bitter disappointment as the door opened, and the old duenna, who had tended her from childhood, entered hastily, and strode up to her, exclaiming in breathless eagerness, "For the love of Heaven, hasten this moment to her majesty-runfly-lose not an instant-nay, for Jesus' sake tarry not to adjust your head-gear-the queen, my dearest mistress, is in an awful swoon-the Lord help her, she is all but dead, so great has been the shock!" The princess uttered a shriek of distress, and darted from the room, forgetting at once, in alarm for her mother, all her own little personal vanities-the arrival of Trenck-nay, his very exis、 nce-the old abigail with slower step muttering exclamations of wonder and of indignation. Presently a little page of the princess ran wildly into the boudoir, and snatched from the mantelpiece, where it had quietly lain at my feet for months, a large blue crystal flacon, containing some of the Queen of Hungary's water, which I had frequently heard extolled for its virtue in the recovery of obstinate swoonings. III. FIDO RELATES HOW THE PRINCESS WAS SAVED FROM SELF-DESTRUCTION BY THE HANDSOME TRENCK. WHEN he had departed all was silent for hours-for days, and I was left in solitude, tormented by curiosity, and filled with dread concerning my beloved mistress. I felt convinced that some awful event had taken place in the family from the gloom and silence which pervaded the palace, so unusual during the absence of the king. The aged domestic who entered the boudoir merely to open the shutters at daybreak, and to close them at twilight, would sigh and moan so piteously, that it moved my utmost pity. One day he seemed even more agitated than usual, and having performed the few little offices which were his wont in the boudoir, he approached the mantelpiece to consult the clock, which stunned me with its eternal ticking, and wringing his hands in despair, he exclaimed, "The hour is drawing nigh-he will be here, perhaps, in a few moments. Alas! that I should have lived to see this day!" And the poor old man wept bitterly, leaning his head against the wall, and fell into a fit of abstracted melancholy, from which he was aroused by the sound of drums and trumpets playing a loud fanfare of triumph at the palace-gate. The man started as though he had been shot, and hobbled off at a brisk pace, while my curiosity to learn the meaning of all this alarm now increased with every moment. I could not see into the court-yard, and was beginning to fret and chafe with impatience on hearing the drums and fifes approaching-the heavy marching of the soldiers, which clattered with fearful echo on the pavement below-the ringing of horses' hoofs-the jingling of spurs, which all told of some great and wondrous commotion, when suddenly the word of command, "Halte !" uttered in a voice I but knew too well, solved the whole mystery at once. The monster had returned, full six weeks before his time, such irregularity could bode no good, for he was as orderly in his movements as clock-work, and boasted of never having delayed or caused delay to a single human being. Judge then of my delight on perceiving, that although my perch was not sufficiently elevated for me to obtain a view of what was passing in the court-yard, yet the whole scene was reflected in the antique mirror which hung on the opposite wall, and which, from its inclined position gave back every iota of the scene below as clearly as though it had been enacted within the apartment. How little did all these great and terrific personages look in that old dingy mirror! The tyrant strutted, a pigmy leader-his far-famed giant guard a band of pismires. These were my first impressions, and caused me some little diversion, but soon every feeling was absorbed in pity and in terror at what I afterwards beheld. The king rode first, at the head of his famous Macedonian body-guard, then came a regiment of infantry with slow and solemn step, with arms reverted and downcast visage, with muffled drum and deadened trumpet, just as I had sometimes beheld at some great military funeral, and then alone, bare-headed, clothed in a coarse frock of grey linen, without any of the insignia of his rank and station, walked the young prince royal of Prussia, Frederic, whom I had seen so short a time before full of hope and animation; when in the very boudoir from whence I beheld the scene I am recounting, he took a gay and cheerful farewell of his mother and sisters previous to his departure for this ill-fated journey. Separated by a single file of soldiers walked the young lieutenant De Kalt, the bosom friend and tried companion of the prince, who seemed, alas! in the same hapless state as his young master. In every respect, save that his head was shaven, and his hands bound with thick cords behind his back, were his bearing and deportment in conformity with that of the prince, and it was a heart-breaking sight to behold those two youthful victims marching thus, as if to death, while the stern, ferocious visage of the king might well betoken their blood-seeking executioner. The whole procession, although moving slowly, had soon vanished from before the mirror, and I remained in a state of the greatest apprehension. It was evident that some great and dire event had taken place. The disgrace of the prince royal did not so much affect me, for that was an event of too common occurrence to excite astonishment, but it was this public display of the king's displeasure which gave me so much alarm, for hitherto, whatever might have been the feelings of the father towards the son, the influence of the queen, the prayers of the princesses, and perhaps a certain feeling of self-respect on his own part, had prevented him from giving way, in presence of the people, to the hatred which possessed him; and few beyond the walls of the palace could be aware of the daily broils which embittered the private existence of the royal inmates. I was therefore convinced that it must be some terrible and unpardonable crime on the part of the prince which could have incurred such dire and signal punishment as that which I had witnessed. Perhaps the youth had entered into some conspiracy which the ferocious father had discovered. Perhaps he had been guilty of some flagrant breach of discipline, an offence even less likely to meet with forgiveness on the part of the king. But it was evident, that whatever the crime, its chastisement was to be immediate, public, terrible. I trembled for the poor young prince, knowing well the savage nature of his sire, and felt faint and sick at heart, when the rattling spurs, and the tramp of the soldiers echoed through the archway over which the boudoir was situated. Presently the drums beat to quarters. I heard with dismay the word of command which sent them all to their various posts about the palace, and felt with greater terror still the silence that ensued. Some little time elapsed ere it was broken, I heard the well-known step I had been taught to hate and fear, tread slowly up the stairs, then pace along the corridor to the chamber of the queen, a stifled shriek as the door was opened, and then voices in angry contest, loud rude tones, and wailing supplication, among which I could distinguish the gentle accents of the Princess Amelia, now disfigured by anger, hoarse and confused with rage. How powerful is passion, they even mastered those of the king! I can scarcely tell with what fearful emotion I distinguished the rustle of her silk dress along the passage as she seemed to run with frantic haste towards the boudoir. Another moment, the door flew open, and the princess entered wildly, her hair in disorder, her eyes flashing fire, and every muscle of her countenance livid and quivering, as though struck by lightning. "Enough, enough," she shrieked in a harsh unearthly voice, “this life is too hard and wearisome to bear. The cruel tyrant who declares that he would see all his children dead before him rather than find them disobedient to his commands, shall see that there is one at least who is of the same. opinion with himself, for I would sooner die than obey him in this last decree. Not defend my brother! not mention his name! not seek counsel when he is thus betrayed and trampled on! no, no, I will do all this or die at once!" She snatched from the wall a small enamel portrait of the prince, which she pressed to her lips with all the energy of despair, and then, I shudder while I relate it, she rushed to the open window and leaned out as far as she could reach. One foot was already on the marble balustrade, her hand had already let go the woodwork of the window, her whole frame tottered for an instant, the desperate plunge was taken, when her dress was seized by a strong and iron grasp, and she was dragged back into the chamber! Trenck, the page, had followed just in time to save her life, but overcome by emotion he endeavoured in vain to raise her. The hyena-like voice of the old king was heard; "What is all this?" he bellowed forth, "what do you here, scoundrel? to your post this instant!" with a smart blow on the back to Trenck; "what! has the wench lost her senses? Throw water in her face, that will bring them back, if women have any, and look, by heavens, here are two panes of glass broken, and the iron latch wrenched from the jalousie! curse the wench, she is the cause of all this confusion and waste of property!" With these words he flung the princess, still in a heavy swoon, upon the sofa, and leaving her to the care of the queen and the Princess Sophia, who had meanwhile entered, he set about picking up the fragments of the latch, and trying to readjust what remained of the broken glass in the casement. The whole scene I have been describing passed, as it were, in a moment, but its consequences endured for months. From the sofa, on which the king had thrown her, the Princess Amelia was not removed, for days, for weeks, for when she recovered from the swoon, it was perceived that her foot had caught in the tracery of the stone balustrade, when Trenck, by an almost supernatural effort, had drawn her back, and the ankle-bone was so violently sprained that it was evident at once to the doctor, who was summoned on the instant, that the poor princess would be lame for life. How shall I describe the despair which this new misfortune brought to the stricken bosom of the queen! She watched by the side of her daughter for three long weary months, during which time her angelic patience, her noble fortitude, have more than once excited both wonder and admiration. It was from the conversations between these two unhappy victims that I learned every particular of the disgrace of the prince royal, of his mad attempt to fly to England in order to free himself from the tyranny of his father; of the touching devotion of his young friend Kalt, who had preferred captivity and certain death to the suspicion of having betrayed his master; of the harsh treatment which the youthful culprits had already undergone, and of the detention at Cüstrin of the heir to the throne, amid every circumstance of barbarity, which the mean and cruel soul of Frederic William could invent. From the hour of the prince's arrest, the queen had adopted a garb of the deepest sorrow. Her court had been dismissed, and for the first time did she thus display her disapproval of the harsh and violent measures to which her son had been subjected. But nothing could soften the stern nature of the king. He remained obdurate to the entreaties of his gentle wife, insensible to the appeals and warnings of his children; and wearied at length by the continual implorings on the subject, he one day upon returning from the counsel appointed to judge the prince in the quality of a common soldier, for desertion of his post, and being evidently desperate at the leniency with which the judges were disposed to view the offence, treating it as a simple fredaine de jeune homme, forbade, with a bitter oath, the name of the prince to be pronounced before him upon pain of banishment from the palace. The Princess Amelia was the first to break this decree. She had reckoned more than others upon her influence with her father, upon his affection, upon the memory of his tenderness during their infant years, but had reckoned upon all these in vain. Never shall I forget the scene which took place upon this occasion. It surpassed in violence and unnatural fury any I had ever witnessed. Years of suffering, of tyranny, were avenged in that hour by the princess, and the conviction, that the only living being towards whom he felt affection had nought to give him in return, save aversion, was acquired by the king. His threats were answered with defiance, his curses with contempt and scorn, until exasperated beyond endurance, he forgot, in that moment, all the love which he had once felt for the princess, and scrawled, in furious haste, the order for her banishment to the solitary old palace of Brandenburg. The princess listened to the sentence with calm and stoical contempt. With the cold bitterness of irrevocable hate, she wished that she might behold her father no more-that she might die an exile, and that he might live desolate and blighted with the thought that his cruelty had killed her, so that even in her grave she might yet be avenged by his remorse. The evil wish was fulfilled. The father and his child parted thus in hatred and in anger, and they met no more. He returned to the world, to his government, to his military drilling, to his drums and his barrack-yards. She was carried helpless and a cripple to the stern old castle on the Flavell, there to pine in solitude and misery with the remembrance of her cruel ancestry, whose gloomy shadows still seem to haunt the ruined edifice, Frederic, the iron tooth, and Albert, the bloody-handed, traditions of whose fearful deeds still serve to scare the froward children throughout the kingdom, and whose blackened portraits still hung frowning from the mouldering walls. They beheld each other not again, but the curse wrought not in the sense in which it had been breathed. The king it was who died full of years and honours; the princess lived on, her youth departed and her beauty faded amid the trials and anxieties of sickness and of solitude. I had been transferred to the king's own private study, where I was placed in the glass book-case upon the calfskin cover of his muster roll. None knew the reason of my singular promotion, it was attributed to caprice, to tyranny, to dread lest I should be conveyed to the princess, and thereby afford one single indulgence, however trifling, in the utter solitude to which he had condemned her. How could they know that the fierce, the dreaded tyrant when labouring under those insomnies, to which he had all his life been subject, would shed tears of bitterness as he would gaze upon me, and press me to his bosom with almost maudlin tenderness, calling on his absent child by every endearing name which he had lavished on her in her helpless infancy, ere she yet had resisted his commands, ere the blood of her fierce forefathers had spoken, and taught her to defy his anger. What would he not have given to clasp her to his bosom when his soul was softened in those silent watches of the night. Had she been then beside him he would have sued forgiveness for his own unjust offence, not exacted humiliation from her; but with the morning came other thoughts. The drum which beat the "Diane" at the break of day beneath his window seemed to dispel all this unwonted softness, and the hour of parade found him the same stern, implacable tyrant, the same petty military despot as before. LOST AND FOUND. A FACT FROM THE SOUTH COAST. I. A BAND of children on the beach, Through earth and sea and skies. The beach was where their young ones play'd :- II. 'Tis morn upon the sea :-afloat Those wistful eyes are streaming o'er, So beat those bosoms never, For they have found on earth once more The babes deem'd lost for ever. Aug.—VOL. LXXX. No. CCCXX. M. N. T. 2 D |