"Oh, no, my dear Mr. Brougham," she said; "I shall not recover; and I be much better dead, for I be tired of this life." She signed her will, gave all orders she wished she wished observed, observed, and spoke charitably of all. On the 5th the favourable symptoms disappeared, and it was evident that the case was hopeless. "She grew suddenly worse," says Mr. Fitzgerald, "and towards evening an access of fever coming on, she with much vehemence of manner and excitement denounced the conspiracies and persecution that had attended her, but presently became calm. Seeing Dr. Holland beside her, she said with a smile: 'Well, my dear doctor, what do you think now?"" Dr. Lushington and Dr. Wilde, whom she had appointed her executors, were admitted to see her. "She was then," says Brougham, "in no pain, mortification having commenced, and she had altogether lost her head. She talked incessantly on every subject for three hours; and it is very remarkable that the only persons she mentioned were the Petite Victorine,' Bergami's child, and the child of Parson Wood,* which she had taken one of her fancies for. While at Hammersmith she had made him her chaplain, and caused Lord and Lady Hood to quit their places of Lord of the Bedchamber and Mistress of the Robes in order to appoint Wood and his wife, who had not the proper rank, and indeed were in all respects unfit for the situation. This is the only bad thing I can recollect her doing in the management of her household or other affairs, for the Hoods had been most invaluable friends and servants, standing by her through all her troubles, and behaving on every occasion with the most admirable delicacy, as well as tact. But she could not con

*Son of Alderman Wood.

trol her fancy for Wood's child, which amounted almost to a craze. She would have it brought to play with her, not only at all hours of the day, but even of the night, as she often sat up till a very late hour." Early on the morning of the 7th she sank into a stupor, and at half-past ten, a.m., after, as the bulletin announced, "an entire absence of sense and faculty for more than two hours," the troubled and chequered life came to an end, and the repudiated wife and Queen of the Fourth George passed away almost without a struggle, in the presence of her tried friends, Lord and Lady Hood, and Lady Anne Hamilton. "Some Methodists were singing hymns on the river opposite her house, and, as they raised their voices, a violent gust of wind burst open the door of her room. At that moment she expired."* She had completed her fifty-third year three months before, and had perhaps experienced as many troubles, mortifications, and insults, as could be compressed into the space of time indicated.

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"If," says Mr. Fitzgerald, we can trust the profuse accounts of her conversations, one of her last acts was to declare her forgiveness of Dumont's calumnies. Mr. Wilde, afterwards. Lord Chancellor, was with her to the last, and told Mr. Denman in her delirium the name of Bergami was never mentioned. The excitement and grief of Hammersmith during these events was prodigious-expresses passing and repassing, the people crowding at the gates to learn the news. The whole kingdom was profoundly moved. Lord Castlereagh's blunt opinion was, that it was. to be regarded as the greatest of all possible deliverances for his Majesty and the country."

Her will, when read, was found to leave what *Percy Fitzgerald.

little property she had to dispose of to young Austin, with remembrances to many of her friends and servants. It moreover contained the following clause, "I desire and direct that my body be not opened, and that three days after my death it be carried to Brunswick for interment, and that the inscription on my coffin be, Here lies Caroline of Brunswick, the injured Queen of England."" Some debts, and £15,000 for her house she recommended to the care of the Government.

CHAPTER VII.

Preparations for the Queen's funeral-Progress of the cortègeDisgraceful scenes-Embarkation at Harwich-Journey from Cuxhaven to Brunswick-The funeral ceremonyOration of the Pastor Woolf-Libel on the dead Queen— Her character.

THE King was in Ireland at the time of Caroline's death, and the Ministers, receiving no orders concerning the funeral, except to allow no honours to be paid, and to prevent the procession passing through the City, announced that they would pay all respect to the wishes of the late Queen, and would forthwith despatch the body to Harwich for embarkation. This unseemly haste, so strangely contrasting with the persistence with which Caroline's wishes had always been thwarted during her life, was protested against by Lady Hood, in a letter, addressed, as she said, not so much to Lord Liverpool as to his heart. She pleaded for delay, on the ground that the late Queen's ladies were unprepared, and specially entreated that the military escort might be dispensed with, as it was an honour never granted her royal mistress during life, and assuredly never desired by one so well guarded by the love of the people. She was answered, that the arrangements made could not be altered, and that those ladies who had not procured their mourning at the time the procession started could follow, and catch it up on its route to Harwich. So little courtesy was shown the mourners that they were unable to learn by what route the corpse would be conveyed to Harwich. The most direct way was through the City, and naturally supposing that would be the line selected.

for the journey, the Mayor and Corporation announced their intention of attending the dead Queen as she passed their bounds. But the Government, who had undertaken to defray all expenses of the funeral, curtly informed the civic authorities that the body would not be permitted to pass through London at all, but would be conveyed by the New Road to Romford, and from thence to Harwich. Lord Liverpool's reiterated declaration that all was done out of respect for the late Queen's wishes is in strong contrast to a passage in one of his letters to Lord Sidmouth, in which he observes that he would have despatched the body the whole way by water if he had not been afraid of some disturbance at London Bridge; and the public, who had returned to all their old attachment to Caroline now that she no longer needed their affection, were quick to perceive the insincerity of the noble Lord's assurances. There was much disgust, and a steady resolve that the late Queen should not be deprived of receiving the last honours it was in the power of the people to pay her. Even when one would have thought death had finally stilled all agitation, the unhappy lady was not to be carried to her grave without tumult and excitement, and strongly opposing manifestations, of contemptuous hurry on the part of her husband's servants, of hearty attachment on that of the English people.

On the 14th of August the corpse, which had lain in state at Hammersmith, was removed by order of the Government. It was not without a solemn protest that Caroline's friends permitted this to be effected. As Bailey, the undertaker, entered the chamber of death, he was met by Dr. Lushington, who stood at the head of the little party of mourners. "I enter my solemn protest,"