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THE QUEEN of WURTEMBUR Glate PRINCESS ROYAL of ENGLAND

Engraved Junes.
as the Act directs expressly for La Belle Assemblee

June 1. + 1806. for Iohn F. ell, Southampton Street, Strand!

Bell's

COURT AND FASHIONABLE

MAGAZINE,

For MAY, 1806.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OF.

ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES.

The Fourth Number.

THE QUEEN OF WIRTEMBURGH.

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS CHARLOTTE AUGUSTA MATILDA, Princess Royal of England, and wife to his Majesty the present King of Wurtemburg, was born Sept. 29, 1766, and married May 18, 1797, to his Serene Highness Frederick Charles William, at that time Hereditary Prince, but who became, upon the death of his father, in the year 1798, Reigning Duke of Wurtemburg Stutgard; and has since been elevated to the kingly dignity, and received a considerable accession of terri-She became at an early period, a mistress tory and power.

Her Royal Highness, the present Queen of Wurtemburg, can scarcely be said to have lived a public life till her marriage. In the domestic retirement of her own family she was always distinguished for the felicity of her talents and the amiable qua||lities of her heart. For those accomplishments which are considered as the ornaments of her sex, she evinced an early taste, and her ambition led her beyond the common boundaries of female education.

Our readers have already perceived that it is not within the plan of our biographical sketches to enter into the details of private life or character, but to connect with the genealogical account of distinguished personages such historical facts, or incidental descriptions, which, so long as they do not violate the integrity of our plan, are infinitely more amusing and instructive than an indiscriminate profusion either of eulogy or censure.

No. IV. Vol. I.

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of almost all the modern languages of Europe, and such was her thirst of knowledge, that she attained to considerable excellence in every branch of polite literature.

Such were the accomplishments of this amiable lady previous to her marriage.— Since her union with the King of Wurtemburg, she has been removed beyond the reach of the common biographer; but the fame of her hospitality, and friendship towards her countrymen, has reached us

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from the report of many who have travelled in Germany, and who have acknowledged, with much sensibility, the liberality and kindness they have met at the Court of Stutgard.

In the late storms of the Continent the ancient Duchy of Wirtemburgh has been thrown into a new shape, and assumed the rank it ought to fill among the States of Germany. With this country every Eng- | lishman has a natural relation; some account of it, therefore, will not be deemed uninteresting.

Wirtemburgh in fertility, in natural beauties, in diversity of mountain and plain, of wood and water, yields to no province of Germany. The wines of Wirtemburgh are celebrated not only in France, Italy, Hungary, and in the Grecian Isles, but in the extremest parts of the North and of the East,-in Russia and Persia. Wirtemburgh has likewise to boast other favours of Providence; baths and mineral waters; and her three celebrated rivers, the Necker, the Ens, and the Rems. The country is divided by a small chain of mountains in two parts. Unter Steig is the name of that portion of country beyond the mountains; Ofer Steig is the name of the expanse below them.

The Castle of Wirtemburgh, delightfully ituated on the Necker, is the residence of the Princes of Wirtemburgh; a family as ancient as any in Germany, but whose origin, with that of many other dynasties, is lost in the obscurity of feudal genealogies, and the confusion of remote alliances.

The antiquity of the House only is known; the stream cannot be traced to its

source.

By some it is said that the House of Wirtemburgh descended from the French Kings, and that Clovis bestowed upon a German Baron, of his own blood, the territory of Wirtemburgh as a royal fief.— Some contend that Conrad, the first Earl, or Count, of Wirtemburgh, received his dignities from Henry the Fourth of Germany. The confusion is easily cleared up. A French King, Clovis or some other, gave the original fief at a time when the French Monarchs had the whole sway of Germany, and the Emperor of Germany conferred the personal honours.

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However this may be, it is certain that the first Duke of Wirtemburgh was created by the Emperor Maximilian the First, in 1495. He was called Eberhard the First. He reigned over the Duchy but a year, and was succeeded by Eberhard the Second. Eberhard, with a singular modesty, thinking himself incapable of reigning, abdicated in favour of his brother, who, in a short time, followed the example of Eberhard, and the sceptre passed to his son Ulrick, who, being an infant, submitted to a regency, which he was fortunate enough to shake off in his sixteenth year.

Under the reign of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, Ulrick was deprived of his kingdom by the league of Swabia; and saw it bestowed upon Ferdinand, the brother of his Conqueror. The duchy remained under the Austrian dominion from 1519 to 1534, when Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse, assisted by France, re-established Ulrick, and, a league having dethroned him, a league was made to protect him. A condition however was attached to the duchy, that the Princes should receive their investitures from the hands of the Emperor. The children of Ulrick died without posterity in the year 1795. Frederick, the nephew of Ulrick, succeeded to the estates of his uncle, and became the origin and founder of the present House of Wirtemburgh.

Frederick obtained from Rodolph the Second an exemption from all kinds of vassalage by the payment of 425,000 florins; but it was agreed, should the House of Wirtemburgh become extinct, that the line of Austria should inherit the duchy. The Lay Electors, who refused to acknowledge the original vassalage of Wirtemburgh, disputed likewise the right of succession in Austria, alleging, in case of the extinction of the Wirtemburgh family, that the succession, eventually, belonged to the Empire.

In 1740, on the death of Charles the Sixth, the male race of Charles the Fifth becoming extinct, the Dukes of Wirtemburgh considered themselves exempt from all feudal dependence; but it was pretended that the House of Lorraine succeeded to all the rights of the House of Austria. This question would have remained unde

cided to this day but for the treaty of Presburgh, which, by elevating Wirtemburgh to the dignity of a kingdom, has emancipated her from all feudal, obsolete, and oppressive vassalage.

Under Ulrick the Protestant religion was established in Wirtemburgh.

raised his country so high in the estimation of Europe.

The population of the States of Wirtemburgh does not exceed 700,000; their revenue is about five millions of florins.

The five cities of the Danube; Ehingen, with the rich Abbey of Benedictines; Among the Princes of Wirtemburgh the Munder hingen, in a position naturally forname of Charles Eugene is most cele-tified; Riedlingen, Mengen, and Swalgau, brated; he was a patron of the arts and with their fertile territories; the Upper sciences, and several useful establishments and Lower Province of Hohenburgh, were formed under his reign, which was which contains so many wealthy seignories, long and glorious. He protected industry and which, by its situation in the Black and commerce; he collected a splendid Forest, gives a superior compactness to library at Stutgard, and augmented the Wirtemburgh, are among the valuable posglory and power of his family. sessions of this duchy.

In 1782, the niece of Charles Eugene, the mother of the present reigning Emperor of Russia, was married to the Grand Duke Paul, who afterwards became Emperor of all the Russias, and whose folly and tyranny caused him to be cut oft by private assassination. This alliance was a glorious epoch for the Sovereigns of Wirtemburgh, and particularly for that Prince who had

It can cause no regret that this ancient state is thus raised in the scale of empire, and though we may all lament the circumstances which have occasioned it, and the hands which have constructed the edifice; it must be the common wish that it may flourish with safety and glory through all the storms and contentions which we foresee in Germany.

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE,

CRITIQUE ON HUMOUR

the mind, who, by this remedy, has affected many miraculous cures, shall be my guide. The English call this antidote humour. Aristophanes, among the Greeks, was the first inventor of it; and, after him, Lucian, and subsequent authors, carried it to perfection. Plautus, Horace, Petro

THE celebrated St Evremond gave the following advice to his friend the Count d'Olonne, who was exiled from the Court of Louis XIV. "The unfortunate ought not to read books which excite affliction at the misery of men, but rathe, such as invite them to amuse themselves at their folly; prefer then, Lucian, Petronius, and Donnius, Seneca, among the ancient Romans; and Quixote, to Seneca, Plutarch, and Montagne." In my early youth, chance made me acquainted with this passage, and I have since sometimes reflected on this grand truth, that events, apparently of little importance, have often the greatest influence on the happiness or misery of men, in the course of their lives.

among the modern Latinists, Erasmus, Chancellor Moore and Holberg Among the Italians, Pulci, Ariosto, Cæsar Caporali, Passeroni, Gozzi, Gol doni. Among the Spaniards, Cervantes, Quevedo, Mattheo Allemann, Hustado de Mendoza, Liego de Luna, Duis Velez de Guevara, and Father Isla, Among the French, Rabelais, Cyran de Bergerac, Sorel, Moliere, Regnard, Dufresnoy, la Fontaine, and Scaron in his Roman Comique. Among the English, Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, Butler, Congreve, Farquhar, Swift, Addison, Steele, Arbuthnot, Fielding, Smoller, Sterne, &c. &c. I say nothing of the Germans, and beg my readers will fill up the chasm. By mentioning no one, none of that country, who may have pretensions to humour, can be

The lively impression which the counsel of St. Evremond made on my mind, engaged me early to follow it; and as often as vexatious events, or other causes, affected me too strongly, I had recourse to his remedy, and always with the most happy success. An enquiry into the nature of this powerful antidote against melancholy, will not perhaps be displeasing to those who, tormented by its black vapours, may stand in need of such assistance. A celebrated physician of || offended at being forgotten.

England is more fertile than any other country of Europe in characters of this kind. This is attributed to the liberty which distinguishes the government. The opinion appears very plausible: I should think it, however, better founded by taking the word liberty in a sense more extended than has hitherto been done. I should then be of that opinion, if by the word liberty were understood, not only the absence of arbitrary power, and of a constraint opposite to the forms prescribed by law, but also the neglect of those rules expressed by the words urbanity, politeness, and good breeding. These laws are not written, and their execution is independent of the sovereign power; but, in the circle in which they are adopted, they are conformed to with perhaps more exactitude than those which the sanction of government has united in a code.-An entire liberty to dispense with such rules is, if I be not mistaken, absolutely necessary to humour. The country gentlemen, Western and Sir Andrew Freeport, may prove the truth of what I advance. Politeness and good breeding include, in effect, the power of extirpating all germs of humour, which nature may have implanted in our minds. In order to convince my readers of this, I must explain wherein humour consists. Several authors have spoken of it as an impenetrable mystery; but, what is more extraordinary, others have given very just and very clear explications of it, assuring us, at the same time, that they know not what humour is. Perhaps they should have said, they had not discovered all the forms that humour can assume.

I shall first notice various kinds of humour, and afterward endeavour to unite the different ideas they contain. Congreve says, in a letter to Dennis, "We cannot determine what humour is:" and farther on he refines upon humour in comedy. His opinions have been attacked by Home. "Were this definition just," says he, "a majestic or commanding air, which is a singular property, is humour; as also that natural flow of eloquence and correct elocution, which is a rare talent. Nothing just or proper is denominated humour, nor any singularity of character, words, or action, that is valued or respected."

Ben Johnson, the first humourist of his nation, says, in one of his comedies,

Why humour (as 'tis ens) we thus define it,
To be a quality of air, and water,

And in itself holds these two properties,
Moisture and fluxure: as, for demonstration,
Pour water on this floor, 'twill wet and run:
Likewise the air (forced through a horn or
trumpet)

Flows instantly away, and leaves behind

A kind of dew; and hence we do conclude,
That whatsoe'er hath fluxure and humidity,

As wanting power to contain itself,
Is humour. So in every human body,
The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood,
By reason that they flow continually
In some one part, and are not continent,
Receive the name of humours. Now thus far
It may, by metaphor, apply itself
Unto the general disposition:
As when some one peculiar quality
Dpth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers
In their confluxions all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour.

These three explications may serve to form a fourth, which, in my opinion, will be satisfactory. I take humour, then, to be a strong impulse of the mind towards a particular object, which the person thinks very important, without its being so; and by which, in occupying himself incessantly, and with an extravagant attention and seriousness on it, he distinguishes himself in a ridiculous manner from others. If this definition be

just, as I presume it is, my readers will easily perceive how much humour injures politeness and good breeding, they being the art of conforming our conduct to certain rules tacitly adopted and generally followed, by all those who live in society.

Hitherto I have treated of humour in character: let us now speak of that which reigns in writings. Singularity, and a certain seriousness, which excites to laughter, are the signs of humour in character; they are so also in writings. This singularity, and this incitement, are to be found either in invention or in style. An author possesses true humour, when, with an air of gravity, he paints objects in such colours as to provoke laughter. We often remark in society the effect which this humour produces on the mind. When, for instance, two persons amuse a company with pleasant stories, he, who laughs before he speaks, will never interest or divert so much as he who relates gravely, and without a smile on his countenance. The reason of it is probably in the force with which contrasts affect the mind.

There are authors who treat serious subjects in a comic stile; as for example, Tassoni in his Secchia Rapita, and Scaron in his Typhon. Such authors undoubtedly excite mirth; but, as they are the opposites of true humourists, they cannot be very well ranked in that class. They only possess the burlesque, which is very different from humour; but, notwithstanding, if their works be good, they do not the less merit praise. No kind of poetry is despicable, from the epopea and tragedy, to fairy tales and farces. Every thing consists in treating the subject well; and the Devil on Two Sticks may be as good in its kind as Zaire. Irony and parody are a great aid to writers

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