He added, 'I must, however, see you at the Pavilion;' and I believe he proposed the following Sunday, a day on which his family were more retired, for seeing her at dinner, and spending the evening at the Pavilion. 'I shall introduce you myself to my family,' said he; 'but you must send me word of your arrival.'

She continued in the greatest intimacy with William IV. at Brighton. She was not an interested person: she was in

VOL. V.-NEW SERIES.

B B

debted to the Duke of York and Queen Charlotte for an income of 6000l. a-year: and when the Duke of Wellington asked her, as executor to George IV., if she had any thing to show, she told him "she had not even a scrap of paper." She consented to the destruction of most of her papers, to the great relief probably of many then living; and she added, she believed "she might have obtained any price she chose to ask for the correspondence which it was in her power to have laid before the public; that she could have given the best private and public history of the transactions of the country, from the close of the American war down to the death of the Duke of York, either from her communications with the duke, or her own connections with the opposite party, through the prince and his friends."

The health of Mrs. Fitzherbert rapidly declined after the death of her husband. She died at Brighton in 1837, and was buried in the Catholic church there, where a handsome monument erected to her memory may be seen with three rings on her finger, in allusion to her triple marriage. It should be mentioned, that a correspondence took place respecting Mrs. Fitzherbert's history between Lord Stourton, Mr. Langdale, Mr. Keppel, and the Duke of Wellington; and that Mr. Keppel refused to submit Mrs. Fitzherbert's papers at Coutts's to Mr. Langdale's inspection. We suspect there must be something in the background which certain persons would not like published. As it is, however, the result of the present volume may be summed up in the remark of its reviewer in the Times: "A fair fame will be henceforth associated with the fair face which has become dust; and Mrs. Fitzherbert, absolved from the suspicion of frailty, will be remembered for her worth and the wrongs which she suffered."

THE FISH AS A SYMBOL IN EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.

RECENT DISCOVERIES IN THE CATACOMBS.

De Christianis Monumentis IXOTN exhibentibus Epistola G. B. de Rossi ad J. B. Pitra. Ex Spicilegii Solesmensis tomo iii. pp. 545-577 extractum. Parisiis, Firmin Didot, via Jacob, 56. 1855.

ANY one who is interested in the symbolism of Christian art will hail the publication of the third volume of Dom Pitra's