"Fünfter'* visits us still very often. We hope soon to see you again, and with this hope I remain your at tached son, ALBERT.

"Coburg, 30th January, 1831.”

This was the year when Europe was so severely visited by the cholera, and (whether owing to this circumstance or not—the Rosenau being probably exempt from the visitation-is not mentioned) Prince and Princess Ferdinand, brother and sister-in-law to the duke, with their children and the Princess Kohary, spent part of the year at the Rosenau. In July of that year, however, the brothers were again here by themselves; and here, with the exception of a short visit to their grandmother at Gotha, they seem to have remained during the absence of the duke, who paid a visit to England in the course of that month. The letters which follow allude to that visit, and give a pleasing account of the life of the young princes meanwhile at the Rosenau :

"Rosenau, July 6, 1831. "DEAR PAPA,—The weather lately, although not cold, has been very dull, and it has rained a great deal. The water was very high. At one time a dreadful storm of hail swept over the valley of our Rosenau, and we were afraid it would have destroyed every thing. However, it did no harm, and at this moment the Rosenau is looking more beautiful than ever in the sunshine.

"Please to give our best remembrances to dear uncle, dear aunt,t and to our dear cousin.t

* A young Prince Reuss V., who (as is generally the case in that family) was called by his number.

The Duchess of Kent.

Princess Victoria.

แ

'Hoping soon to see you again, I remain your most loving son,

ALBERT." "Rosenau, July, 1831.

"DEAR PAPA,-You will long before this have reached your journey's end, and will already have gone all over London. I wish I was with you, to see all the sights that you will have seen. We heard of you yesterday from Thiel, the last place at which you passed the night; and we were very glad to hear that you were quite well. We are also quite well, dear papa, and though I should like to be with you, yet we like being here also, and are very happy at the Rosenau. The quiet of the place, too, is very agreeable, for our time is well regulated and divided. The day before yesterday was the fête of the Gymnasium at Coburg, to which we were invited; so we drove into the town in the morning, and heard a beautiful speech from Professor Troupheller. I am sure it would have pleased you.

"We staid the whole day at Coburg, as our grandaunt arrived in the afternoon from Lobenstein, and we visited her immediately. She is staying at Ketschendorf with dear grandmamma.

"We are going next Saturday to Gotha, to which we look forward with much pleasure. We will write to you from thence, and tell you how we made the journey. If the weather is only 'good!"

The visit to Gotha was paid accordingly, but the letter giving an account of it was not written till after their return to the Rosenau, and was as follows:

"The Rosenau, July 19, 1831.

"DEAR PAPA,-Although I hear that this letter will not reach you in England, it shall not prevent my writ ing to you, both to tell you how well we are, and to give you an account of our journey.

"We found dear grandmamma very well at Gotha, and much pleased to see us again. She was particularly cheerful on her birthday, and said that no birthday-present had ever given her so much pleasure as that we gave her in your name on that day. She was also equally pleased with two little poems that we made for her.

"We staid five days at Gotha, and drove on the fifth day, after dinner, to Wolsdorf, from whence we returned here the next day, coming by the Frauenwalde and Eisfeld. From Schalkau to the Rosenau we walked, and got here by half past five. We took the road by Schalkau because we had never been in that part of the country before.

"We are now quite settled here, at the quiet Rosenau, and have resumed our usual hours. We only want you to be here to be completely happy. We are just returned from Ketschendorf, where we dined with dear grandmamma, and she assured us you would now soon return. You do not know, dear papa, how I long for your arrival. We have been long wishing for you. I am sure you will be glad to see the dear Rosenau again. It is now in great beauty; and I will therefore end now, as I wish to enjoy this beautiful evening a little while longer, and it is already eight o'clock.

In August, 1831, the mother of the princes died, as has been already mentioned, at Sanct Wendel. And in the November following they had to mourn the loss of their kind and beloved grandmother, the Duchess Dowager of Coburg. We have seen her, in a former chapter, watching with the fondest maternal solicitude by the bedside of her daughter-in-law, at the birth of the Prince. We have read her letters, breathing the purest spirit of anxious and devoted love for her grandchildren, and full of high-minded aspirations for their future career, and we can well imagine the blank her death must have left in the family circle. "She had already, at a very early period, formed the ardent wish that a marriage should one day take place between her beloved grandchild Albert and the 'Flower of May,' as she loved to call the little Princess Victoria. How would her kind, loving, and benevolent heart have rejoiced, could she have lived to see the perfect consummation of her wishes in the happiness, too soon, alas! to be cut short, that followed this auspicious union!"*

The duchess died at Coburg on the 16th of November, 1831, in the arms of her two eldest sons, Duke Ernest and Duke Ferdinand. Leopold, her youngest and favorite son, was unavoidably absent from her death-bed. In the summer of that year, however, she had been able to pay him a last visit at Brussels, and had enjoyed the pride and happiness of congratulating him on his recent election as King of the Belgians.

*Memorandum by the Queen.

CHAPTER V.

1832-1833.

Visit of the Princes to Brussels.-Remarriage of the Duke.-Mr. Florschütz's Recollections of Mode of Life, System of Study, etc.

IN the summer of 1832 the young princes accompanied their father to Brussels on a visit to their uncle Leopold, who, in the course of the preceding year, had been chosen to be the sovereign of the newly-created kingdom of Belgium.

The King of the Belgians, speaking in 1862, in a letter to the Queen, of this visit, says that it was then that she and Prince Albert met for the first time. This, however, is a mistake. The Queen saw the Prince for the first time at Kensington Palace, during a visit paid by the brothers to England in 1836, and which will be noticed in its place.

The stay of the princes at Brussels at this time was short. But, short though it was, their tutor ascribes to the effect produced by what they saw there-by the spectacle which the Belgian capital then afforded, of liberty and independence bravely acquired, and used with good sense and moderation-that appreciation of the blessings of liberty, that attachment to liberal principles which ever afterward distinguished both the princes. In Prince Albert these liberal principles were tempered by a moderation and love of order, and by a detestation of