61,01 tale lginiiirs nf furnp.

THEIR ORIGIN, INTERMARRIAGES, AND CONNEXIONS.

[The Marriage of this week forms a new link between our own Royal Family and a powerful reigning family of the Continent. The real character and importance of the event are scarcely seen unless we glance at the other connexions existing be- tween the Royal Families of the Continent by blood or marriage ; and to exhibit the full scope of the connexion thus strengthened the following paper lies been spe- cially prepared for our pages. The main thread of the narrative may be found in the Almanach de Gotha for 1858; but it will be seen that the writer who has as- sisted us on this occasion has not by any means been limited in his sources of in- formation to that Continental Court Guide ; he is indeed familiar with the subject historically and politically.] THE REIGNING LINES OF EUROPE. -

There are forty-eight crowned heads in Europe,—namely, three Emperors, of France, of Russia, and of Austria ; two Queens, of Great Britain and of Spain ; thirteen Kings, of Prussia, of Sweden, of Holland, of Belgium, of Sardinia, of Denmark, of Portugal, of Greece, of Bavaria, of llanover, of Saxe, of Wiirtemberg, and of Naples ; one Sultan, of Turkey ; one Pope, of Rome ; one Elector, of Hesse; seven Grand Dukes, of Tuscany, of Baden, .4 Saxe-Weimar, of Hesse-Darmstadt, of Oldenburg, of Mecklenburg- Schwerin, and of M.ecklenburg-Strelitz ; nine Dukes, of Parma, (if Modena, of Anhalt-Dessau, of Anhalt-Bernburg, of Brunswick, of Nassau, of Saxe- Altenburg, of Saxe-Meiningen, and of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; and too Princes, of Lippe, of Waldeck, of Reese-Homburg, of Schwarzburg Londerohausen. of Schwarzburg Rudolstadt, of Lichtenstein, of Schaumburg-Lippe, of Reuss-Greiz, of Reuss-Schleis, and of Monaco. All these princely per- sonages are sovereign rulers of their respective countries, and as such equal in rank; although the Emperor of Russia is master over a territory of more than seven millions of square miles, and the Princes of Monaco and of Lichtenstein have less than fifty each. Nevertheless, in the eyes of every

faithful Royalist, as well as of the Almanacla de Gotha, all leg:timer princes are ebentoirtig," or equal-born, whatever may be their political power or the extent of their dominions. They are in their own order peers" ; and if the eldest daughter of the Czar or of the Austrian Kaiser chose to marry the poorest Prince of Reuss-Greiz, no herald at arms could

call it a mOsalliance.

There are, however, some other minor differences of rank which deter- mine the position of these forty-eight sovereigns' or rather these forty-six; for two of them, the Sultan and the Pope, must, for obvious reasons, be ex- cluded from the "family." In the first instance, a great point with royalty is legitimacy, or length of tenure; and it is tacitly understood that all royal

houses whose pedigree does not extend over at least a couple of centuries are non-legitimate. Measured by this standard, the sovereigns of France and of Sweden cannot be said to belong to the circle 9f "equal-born" monarchs ; whose number is thus reduced to forty-four. These forty-four, again, .may be divided into two classes, namely, Princes of German origin, and Princes of Gallic descent ; so that altogether the European sovereigns fall under four different divisiona- l. Sovereigns quite unconnected with the rest: two in number, the Sul- tan and the Pope. 2. Sovereigns of recent creation ; two in number, the rulers of France and of Sweden.

3. Sovereigns of Gallic origin : three in number, the Queen of Spain, and the Kings of Naples and of Portugal, the descendants of Bug° Capet, or the Bourbon family. 4. Sovereigns of Teutonic origin : forty-one in number, namely, the rulers of the whole of Europe, with the exception of those of the Iberian peninsula, of a small part of Italy, of France, of Sweden, and of Turkey. In this concise classification, already a singular fact forces itself on our attention. The inhabitants of Europe number about 260 millions. Of these, 78 millions are Slovenians; 81 millions belong to the Latin, and 83 to the Teutonic races ; and consequently, if every nation were governed by rulers of the same origin as themselves, the proportion of sovereigns of Eu- rope would consist, in about three equal thus* of monarchs of these three divisions of mankind. But so far is this from being the case, that the Sla- vonic tribes furnish no ruling princes at all to Europe, and that the Latin

races contribute but a proportionately small number ; so that the sovereign power of the most important quarter of the world is chiefly in the hands of monarchs of Teutonic mien. It was not always so, inasmuch as only about three centuries ago the sovereign rulers belonged more equally to the throe dominant races in proportion to their political influence. The present pre- ponderance of German royalty has come about gyadually and very steadily, and the tendency of the present state of affairs in Europe is certainly rather towards a further increase of Teutonic kingships, and a further decrease of Latin and Slavonic power, than the contrary. It is curious how race has worked its way in this respect. The house of Stuart, with a few drops of Celtic blood in its veins, had to qive way before the German family of ,Brimawiek-Litneburg, which has since received new elements of race by a

fresh infusion of Saxon blood. Again, the house of Rom:moil', of nurc Sla- vonic origin, made room for the line of Holstein-Gottorp, by birth and by continued alliances completely Teutonic ; and, before this, the Slavomc families which ruled Austria and Bohemia were unseated by a German Prince of very modest fortune, Rudolf von Hapsburg ; whose descendants up to this any govern a multitude of foreign tribes, but conclude their matrimonial alliances only in the land of their origin. Nay, even in the classic islands af the Mediterranean, a German King holds the sceptre, and the Iberian peninsula is successfully invaded by the house of Coburg. These princely German houses, through centuries of matrimonial al-

liances, have beCome united into one large family, with greater or lesser grades of consanguinity between the different crowned heads. They all may lie traced, however, to six different lines, growing up almost simultaneously in the soil of a country highly favourable in its -feudal constitution for the production of kingship. The first of these lines is that of Saxony, the Princes of which trace their origin up to Duke Wittekind, a leader of some balf-savage tribes on the river Elbe, who was converted to Christianity by the Emperor Charlemagne, about the year 785. The Princes of Savoy, ache have become at present Kings of Sardinia, as well as the Kings of Saxony, the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and the three ducal houses of Saxe-Meiningen, Sane-Altenburg, and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, are reported to lle the descendants of this Duke Wittekind. The second line of sovereign German Princes is that of allaace ; whose members find their ancestor in one Adelbert, Duke of a territory on the Rhine, who lived in the beginning of the eighth century, and whose descendants are the Emperor of Austria, the Grand Dukes of Tuscany and of Baden, and the Dukes of Parma. The tbird line is that of Oldenburg, founded by a Count of Ringelheim in the eleventh century ; and from it spring the Kings of Denmark, the deposed Kings of Sweden, the Grand Dukes of Oldenburg, and the Dukes of Hol- stein. A younger branch of the latter house has filled for the last century tire throne of Russia. The fourth line is that of .D 'Este, founded by Awn I, Margrave d'E.ste, in the beginning of the eleventh century ; and from it the present royal fancily of Great Bntain, the Kings of Hanover, the Dukes of Brunswick and of Modena, and the Princes of Lichtenstein, draw their origin. The fifth line is that of Zollern, or as it is commonly called, Hohen- zallern ; which has its ancestors in the Counts of Zollern who lived in the tenth century, and from whom descend the Kings of Prussia. Lastly, the sixth line is that of -Vaasan, founded in the twelfth century, from which spring the Kings of the Netherlands and the Dukes of Nassau. The rest of the sovereigns of Teutonic origin come all indirectly from these six great scrarces.

There are, as already said, only three monarchs of the Gallic or Latin raw, the Queen of Spain, and the Rings of Naples and of Portugal. They

e descendants of Hugo Capet, Count of Paris ; and, together with the two se-eadled non-legitimate houses of Bonaparte and of Bernadotte, are the only representatives of the Latin nationalities in the great fami:v of cove- leigns. The Capetians, or, as they are mostly called, the Bourbons, have however, intermarried continuously with the German houses almost since the time of their foundation' and in one of the families, that of Portugal, the Tectonic blood is, owing to recent alliances, already strongly in the ascend- ant. The same may he said of the recently-created line of Bernadotte. Thus, the present ruler of France is the remaining chief representative, in nannet to origin at heist, of the nations of Roman descent ; and his MIEN nage with a Spanish lady seems to tend further in that direction. Strange that, such being the ease, the Italian patriot-conspirators, who always de- claim against the increasing influence of Teutonic sovereigns, should perse- mate with such violent hatred the Emperor Napoleon, almost the onlynoil- Ten tonic monarch in Europe.

Haring taken this bird's-eve view of the relations of the different royal Families, we will now deseena into the details of the matrimonial and other ea:amnions, by the aid of which ye:Weal alliances have been formed among the royal houses in modern times.

Russ .

The rulers of the vast dominions colloquially included under that name, dawn to the time of Peter the Great were natives of the country, descend- ants of the old chieftains Runk and Romanoff. Peter, as is well known, married a Livonian peasant girl, Catharine ; who brought him two children, ALIZIA and Elizabeth. The first of these, Princess Anna, united herself to a Dune of Holstein-Gottorp, and became in course of time the mother of a little German Prince, called Peter Ulrich, who, after his aunt Elizabeth, by tn., aid of sundry conspiracies and assassinations, had ascended the throne of the Czars, was named her successor. At the same time, she paved the way co well for him, that at her death, January 5, 1762, he was able to seize the Ci yxn without opposition, a thing rather uncommon in the annals of Rus- sian kingship. But Czar Peter III, as he called himself, was so un-Russian iii al: his views and manners, that, Immediately after his accession a violent aristocratic opposition was formed against him, which ended in his being m- eanly despatched by a few conspirators and his wife, Catharine, was pro- claimed ruler of the empire. This Catharine, a bold, unscrupulous, and fear- fully profligate woman, was the daughter of a Prince of Anhalt, a staff-officer in Prussian service ; and although, therefore, with no other prestige about her than that of an unhappy connexion with a dethroned Czar, she managed to govern Russia as well as any of her predecessors,—ruling, of course, with an aran rod At her death, in 1796, the throne was left to her son Paul, an un- fortuaate youth, who had been kept in prison by his unnatural mother iuriag the 'best part of his life, and was said to be nearly mad. He had not /clamed five years when another band of noble conspirators murdered him in Isla palate, and proclaimed his eldest son, Alexander. This Czar died in Daaember 1825, under very suspicious circumstances, at Tagonrog on the Dan; and left the crown to his younger brother, Nicholas, with the implied aialerstanding that the elder brother, Constattine, should freely renounce claims. Some said that Constantine did so ; but the fact was disputed on tica part of a few boyars and other officers, and the contest led to consider- :!a bloodshed. Czar Nieholaa reigned longer than any other prince of his fancily ; and at his death, March 2, 1855, Alexander the present Emperor aamded the throne.

The Czars of the house of Holstein-Gottorp are physically a fine race of

ei. We may pertly account far it by the fact that in their matrimonial aliiniaes they seem to lave looked mere to health and beauty than any other seiu ;es of Eurape. Being independent in their choice, believing that no all: nice can elevate Mani, personal attractions have been the chief considers- ti ma far any member of the Czar's family who happens to be in want of a

; and it has been said that the Russian Ambassadors who bring about tbs.,- delicate nezatiatione are instructed on this point as minutely as even ear owe Henry Viri, of glorious memory, might have wished. 'Formerly

matter was managed in a very off-hand way by the Russian despots, who cimply had a batch of good-looking but poor German Princesses sent up to Petersburg, and then took their choice. The Empress Catharine alone or- der-al eleven young Princesses to her court, to provide wives for her sons or gran laons. Among them were three Princesses of Darmstadt, brought by their mother ; three Princesses of Coburg, alas maternal care; and frtrac Princessea- of Wartemberg, unprotected. The last-named, however, ea.ne no further than Prusiia ; as Frederick the Great, with commendable gal:entry, insisted that the Grand Duke should either be gentlemanly enough ' * meet them half-way, or not see their faces at all ; and the young Russian

Prince proving lazy, Frederick had the fair ladies conveyed back to their home, and the Czarina had to send for others in their stead. Almost up to the reign of Czar Nicholas, the Russian Grand Dukes procured their spouses in this very comfortable way ; and if they have given up the custom m re- cent times, it is probably not so much on account of their unwillingness to continue the modus operandi, as because there is now more difficulty in find- ing victims, seeing that the demand for German Princes and Princesses has increased in far_greater measure than the supply. The present Emperor of Russia is a tall and somewhat stout man, with a pleasing countenance, but a look as if suffering under some hidden malady

or sorrow. His eyelids droop over the outer corner of the eye with deep melancholy ; and though the mouth is not without sweetness, the whole profile, Grecian in outline, recalls the features of termagant Catharine, the Elizabeth of the North. Czar Alexander was married on his twenty-third birthday to a Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, the youngest sister of the pre- sent Grand Duke, who was at the time of her union but sixteen years old, but is now thirty-three. She has brought her husband already five children, four boys and one girl ; the eldest of whom, Prince Nicholas, the heir-ap- parent of Russia, is now in his fourteenth year. The two surviving aunts of the Czar are two Princesses in whom the British public is likely to take some interest ; as the first, Maria Paulowna, Duchess-Dowager of Saxe Weimar, is the mother of the Princess of Prussia who has become this week so nearly related to our English Princess Royal ; and the second, Anna Paulovrna, widow of the late King of Holland, Is expected soon to enter into equally near kinship with the Royal house of Great Britain. The last-named lady, as many of our readers will remember, was but a few months ago in this country, on a visit to Queen Victoria ; and she had no sooner departed than rumours began to fly about of an intended marriage of our Princess Alice with the Prince of Orange, the heir-apparent of Holland, seventeen years old. Many little circumstances conspire to render this probable. Czar Alexander has five brothers and sisters. The eldest, Mary, is widow of the Duke Maximilian of Leuchtenberg, a son of Eugene Beauharnois, the adopted child of the Emperor Napoleon I; the second sister, Olga, is married to the Crown Prince of Wiirtemberg. Grand Duke Constantine, the next brother, has united himself to the daughter of the Duke of Saxe- Altenburg ; Grand Duke Nicholas has married a Princess of Oldenburg; and Gmud Duke Michel, the youngest of the late Czar's children, is husband to a Princess of Baden, a sister of the present reigning Duke. Finally the mother of the Czar, the Empress-Dowager, who is at present living in is sister of the King and the Prince of Prussia, and, consequently, aunt to Prince Friedrich NV ilhelmhose nuptial knot has been tied this week at

I

St. James's Palace. The imperial family of Russia is therefore, to sum up the whole, closely related to the Royal houses of Prussia, of Wiirtemberg, of Holland, and of Great Britain ; and to the Ducal houses of Hesse- Darmstadt, of Saxe-Altenburg, of Oldenburg, of Saxe Weimar, and of the two Meeklenburgs. It is among the .Protestant princely families of Ger- many that the Czars of the house of Holstein-Gottorp have always sought and continue seeking wives for themselves and their children.

AUSTRIA.

Next to Russia, Austria is the most important empire on the Continent of Europe, in extent as well as in population. The ruler of Austria bears the title of Kaiser-Kenig (Emperor-King); Kaiser on account of the Imperial states, and KOnig for Hungary alone. Formerly, the many nationa which are now under the sway of the Emperor at Vienna were ruled by native princes; but a valiant Count of Hapsburg, whom the seven Electors of Germany had made Emperor chiefly for his very poverty, having acquired the little dukedom of Austria on the Danube, laid the foundation for the future greatness of his family. Seldom have states composed of sucb incongruous elements as Austria risen so fast out of the smallest begin- nings; and seldom have princely families with not very shining qualities in any of their members, had so much good luck in holding their old while acquiring new power, as the Empire and Emperors of Oestreich, or the Realm of the East. More than once was Austria on the brink of destruc- tion; but in the very moment she was believed to be helplessly gone, up she rose again, stronger than ever. When Maria Theresa, with tearful eyes, presented her little infant son to the proud Hungarian nobles, as well as when all the nations which the house of Hapsburg held in subjection rose against it in 1848, the annihilation of the family seemed imminent, based as their strength is on but a small minority of their subjects. Yet the power of the well-knitted Teutonic government always issued victoriously from the struggle of disunited nationalities, and the main principle of Aus- trian rule, the 'divide et impera," guided the vessel of the state in uninter- rupted security over the tossing waves.

The house of Hapsburg is of purely German origin ; Rudolf, the founder of the royal family, was the descendant of an old noble line of Counts of the "Holy Roman" Empire, who lived in a well-fortified castle on the river Aar, the ruins of which all travellers in the North of Switzer- land may see to the present day. A hundred years ago; with the death of Kaiser Charles VI the male line of the house became extinct ; but as the Kaiser's only daughter, Maria Theresa, again married a Prince of German descenteutonic blood may be said to flow in its purest state in the veins A

of the Austrian Emperors. 'There is a certain stamp of race in the family, which they hare carried through ages,—namely, the hereditary big under- lip. The pictures of the Emperors of five hundred years ago which hang in the liofburg at Vienna show exactly the same formation of chin and lip as the features of his present Majesty Francis Joseph. It is the golden stamp of half-a-dozen rich alliances.

No reigning family of Europe has derived so much advantage from suc- cessful matrimonial alliances as the house of Hapsburg. The sword of its founder, Rudolf, constructed only the nucleus of the vast possessions .which the family afterwards acquired ; for as late as the end of the fif- teenth century, when Maximilian ascended the throne, (in 1493,) the house possessed but the dukedom of Austria, with its capital, Vienna, the Alpine countries, Illyria, Camiola Carinthia, and the Tyrol, besides some small territories in Suabia and Afslte.e. Next to Rudolf, the greatest man whom the family ever produced, this Maximilian I may be called the founder of the power of the house of Hapsburg ; for it was he who by time lucky marriages—his own, his son's, and his grandson's—consolidated the rising state. Before he died, the family had acquired the Burgundian Netherlands, the kingdom of Spain, and the two crowns of Hungary aid Bohemia. He found the Oestreich of his family a third-rate kingdom, and he left it the mightiest empire in Europe. Yet he was a man of no great faculties, and all he cared for was the old policy of increasing the family possessions by great marriages ; an object in which he succeeded remark- ably well, and in which he has never been surpassed, not even by Coburg Princes.

Maximilian was followed by his grandson, that stern and melancholy man Charles V, who in the spring of 1519, he still a youth of nineteen, on being proclaimed Emperor of Germany became monarch of the greatest part of Central and Western Europe. Charles was succeeded as Emperor by his brother Ferdinand ; who, true to the policy of the family, married the royal heiress Ann Jagellon; through whom, in 1526, he succeeded to Bohemia and Ilimgary. Thus, in a first marriage, that of Maximilian, the Hapsburgs gained the Burgundian Netherlands ; in a wend, that of his eon Philip, they acquired Spain; and now, by a well-contrived. match

of the grandeon, two more crowns fell into the lap of the Kaisers. The simple idea of family aggrandizement by ..means of matrimonial alliances procured more territories to the house el Ilapsburg than it would have gained in a hundred victories on the field of battle. Yet these great gifts of fortune were, like all things on earth, not without their corresponding drawbacks. The Czars, who in marriage chiefly looked to the physique of the royal ladies, reaped the advantage at least m cor- poreal health and beauty ; the Kaisers, whose main object in a matrimonial alliance was gain of money or of territory, have been punished severely enough for it in the increasing mental and physical decline of their race. The predecessors of the present Emperor, for several generations, have been half-lunatic; and the last of them, poor old Ferdinand, was during the last ten years of his life an unconcealed idiot. His daily and only occupation consisted in looking out of the windows of the Burg at Vienna and counting the hackney-coaches which passed along the road; an aide-de-camp had to tell him the names, real or imaginary, of the different cabmen and their "fares." Austria meanwhile was governed by Prince Metternich, an able but unscrupulous statesman of the 'falleyrand school : when he was forced to resign, in consequence of the political movements of 1848, Kaiser Ferdi- nand resigned also. The Emperor's younger brother, Archduke Francis, would, in the natural order of things, have succeeded him, but as he was men- tally not much stronger than his brother, it was thou,eht preferable to try the capacities of a younger generation ; and accordingly, Prince Francis was induced to sign his renunciation to the throne, and his eldest son, Francis Joseph, then eighteen years old, was elevated to the Imperial dignity. It was believed, and has since turned out to be true, that a new infusion of healthy Teutonic blood had somewhat improved the race. Francis Joseph I is at present in his twenty-seventh year. He is a pale, sickly-looking young man, with dull, heavy eyes, low forehead, and the hereditary big under-lip. He married, about four ,years ago, a daughter of the Duke of Bavaria, Elizabeth ; who has brought him two children, both female, one of whom, however, has already died. This union was brought about by the Emperor's mother Archduchess Sophia, a Princess all-powerful at court, who may be regarded as the real ruler of Austria. The Emperor has three brothers, Ferdinand, Charles, and Louis ; the first and the last of whom are unmarried, but the second, Archduke Charles, was united, about a year ago, to a daughter of the King of Saxony. The uncle of the Empe- ror, the Ex-Emperor Ferdinand I, who abdicated in December 1848, i8 living at present in great retirement at Prague in Bohemia, together with the Ex-Empress, a daughter of the former King Victor Emmanuel of Sar- dinia; a very amiable lady, who is said to be fondly attached to her hus- band, in spite of his imbecility. She was destined for a convent, and would have become a nun had not Ferdinand I prevented her by making her his wife. Grateful to him for this service, her love has continually surrounded the poor old Kaiser and cheered his lonely days.

The Austrian Imperial family is very numerous at the present time. There are three Empresses,—the widow of the late Emperor Francis I; a Bavarian Princess, now in her sixty-sixth year ; the Empress Anne, wife of Ferdinand ; and, lastly, the consort of the present Emperor. Besides these three Empresses, and the two Emperors, there are sixteen Archdukes and seventeen Archduchesses mostly descendants of the Emperor' Francis I, who was married four tides, and of his brothers, each of whom had several consorts.

The actual connexions by marriage of the Austrian Imperial family do not extend very far, nor are they with very great houses. The princely families of almost the whole of Northern, Central, and Western Germany, being Protestant, the choice of the Kaisers and Archdukes is restricted to the houses of Bavaria and Saxony ; unless they again hazard, which they do not seem inclined to do, fresh matrimonial alliances with the Bourbons of Naples and of Spain,—connexions which have proved, in the example of Ferdinand, so nearly fatal to the race of Hapsburg. At present, therefore, their relation lies chiefly with Bavaria, and next to it with the Royal line of Saxony, (which became Catholic to gain the crown of Poland,) and with Sardinia. One of the members of the Imperial family, Archduke John, the Reichsverweser or Protector of Germany during the stonily days of 1848, has committed a misalliance by uniting himself to a Mademoiselle Pioche], the daughter of an innkeeper in the mountains of Tyrol.; which marriage, after a good deal of diplomatic manceuvering' was acknowledged by the Emperor Ferdinand, or rather by his alter ego Prince Metternich, who ele- vated the lady into a Countess of Meran. Thus it seems that Austrian Princes have given up, to some degree, their old practice of only forming alliances with heiresses who carry with them a kingdom as dowry.

FRANCE.

The third Emperor in our list of European Sovereigns is Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French : but we shall not have to say much of him, as of all the monarchs of this quarter of the globe, he—of course with the exception of Pope and Sultan—is the least connected with the rest by family alliance. He is certainly regarded as non-legitimate by all of them ; for it is well-known that when he tried to find a wife in Germany, he saw all the doors closed against him, not even the daughter of a deposed King of Sweden, who died in Switzerland in utter penury as Colonel Gustafson, being willing to take him "for better for worse." He was therefore compelled to marry a lady not of royal origin, Eugenie, Coun- tess of Teba, who is nearly twenty years younger than himself. But per- haps this alliance, though it did not increase his influence out of France, made the Emperor more popular with the people, chiefly with the lower classes, who admire the many good qualities of the young Empress. Her mother., however, who lives in a sumptuous house in the Champs Elysees at Paris, is said seriously to counteract this popularity, as she is understood to be very intriguing, and is on familiar terms with Queen Christina and the whole grasping Rianzares family. The whole, or at least chief connexion of the Bonaparte family with the other reigning houses of Europe, is through the uncle and aunt of the Em- peror.. Prince Jerome, the old Ex-King of Westphalia, was forcibly united lay his great brother to a Princess of Wartemberge daughter of the late King Frederick ; and though Jerome was at that time already in the bonds of matrimony with an amiable American lady, Miss Patterson, the after-mar- riage has always been held to stand good, one does not know exactly why. The Emperor of the French is further related to the Continental Princes through his aunt Stephanie, the adopted child of the first Napoleon, who was married to the Grand Duke Charles of Baden, but became a widow in 1818. These threads of princely, alliance between the Bonapartes and the other royal houses are very slender, and will end with the present genera- tion, if not before ; and therefore the Almanach de Gotha, the directory of royalty, has only entered the name of Napoleon III among the other crowned heads, with something like a protest. In the space devoted to " France," the house of the great Corsican conqueror does not occupy nearly so much room as that devoted to the " ancienne maison royale de Franoe," the old royal line, in its elder and younger branches. The " ancienne maison royale de France," the great rival of the new fa- mily of Bonaparte derives its chief power from its connexions with Euro- Pean royalty, and ill for this reason alone, a still powerful hold on public opinion in and out o France. Far behind them in the night of time rise their great ancestors, their Caning Magnus, (theirs not altogether, yet claimed by them,) their Hugo Capet, their Henri Quatre, their Louis " le Grand." Age is their mighty ally, of whom they boast and to whom they trust. Yet Monarchy in France, though it is old enough, has not gimp been very " legitimate." The descendants of Clovis were robbed of their sovereign righte by Pepin, their Majordomo ; and the right of his progeny again was overruled by the son of Hugh the Great, Lord of the Isle of France. After him, the line of Valois ruled the country of the Gauls; tilt Henry IV, of the younger branch of the Hugo Capet family, laid bold of the crown by force of arms. From him down to Louis XVI, who died on the scaffold, the line of legitimate French Kings is unbroken. The Bourbon branch of the last great family of Gallic monarchs have therefore no particular right to declaim against usurpation; but they, with more justice, may point to the services which their own usurping ancestors have done to France, in making it, what it now is, the most compact and best united ter- ritory on the Continent of Europe. Henry the Fourth brought to France his paternal heirloom Beam and Four, and part of Gascony ; Louis XIII con- quered the province of Roussillon, Artois near the English Channel, and the Alsace on the Rhine ; Louis XIV took Flanders and the Franche-Comte, and Louis XV Lorraine. The Kings of the house of Bourbon, it cannot be denied, have rounded off and strengthened France, geographically and po- litically' whereas the rulers of the Bonaparte family have not only not increased the territory of the kingdom, but brought foreign troops, for tire first time in French history, into the very metropolis.

NAPLES.

The Bourbons have sunk immensely from their former greatness, yet they still are in possession of three crowns and lay claim to a fourth. The preseut Queen of Spain, Isabel II, is the sixth Spanish monarch of the house et Bourbon ; the kingdom of Naples and Sicily is ruled by the family for the last century and a half; and Portugal for nearly. eight hundred years. The members of the family were formerly given much to intenuaniage, but they have not had recourse to it quite so much in their late alliances. Ferdinand II, the present King of Naples, has been married twice, the first time to daughter of Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia, who died in 1836 ; and had not been dead many months before the disconsolate widower rushed off to Paris to ask for the hand of a daughter of Louis Philippe. The arrangements betweeu Naples and France were all but concluded, when one day, at table, the Duke of Orleans uttered a few disrespectful words about the Duchess de Berry, which offended the fraternal feelings of Ferdinand. A quarrel ha- sued ; and the consequence of it was, that King Ferdinand straightway ha Paris for Vienna, and was married, in January 1837, to ,Princess Theren' •a daughter of the Archduke Charles, brother of the late Emperor Francis lOt Austria. By this Princess the King has eight children ; the last of whom, born in 1855, is called Mary Immaculate Louisa. By his first marriage with the Princess of Sardinia, Ferdinand had on i e son, Francis, who s now

twenty-two years old, and heir-apparent to the throne. King Ferdinand has ten brothers and sisters. The first is the somewhat ill-famed Duchess of Berry ; the second, the no less reputed Queen Christina of Spain ; the third, Prince Charles, married to a Miss Penelope Smith; the fourth, Prince Leopold, united to a Princess of Savoy ; the fifth is Antoi- nette, Grand Duchess of Tuscany; the sixth and seventh, Amelia and Caro- line, are married to Spanish Princes ; the eighth, Theresa, is the Empress of Brazil ; the ninth, Prince Louis, is married to a daughter of the late Em- peror of Brazil ; and the tenth, Francis-de-Paul, has a Princess of Tuscany. The aunt of King Ferdinand is the Ex-Queen of the French, now residieg at Claremont, a frequent visitor at Windsor Castle ; and the niece of the King is married to the Duke d'Aumale, also at Claremont, Surrey. The Begat family of Naples is thus related by marriage to the sovereigns of Auetriu, Spain, Brazil, Portugal, Tuscany, Sardinia, and to the exiled house of Kier, Louis Philippe.

• SPAIN.

The Bourbons of Spain are not so well fortified by family alliances as their friends at Naples. Queen Isabella has married her cousin, Francis Maria Ferdinand ; and her sister is united to the Duke of Montpensier,— a union which at its conclusion very nearly brought on war between Eng- land and France, but it has hitherto turned out to be harmless. The Queen's mother has married a tall Spanish grenadier, the son of a Terence* tobacconist, with whom she is living at present in Paris ; and all the rest of the Queen's male and female cousins, some two-dozen in number, have married among themselves. The whole of the matrimonial alliances of the Royal family of Spain, therefore, do not connect them with any powerful foreign house, but only with other Bourbons.

PORTUGAL.

The process of amalgamation of the different Royal families of Enron; and the ultimate absorption into the Teutonic element, is not visible in Spat? but, as if in opposition, becomes the more apparent in the neighbour- ing Portugal. The young King of this country, behind his array of seven- teen Christian names—Dom-Pedro-d'Alcantara-Marie-Fernando-Miguel- Raphael - Gabriel - Gonzaga - Xavier - Joao - Antonio - Leopoldo - Victor - ran- cisco-d'Asisae-Julio-Amelio—has the somewhat homely-sounding tide of "Duke of Saxony " ; and his father, also a King, carries this out stilt inore. by calling himself Ferdinand, "King of Portugal aid Duke of Salo- Coburg-Gotha." The grandson of Hugo Capet, Count Henry of Bourgogne, came into the Iberian peninsula about the year 1090, and received from King Alphonse IV permission to fight the Moors, then still inhabiting the Western parts of the country. He did so successfully ; and got as a reward for his services the whole of the land thus conquered, a fine little lordship extending from the Minho to the Tagus. Henry's son and successor, Alfonso I, completed the work, and with the help of the fleet of the Crusaders laid hold of Lisbon, un- conquered hitherto, and of a good part of the country South of it ; and, having beaten five Moerish Kings in one successful battle, in 1139, he crowned him- self King, and, to perpetuate the remembrance of the origin of the crow*, put the five shields of the Arab chiefs into the arms of Portugal, where they are seen up i to this day. His successors have ruled the country ever sines, and even given Emperors to a vast Transatlantic state. In the beginning.of this century, King Pedro de Alcantara governed both Portugal and Brazil; but being compelled to give up the sovereignty of one of these countries, he chose to leave the former to his daughter, Donna Maria da Gloria, and as- sumed the Imperial purple in Rio de Janeiro. Donna Maria II married, la 1836, Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha ; who on her death, in 1853, was named Regent of the kingdon, during the minority of his son' Don .11._.- dro V, then only sixteen years old. The young King went on his travels a* the summer of 1854, and paid a visit, first to Queen \ ictoria, and afterwaeds to the Continental courts of Europe, where all due honour was paid to him, it being well known that he was not without some vague matrimonal inten- tions. He subsequently landed a second time in England, and gossiping newsmen already pretended that he had found what he sought in dam country ; but they were, soon after, disappointed to hear that a young Princess of Hohenzollern was destined to eiaare the throne of Portugal. The marriage of the Princess Stephanie von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen with the young King of Portugal is announced to take place on the 20th of April this year, in the Roman Catholic Church of St. Hedwig at Berlin. Pedro took the reins of government into his own hands at his eighteenth birth- day ; and he has Nice shown himself an enlightened, liberal rulcia_with wisdom almost beyond-his years. It thus seems as if the remits of DOW-

ben-Teutonic alliances are highly favourable to both races, even in thcar immediate consequence.s. Saminsera.

The family of Victor Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia, is originally of German origin ; but the founder of the direct line of Princes of Savoy was a Swiss Count, Berthold, who lived in the beginning of the eleventh century. The descendants of Berthold founded themselves a small but compact little principality in the Alps; thence gradually desaending into the fertile plains of North Italy ; gradually acquiring additional lordships, in great part through the Personal character of the house ; until the settlement of 1815 recognized in Europe " the kingdom of Sardinia," including the quondam republic of Genoa. King Charles Emmanuel IV abdicated in 1802 in favour of his brother, Victor Emmanuel I ; he again resigned the government, in 1821, to a younger brother, Charles Felix ; and when this King died, at an advanced age, in 1831, his successor, Charles Albert, consulted only the prosperity of his subjects, when, in 1849, he put the crown on the header his son. It cost him hard to do it ; and soon afterwards, he literally died of grief at not haying been able to do more good to his beloved country. Victor Emmanuel II is at present in the thirty-seventh year of his age. He married, in 1842, a daughter of Archduke Kessler of Austria, a brother of that Archduke John who wooed and won a Tyrolese innkeeper's child. The Queen died in the beginning of 1855, and the King had not only to de- plore this loss, but saw, within a few weeks of it, both his mother and his only brother laid in the grave. His Queen left him fire children, the second of whom, Prince Humbert, now fourteen years old, is heir-apparent to the throne. The King's late brother, who married a daughter of King John of Saxony, also left two children, the youngest of whom, now in his fourth year, is called Duke of Genoa. Direct relations the royal house of Sardinia has only with Austria and Saxony, but through the latter its family is connected with the majority of European sovereigns.

What Sardinia is to Italy, Prussia is to Germany, the country of progress, and of Liberal political institutions. The origin, too, of the two reigning houses of Savoy and of Hohenzollern has much similarity, for the founders of both houses had to thank only their own strong arm for what territory they acquired as the basis of the future power of the family. Unlike the ancient Hapsburgs, neither Zollern nor Savoy ever got a square yard of land through matrimonial calculations. The Counts of Zollern were originally very poor knights; with nothing but an old castle in Suabia ; and one of the first of them, Thassilon, who lived in the beginning of the ninth century, is said frequently to have acted the part of unauthorized customhouse-officer towards merchant travellers in the South of Germany. By whatsoever means, the family rose to comparative wealth ; so that about the year 980, Thassiion's successors were able to build themselves a new castle, in the lace of the old, and even to lend some money to the always needy German perors. As acknowledgment or rather compensation for the latter ser- vice, (for the Kaisers of the Holy Roman Empire in no instance repaid their loans,) Emperor Otto IV made the Counts of Zolleru hereditary Bittgraves of Nuremberg, a post of some importance and considerable emorument ; and when, a century later, some rebellious subjects of the Empire became ob- streperous, one of these Burgraves was sent down to the marshes on the river Elbe to chastise them in the name of the Kaiser. The work was well done ; the Kaiser was highly delighted with the service, and gratefully gave to the brave Burgraf all the lauds which he had conquered in perpetual fief; these lands are called at present the provinee of Brandenburg, and in the plane of the former big robber castle stands now a bigger town called The reigning family of Prussia is connected, by earlier alliances than any other princely line, with the sovereign house of Brunswick, now an the English throne. The second King of Prussia, Frederick William I, was married to a daughter of George I, when George was as yet only Elector of Hanover. After he conic to the English throne, a double marriage be- tween the Prince of Wales and Princess Wilhel mina of Prussia, and Prince Frederick (afterwards Frederick the Great) and the English Princess Amelia, was projected, and was on the eve of being concluded, when secret Austrian machinations first interrupted and finally broke the good understanding between the two sovereigns. Frederick the Great ever after- wards deplored this, and had good reason for doing so, as the wife with which Es somess hat despotic father pray-sled him was all but an idiot. Frederick's nephew and successor was so much influenced by the dissolute manners which the absence of refined female society had engendered at the Court of Prussia, that during his reign, down to 1797, royal manners and morals were like those in the time of our Charles II; and it was not until the accession of Frederick William III, the father of the present King, that a better state of things got the upper hand. Frederick William III married, early in life, the lovely and highly-accomplished Princess Louisa of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a royal lady before whom even Napoleon I, who hated the house of Prussia more than any other royal family in Europe, was compelled to bow. Unfortunately, her son, the present King Frederick William IV, was only fifteen years old when she died, and, falling like some of his pretedessors under Austrian influence, be was made to unite himself to the Roman Catholic Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria ; a marriage which turned out to be childless, and not very happy. The King has six brothers and sisters : the first is the actual Regent of Prussia, Who has this week become the father-in-law of our Princess Royal, and who is married to a daughter of the late Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar ; the second is the widow of the late Czar Nicholas, now Empress-Dowager of Russia, residing in Florence ; the third is Prince Charles, married to another daughter of the late Grant Duke of Saxe-Weimar, a sister of the Princess of Prussia; the fourth is the Grand Duchess Dowager of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; the fifth is Princess Louisa, married to the Prince Frederick of the Netherlands ; and the sixth is Prince Albert, who was married to Marrianne, a daughter of the late Xing William I of Holland, but divorced from her, after a union of nineteen years, on account of adultery. There are, besides, some chil- dren of the late King's brother, all of them, as also the Princess of Hohenzollern, the elder branch of the family, married to German sovereigns, but

of lesser importance. On the whole, the house of Prussia has more exten- sive and more important family connexions than almost any other royal line in Europe. The Hohenzollern sovereigns are nearly related to the reigning houses of Great Britain, of Russia, of Holland, of Bavaria, of Austria, of Saxony, of Hanover, of Baden, and many other reigning families of minor power.

SWEDEN.

The house of Prussia is also, though indirectly, related to the royal fa- mily of Sweden, a family interesting in more than one respect. The tenure of the house of Bernadotte is of posterior date to that of the house of Bona- parte, and yet the royal Swedish family is already sufficiently engrafted on the stock of' European royalty to find wives and husbands among the class ; a thing in which the members of the Corsican house, although their chief is a mighty Emperor, have not as yet succeeded. The reason for this good luck of the Bernadottes may be found in the calm, quiet, diplomatic way in which they settled down on their Northern throne, and gradually screwed themselves into the confidence of their brother monarchs. The founder of the house, Jean Bernadotte, the son of a notary in the South of France,

DI I

acted alibis life long in this quiet, ungretenclieg manner ; and Vern-a-pri- vate of Marines he worked his wiry through all the grader of illitury-klete arch)- up to the rank of general under the first Bonaparte. When poorffiene. tavus Adolphus of Sweden was depoeed by the conspiracy.of a patty, trrtd isis uncle the Duke of Sudermania wits placed on the throne as Charlets 1111, the conspirators, most of them secret Republicans, socceeded in bring- ing about the election of Jean Bernadotte, who took great pains to spread a belief in his Democratic opinions. As soon as the deposed King had left the country, the new heir-apparent came to Stockholm; where he *as well received by the whole royal family, with the exception of the wife of the Ex-Monarch, who had not followed her husband nite'exile, but, for some reason or other, preferred to stop in her old residency. She was nontintuill;y shut up in her palace, and seldom mixed with the gay world, exeept 'shoe she could not help doing so without offending her kind uncle theueev King, who always treated her with the greatest consideration. At last, wishing to draw her out of her seclusion, he succeeded in persuading ter to receive the Crown Prince, John Bernadotte, who all the while had stood aloof re- spectfully, not intruding himself on the Ex-Queen, nor on anybody ales. Having consented to receive him, the wife of Gustavus Adolphus arranged the meeting at her own palace ; stipulating that the entertainment on the occasion should only consist of tea and cards, as music had never been al- lowed under her roof since her misfortune. To this rather meagre fete the whole court and all the distinguished foreigners residing in Stockholm were invited. Sudden indisposition prevented the old Kine* *ern joining the parts but the Ex-Queen did the honours with great assuring affability. She pl wed a rubber of whist with Prince Bernadotte and the Anilmasadors of Engfaud and Russia. After cards, the tea was served, with a magnifi- cent plateau, prepared for the Queen and Prince. The Queen advaineed, and poured out the tea into two cups, indicating one to Bernadotte; who was just in the act of taking it, when suddenly he felt the pressure of a thumb on his shoulder, forcible and significant enough to convince him that it was meant for a warning. Calm and collected, as Bernadette -was throughout his life, he did not move his eyes, but quietly and in-the most unconcerned manner exclaimed, " Ah, Madame, it is impossible that I can permit your Majesty to serve me P'—which saying, he seized the platen, and turned it round adroitly in such a manner that the cup which was in- tended for him was placed before the Queen and the other before himself. On this, the Ex-Queen turned deadly pale, and made a movement as if fainting. However, the hesitation was but momentary. Colleeting herself suddenly, she bowed to the Crown Prince and the company, and, taking the cup, drank its contents to the last drop. Great WIIS the astonishment of the citizens of Stockholm,. when they read next day, in the official gazette of Stockholm, the following short paragraph—" The Queen Dorothea died suddenly during the night. The cause of the death is believed to be apo- plexy."* Tfirough such scenes Prince Bernadotte had to make his road to-the throne; and warily indeed did he proceed on his way. When at last King, in 1818, his first object wasto look about for family alliances to strengthen his dynasty. After long diplomatic negotiations, he saw that he could find no better consort for his eldest son than the half-legitimate Princess Josephine of Leuehten- berg, whose father, Prince Eugene had engrafted his family in some degree on the royal house of Bavaria. This was the first step of the Bernadotins towards an alliance with the sovereigns of Europe; their second step ad- vanced them a good deal further. On the 12th June 1850, Prince Charles, the present Regent of Sweden, married a Princess of the ancient home of Orange-Nassau, a daughter of Prince Frederick of the Netherlands and 0 Princess Louise of Prussia the sister of King Frederick William IV; and now the family of Bernadotte might be said to have entered, on nt tboting.of equality, the great circle of sovereigns of Europe. Through this union, and through the former of King Oscar with the Princess of Leuchtenberg, the house of Bernadotte has become directly related to the reigning families of Holland, of Prussia, and Bavaria, and through them, indirectly, to those of Great Britain, Russia, Austria, arid the rest of the sovereigns of this quarter of the globe. Sxxox-r.

What we now call Saxony is not the country originally so named, which lies further North. The earliest writers who mention the Saxons, Ptole- mons among others, describe them as neighbours of the Daises: so that an- cient Saxony must have been where Holstein, Oldenburg, Hanover,

are at present. However, the rulers of the modern kingdom and dueliies of Saxoey are the descendants of the chiefs of that old Saxony. on the North Sea, and it was they who carried the name further South into Germany. The origin of this family is lost in the night of time. Herr Johann litibner, that most conscientious genealogical bookworm, traces the line of Saxon Princes nearly two thousand years back, to one King Ilarderich, "who lived in the year of the world 3858," and whose successor, King Anemic+, was swaying his flaxen-,haired subjects at the time Jesus Christ was born. The fourteenth in the list of these ancient Saxon monarchs was a certain Henget or Hengist, who, in the year 449, in company with his brother Horse, crossed the raging North Sea, to conquer an island called Britannia. Another well-known man was the twenty-fourth of this line, Prince Witte- kind; and the modern Saxon court biographers, who seem to be ashamed to-go back into the past as far as old John Hiibner, commonly mention this prince as founder of the race. Wittekind was persuaded into Christianity by the great Emperor Charlemagne, who solemnly baptized him, in the year 785, and then made him a Herzog, or chief of armed men, and gave him for wife a Christian Princess of his own house. His descendant in the fourth gene- ration was Duke Henry, who, in 919, was chosen Emperor of Germany, or of the "Holy Roman Empire" as it was called; a dignity which he trans- mitted to son, grandson, and great-grandson. Thus the family rose inin- fluence, and their hereditary dominions became gradually more extended, and were at last elevated into an electorate. Saxony would have perhaps, in course of time embraced the whole of Germany, as the members of the reigning family continually kept at the head of the other princes, but for the want of a law of primogeniture. The non-existence of any Fruelnrege- lation during the middle ages is the reason that Germany in this-day is broken up in a number of petty principalities, all of them weak and help- less because disunited. No sooner, therefore, had Saxony risen to a certain point of influence, than its power was broken up again. Frederick the Mild, who reigned from 1428 to 1484, left at his death two children, Albert and Ernest, between whom, according to usage, the electorate was divided; and they became the founders of two branches of the family, called to this day the Albertine and the Ernestine lines. From the latter line, the elder of the two, spring the sovereigns of the ducal houses ; and from Prince Al- bert, the younger brother, descend the Kings of Saxony. This amigo of fortune between the elder and the younger line was brought about by die exertions of the Ernestine family in favour of Protestantism ; for which they were punished by the bigoted Emperor Charles V, who took the electorate from them; and gave it to the younger line. Notwithstanding such losses, the elder branch of the family (to whom belongs the Prince Consort of England) have always stood out -valiantly for Protestantism and liberty of conscience; and when, in 1697, the Bleaker Friedrich August I bainme a convert to the Roman Catholic faith in order to gain • The•responsibility of this, story remains. with the .late Thomas likes, Fesh Diary, Ili. 149.) the crown of Poland the indignation of the Fzuestine family was on the pnintofgoingbeVaIIdWO. The house of Barony, chiefly this elder line, now represented in the four ducal familiag 1ms been more fertile in members than any other princely house for the'laat century. The present King of Saxony, John Nepomuk, who ie married to a daughter of the late King Maximilian of Bavaria, has no fewer than eight children living, all born at intervals of from eighteen months to two }Tars. Four of them are married already : the Crown Prince to a Princess Wasa; Princess Elizabeth to the brother of the King of Sar- dinia, whose death we mentioned above; Princess Anne to the Crown Prince of Tuscany ; and Princess Marguerite to the.second brother of the Emperor of Austria. There are, besides, the widow of the former King Frederick Augustus, a daughter of the King of Bavaria, and several other relations. The net Saxon Prince in importance, the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, married a daughter of the late King William II of the Netherlands and has four children, the eldest of whom, Prince Charles, is not more thahthirteen years old. His two sisters are married to two brothers of the King of Prue- sia; the elder sister, Maria, to Prince Charles, and the younger sister, Augusta, to the Prince of Prussia. The latter royal lady, who accompanied her son this week at the important ceremony in St. James's Chapel, lent present in her forty-sixth year. Her mother, the Grand Duchess Diary of RUM* is the eldest sister of the late Czar Nicholas.

Lastly, the Dukes of Saxe-Meiningen and.Sase-Altenburg have, both of them, not many children, but numerous cousins, uncles, and aunts. One of the latter, Prmceas Alexandrine, now called Alexandra-Josefowna, was married, in 1830, to the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, eldest brother of the present Czar. .The last branch of the four ducal houses of Saxony, the house of Saxe- Coburg-Gotha—not consisting of above a dozen members, and the head of which rules over a population of not more than 150,000 (about .the popula- tion of Bradford, in Yorkshire)—is undoubtedly the best-connected family in Europe. The reigning Duke, Ernest II, married Princess Alexandnna, daughter of the late Grand Duke Leopold of Baden; his brother is Prince Albert, Consort of the Queen of Great Britain ; his eldest aunt is the di- vorced wife of the late Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, the elder brother of Czar Nicholas, who discarded her that he might unite himself to a Polish lady, the Countess of Grudzinska ; his other aunt is the Duchess of Kent, mother of Queen Viotoria ; and his uncle is King Leopold of Belgium. One of his cousins is King of Portugal, and anather has married the daughter of aICing, Princess Clementine, who followed her husband into Coburg when her father, Louis Philippe, was on the throne of France. The house of Saxe- CoburgeGotha, therefore is nearly related to the royal families of Great Britain, of Portugal, Beitum, Russia, Holland, Baden, and most of the ether reigning houses of urope. CTREAT BRITAIN.

The present royal family of this country, members of the house of Bruns- wick-Luneburg, trace their origin to the first Margraves of Este, who lived in the beginning of the eleventh century, and who married into the family of the Guelph, German Counts who were living in Suabia, but had posses- ions in the North of Italy, then a province of the Holy Roman Empire. Through these Guelphs, and through alliances with other rising houses, the members of the bowie of Este-Boon acquired considerable territory, chiefly in the North of Germany-. One of them, Scam, established himself, in the middle of the thirteenth century, as Duke of Luneburg, and another, Al- breeht, at about the same time as Duke of Brunswick. The family, how- ever, soon split into scores of little branch lines, each with but a few square yards of territory ; and not one of them rose to any considerable influence in Germany, until two Dukes, who saw the source of the evil, Prince George William ofCelle and Prince Ernest Augustue of Hanover, established, in 1680, the law of primogeniture. This brought about a sudden rise in the fortunes of the family. Only twelve years after the promulgation of this law, the territories of one branch of the house had become so well rounded off' that George William I rose to the dignity of Elector ; which he transmitted, with still increased territory, to his son and successor, George Louis. This second Elector, however, , had not long governed his paternal dominions be- fore news reachethh i im, n 1714, that Queen Anne of Great Britain was dead, and that he was to be her successor. At first George Louis was exceedingly loth to leave his beloved Hanover for any throne beyond the seas, and he had to be almost forced by his Mends to accept the proffered crown; for his daughter was married to King Frederick William of Prussia, and all his re- lations were in Germany. Ile did go at last, after long hesitation ; but he returned every year to the country of his ancestors. In his son George II, born in Germany, this love of the " Vaterland" was not quite so strong ; yet even he made his periodical pilgrimages into Germany ; and it was not until the accession of the third George that the house of Brunswick-Hanover can be said to have become naturalized in the country of their adoption. The family, before as well as after it ascended the English throne' had continually intermarried with German Princes and Princesses' and with them alone ; and it is consequently of .pore Teutonic blood. All the matri- monial alliances, with the sole exception of this last of the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria with the presumptive heir of the throne of Pruseia, were concluded, too with the smaller princely houses of Germany. Saxe-Mein- ingen, Rehm:Homburg, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel, and other families of no greater political importance, have hitherto furnished the contingent of royal consorts for the reigning house of Great Britain. The Queen of Great Britain is related, more or less intimately, to all the other royal families. Xing Leopold I of Belgium is her uncle ; Kine' George V of Hanover is her cousin ; the Duke of Saxe-Coburg is her brother- in-law, and the heir-apparent to the throne of Prussia her son-in-law ; the King-Regent of Portugal, the Duke of Brabant, Princess Clementine of France, daughter of the late Kine Louis Philippe and the Archduchess Marie of Austria, are her cousins. Being . thus in Close bonds of consan- guinity with the reigning houses of Prussia, Austria, Belgium, Hanover, Portugal, and the Duchies of Saxony, Queen Victoria, through them, can claim family connexion with the sovereigns of the remaining countries of Europe' all of them, is we have shown above, being in the moat intimate relationship with either Austria, Prussia, or the Saxon Duchies. Even among the non-sovereign families of Germany, Queen Victoria has many relations. Prince Charles ef Leiningen., Lieutenant-General in the service of Bavaria, is her brother-in-law; and his Consort, Countess Marie of Klebelsberg, is her sieter-in-law, or rather wee, for she waidivoreed from the Prince in 1848, after a union of nineteenyears. Their eldest son, PrinceErnest, born in 1830, is a Lieutenant in the British Navy; and the-second, Prince Edward, born in 1833, is a Captain in the Austrian service. Another sister- in-law of her Majesty is Princess Anne of Leiningen, who married the mediatized Prince of Ifohenlohe-Langenburg, and one of whose sons, Prince Victor, born 1833, is, like his cousin Ernest, Lieutenant in the British Navy. These maternal relations of Queen Victoties may be traced far even into the nobility of 'Germany, as-the houseof Leiningen is split inteeeven branches, the members of only one of which have right to the title of Prince, while the others —they.ofLeiningen-Hardenbum, LeiningeneReudenamEeiningen- Westerburg, Leaningen-Heidesheien-Fn&enloug, eke.—are mere Counts of the ci-devairt Holy Roman Empire. To bullish a list of those connexions, however, would lead us too far ; and we conclude our analysis of European royalty with this last hasty glance ether Majesty's German cousins.