one of them to be saddled. A chamberlain, who has never given him his shirt. A great master of the wardrobe, who does not know his taylor. The functions of all these great officers are exercised by one single person, whose name is Frederickstoff, who is likewise valet de chambre, and private secretary in ordinary, and has filled all these nominal posts for several years. His own extensive mind forms all his plans of government, undebased by ministerial interests and misrepresentations.

His whole houshold consists of eight gentlemen pages, as many footmen, fourteen running footmen, and sixteen men with dresses of different sorts, after the manner of the Eastern nations, all in rose colour with galloon lace. In all his apartments the furniture is very neat and plain, the hangings of rose colour pale lillies, both for himself, the two queens, and the rest of the royal family.

The late King his father loved hunting, and kept a very expensive equipage on that account; but his present majesty has an utter aversion to it; and on his advancement to the throne, sent for the grand veneur (who was a great lover of the diversion) to lay before him an account of the annual expence of the chase; who represented it as a great benefit to the King to continue it, and urged it so far as to tell him, that if he suppressed it, he would lose 23,000 crowns a year by it: upon which the King told him, that he would give him all his game, and the fish in his rivers, in consideration of 20,000 crowns a year, and would pay him for all he had occasion for himself. The poor veneur who had asserted by his own

account that he must be a great gainer at this rate, durst not refuse the offer, and inadvertently laid a snare in which he was caught himself, and proved his ruin: for he was at last obliged to abscond, and had neither money nor game.

The Queen consort is as good a woman as lives, and grealy esteemed by the King for her virtues, tho' he seldom sees her, and never cobabits with her. The Princess Amelia ́ is very agreeable and lovely, and possessed of every amiable qualifi cation to render her accomplished. Prince Henry is very amiable, and extremely polite and generous. Prince Ferdinand has distinguished himself in such an extraordinary manner in Germany, that his great qualifications are too well known to need a recital here: therefore let it suffice to say, that he is loved and esteemed by all who know him...

Character of General Wolfe.

formed for military greatness; EN. Wolfe seemed by nature his memory was retentive, his judgment deep, and his comprehension amazingly quick and clear: his constitutional courage was not only uniform, and daring, perhaps to an extreme, but he possessed that higher species of it, (if I may be allowed the expression,) that strength, steadiness, and activity of mind, which no difficulties could obstruct, nor dangers deter. With an unusual liveliness, almost to impetuosity of temper, he was not subject to passion: with the greatest independence of spirit, free from pride. Generous almost to profusion: he contemned every little art for the acquisition of wealth, whilst he searched

after

after objects for his charity and beneficence: the deserving soldier never went unrewarded, and even the needy inferior officer frequently tasted of his bounty. Constant and distinguishing in his attachments: manly and unreserved, yet gentle, kind, and conciliating in his manners. He enjoyed a large share of the friendship, and almost the universal good-will of mankind; and, to crown all, sincerity and candour, a true sense of honour, justice, and public liberty, seemed the inherent principles of his nature, and the uniform rule of his conduct.

He betook himself, when very young, to the profession of arms; and with such talents, joined to the most unwearied assiduity, no wonder he was soon singled out as a most rising military genius. Even so carly as the battle of La-feldt, when scarce 20 years of age, he exerted himself in so masterly manner, at a very critical juncture, that it drew the highest encomiums from the great officer then at the head of our army.

During the whole war he went on, without interruption, forming the military character; was present at every engagement, and never passed undistinguished. Even after the peace, whilst others lolled on pleasure's downy lap, he was culti vating the arts of war. He intro-, duced (without one act of inhumanity) such regularity and exactness of discipline into his corps, that, as long as the six British battalions on the plains of Minden, are recorded in the annals of Europe, so long will Kingsley's stand amongst the foremost of that day.

Of that regiment he continued lieutenant-colonel, till the great minister who rouzed the sleeping genius of his country, called him forth

into higher spheres of action. He was early in the most secret consultations for the attack of Rochefort: and what he would have done there, and what he afterwards did do at Louisbourg, are very fresh in every memory.

He was scarce returned from thence, when he was appointed to command the important expedition against Quebec. There his abilities shone out in their brightest lustre : in spite of many unforeseen difficulties, from the nature of the situation, from great superiority of numbers, the strength of the place itself, and his own bad state of health, he persevered, with unwearied diligence, practising every stratagem of war to effect his purpose: at last, singly, and alone in opinion, he formed, and executed, that great, that dangerous, yet necessary plan, which drew out the French to their defeat, and will for ever denominate him The Conqueror of Canada. But there tears will flow-there, when within the grasp of victory, he first received a ball through his wrist, which immediately wrapping up, he went on, with the same alacrity, animating his troops by precept and example; but, in a few minutes after, a second ball, through his body, obliged him to be carried off to a small distance in the rear, where rouzed from fainting in the last agonies by the sound of they run, he eagerly asked, "Who run?" and being told, the French, and that they were defeated, he said, "Then I thank God; I die contented;" and almost instantly expired.

On Sunday, Nov. 17, at seven o'clock in the morning, his majesty's ship Royal William (in which this hero's corpse was brought from Quebec to Portsmouth) fired

two signal guns for the removal of his remains. At eight o'clock the body was lowered out of the ship into a twelve-oar'd barge, towed by two twelve-oar'd barges, and attended by 12 twelve-oar'd barges

On the 20th at night, his body was deposited in the burying-place belonging to his family, at Greenwich.

a train of gloomy silent pomp, suitable to the melancholy occasion, grief shutting up the lips of the fourteen barges crews. Minute guns were fired from the ships at Spithead, from the time of the body's leaving the ship to its being landed at the point of Portsmouth, which was one hour. The regiment of invalids was ordered under arms before eight, and being joined by a company of the train in the garrison at Portsmouth, marched from the parade there, to the bottom of the point, to receive the remains. At nine the body was landed, and put into a travel ling hearse, attended by a mourning coach, (both sent from London) and proceeded thro' the garrison. The colours on the fort were struck half flag-staff; the bells were muffled and rung in solemn concert with the march; minute guns were fired on the platform from the entrance of the corpse to the end of the procession; the company of the

train led the van with their arms reversed; the corpse followed; and the invalid regiment followed the hearse, their arms reversed. They conducted the body to the Landport gates, where the train opened to the right and left, and the hearse proceeded thro' them on, their way to London. Although there were many thousands of people assembled on this occasion, not the least disturbance happened; nothing to be heard but murmuring broken accents in praise of the dead hero,

Halley.

Dmund Halley was the only son

street. He was born in London, Oct. 29, 1656, and educated at St. Paul's school, under the tuition of Dr. Gale! In his early years he discovered an uncommon genius for learning, and before he was 15 had made a considerable progress in mathematics, more particularly 'in those branches that led to the knowledge of heavenly bodies. In his 17th year he was entered a commoner in Queen's College; and before he was 19 published in the Philosophical Transactions, a direct and geometrical method of finding the Aphelia and Eccentricity of the planets, by which the hypothe sis advanced by Kepler was reduced to demonstration. Some observations which he made on an eclipse of the moon, June 27, 1675, and upon a spot in the sun the year following, determined the

motion of the sun round its own axis, which was not till then sufficiently ascertained. The same year he observed at Oxford an occultation of Mars by the moon, which he afterwards had occasion to refer to in settling the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope.

Astronomy now became his favourite studly. He had in his youth, by unwearied application, an uncommon share of classical learning; and this in his riper years gave him the more leisure to pur

sue

sue his progress in the sciences. He had accurately observed the motions of Jupiter and Saturn, and had corrected some errors in the tables of those planets; and he had taken some pains to complete the catalogue of fixed stars, a task which he soon found upon enquiry, was in other hands. He then formed his great design of perfecting the whole scheme of the heavens, by the addition of those stars which lie so near the South pole, that they could neither be seen by Mr. Flamstead at Greenwich, nor Hevelius at Dantzick, the two astronomers who had undertaken to complete the catalogue. Full of this project he left the university, and with the consent of his father, and the royal recommendation, he embarked for St. Helena on board one of the East India company's ships, in November 1676, before he had acquired, by his residence, any title of those degrees of university honours, that are alike conferred on wise men and fools.

After his arrival he lost no time in pursuing his task, and having finished it to his own satisfaction, in 1678 he returned to London, and delineated a planisphere, on which he laid down the exact place of all the stars near the South pole, and presented it to his majesty, who had already honoured him with his patronage, and who, as a further mark of his royal favour, gave him a letter of mandamus to his university for the degree of master of arts, in compliance with which the degree was conferred Dec. 3, 1678, and the same year he was chosen a fellow of the royal society.

By the tables, which he soon after published, he shewed, from his own observations, that former

astronomers had been defective in calculating the motions of the heavenly bodies; that Saturn moved much slower, and Jupiter more swiftly than had been before imagined; and that the obliquity of the ecliptic was no less erroneous.

About this time a contest had arisen between our countryman Mr. Hook, and the renowned Hevelius, already mentioned, about the preference of plain or glass lights in astronomical instuments; and Mr. Halley, who was scarce 22, was pitched upon by the royal society to go over to Dantzick, to terminate the dispute. Mr. Halley was charmed with the old gentleman's manner, who had been an observer above 40 years, and he was no less so with his conversation and the politeness with which he was received. From May 26 till July 18, the two astronomers continued their observations almost every night, and on taking leave, Mr. Halley gave a tesimony of the accuracy the old astronomer's apparatus, which not a little pleased him, and disgusted Mr. Hook. It would be foreign to our design to enter into the merits of this dispute, and therefore we shall only take notice that the learned Dr. Wallis took upon him, in some measure, to justify Mr. Halley, by declaring thus far in his favour, that if he had been too lavish in his commendations of Hevelius, Mr. Hook had been the same in his reprehensions; and thus the matter rested.

of

In 1680 Mr. Halley,accompanied by his friend and school-fellow, the pious Mr. R. Nelson set out for France, and about the midway between Calais and Paris he was the first who discovered the great comet of that year, in its return from the

sun.

sun. He had already observed it in its descent, and had now the satisfaction of a complete gratification of his curiosity, in viewing that extraordinary phænomenon from the royal, observatory, which was then but just erected inFrance; and at the same time an opportunity of establishing a friendly correspondence between the royal astronomers of Paris and Greenwich, the celebrated Cassini and Mr. Flamstead. From Paris the travellers continued their journey, with a view to make what is commonly called the grand tour; and passing through Lyons, arrived in Italy, where they spent the greatest part of the year 1681. Mr. Halley's affairs calling him home, he left his companion at Rome, and returning by the way of Paris, he had a second opportunity of visiting Signior Cassini, whom he assisted in reforming his instruments, which he found very difficult to manage; and having communicated to one another their for mer observations upon this comet, as well those made at Greenwich, as those made at Paris, a foundation was laid for settling the path of it, and of the establishing a new astronomy with respect to these celestial bodies.

ހ

It was not, however, till two years after, that he predicted the comet which now appears, and which must now be universally acknowledged, to the honour of his memory, to have been foretold by an Englishman*.

Upon his return to England he married Mary the daughter of Mr. Tooke, at that time auditor of the Exchequer, a young lady amiable in her person, and of excellent endowments, with whom he lived happy 55 years.

The following year, 1682, he settled at Islington, and published his theory of the variation of the magnetical compass, in which he supposes the whole globe of the earth to be one great magnet, having four poles or points of attraction, by which the needle is successively governed as it approaches nearest to either. But this hypothesis, tho' well received at first, by reason of its novelty, was afterwards found irreconcileable to practice, and rejected by himself for one that appeared to many no less whimsical than the former; but this he persisted in with great obstinacy, and the rather, as it solved all the appearances of the variation, without absolutely giving up the four poles on which rested the credit of his first conjecture. He supposed the outer surface of the earth to be a shell, like that (for illustration sake) of a Cocoa nut; that within this shell was a smaller shell, not occupying the whole hollow space, but admitting a floating medium between the inside of the outer, and the outside of the inner shell; that both these, having the same common centre and axis of diurnal rotation, would, by continual turning, vary a little; and by that means the

poles