Miscellaneous.

The deaths of several royal and remarkable persons abroad are re- corded. That which excites most interest in this country is the death

of the Grand Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha, the father of Prince Albert. He died at Gotha, on the 29th January, after only an hour's illness, of an internal spasmodic affection. The following account of the late Duke is derived from the Gotha Almanack and other sources- " The late Ernest Anthony Charles Louis, Duke of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld, was born on the 2d January 1784, and was consequently in the sixty-first year of his age. He succeeded his father on the 9th December 1806.

"The Duke was twice married : first to Dorothy Louisa Pauline Charlotte Frederica Augusta, daughter of Augustus Duke of Saxe Gotha Altenberg, who died in August 1831. On the 23d December 1832, the Duke married Antoi-

nette Frederica Augusta Maria Annee, Dutchesa of Wurtemburg. By the first marriage the issue was Ernest Augustus Charles Leopold Alexander Edward, Hereditary Prince of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, born on the 21st June 1818, and Albert, (the consort of her Majesty,) born on the 26th August 1819. (The Queen was born the 24th May 1819; and is, therefore, three months older than her husband.) "When, during the war in Germany, which was ended by the peace of Tilsit, Napoleon found that the Hereditary Prince Ernest, the late Duke of Coburg, was at the Prussian head-quarters, he issued a proclamation declaring him his particular enemy, and caused formal possession to be taken of his territories. All the property belonging to the ducal family was seized, and a very heavy contribution imposed on the country, which had already suffered by the passage of the French army. "It was not till the peace of Tilsit, that, by a particular stipulation, the House of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld was reinstated in its possessions. Duke Ernest, however, found the finances dilapidated by the French authorities, the institu- tions entirely ruined, and his country to the last degree impoverished.

"On the 9th December 1806, died the Duke Frederic of Gotha Altenberg; by which event his estates came into the possession of Duke Ernest, by virtue

of the Salic law. He shared at that time the inheritance of Gotha Altenberg with his cousins, the Dukes of Meinengen and Hilburghausen, and left the Duchy of Saalfeld to the Duke of Meinengen. It was thus Duke Ernest ex- changed the title of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld for that of Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha.

"For some time after the demise of the Sovereign Duke, Gotha remained without any regular succession ; the public administration being conducted in

the name of the widow ; until, by a convention dated the 12th November 1826, it was agreed, that the Duke Ernest of Saxe Coburg Saalfeld, brother to Prince Leopold of Coburg, should take possession of the principality for himself and

heirs. His late Serene Highness, in consequence of that convention, assumed the title of Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha as such, and made his solemn entry into Gotha on the 25th of that month. "The deceased Duke was father of his Royal Highness Prince Albert of England ; brother of the King of the Belgians, brother of her Royal Highness the Dutchess of Kent ; uncle of the King of Portugal, the Dutcheas de Ne- mours, and Duke Augustus of Saxe Coburg, the son-in-law of the King of the French."

The Grand Dutchess of Oldenburg died at Oldenburg, on the 27th January, after having given birth to a prince on the previous day. She was daughter of Gustavus the Fourth, the late King of Sweden ; was born in 1807; and was married to the Grand Duke in 1831.

The Archdutchess Maria Carolina Augusta, eldest daughter of the Archduke and Viceroy Rainier and the Archdutchess Elizabeth, died at Vienna, on the 24th January, having almost completed her twenty- third year.

A letter from Stuttgardt announces the death of Prince Louis Chris- tian Augustus of Hohenlohe Langenberg, on the 31st January, in his seventieth year. The Infanta Carlotta, wife of the Infant Don Francisco de Paula, is another of the royal persons who have just left us. She expired at Madrid, on the 29th January, after a severe attack of measles, in her thirty-fourth year. Clever and unscrupulous, though coarse and disliked, the Princess Carlotta had taken an active share in the in- trigues of Spain ; having been the opponent both of Don Carlos and of her sister Maria Christina. She was the sister also of the Dutchess de Berry ; and a fourth sister was married to the Infant Sebastian; all daughters of the late King of Naples.

General Bertrand, Napoleon's faithful adherent, died at Chaleroux on the 1st instant.

Another notable death is that of Boghos Bey, All Pasha's chief Mi- nister in the Government of Egypt. Boghos Youssouf Bey sprang frost an Armenian family, and had risen by his tact in furthering the maneuvres of the Pasha and indulging his hobbies, to be 3linister of Foreign Affairs and of Commerce. He was in his seventy-first year. It has been reported in Cairo, that a Turkish prophet has prophesied the death of Ali Pasha and all his family in this year ; and that the old Viceroy was so much affected by the disastrous prediction, that it made him ill.

The Earl of Bessborough's death confers another title on Viscount Duncannon, but virtually creates no change in the Peerage ; as the Vis- count had already been called to the House 'of Lords, by the title of Baron Duncannon, in 1835. The Earl sank under an attack of in- fluenza, at Canford House, the seat of his younger son, Lord de Man- ley, in Dorsetshire, on Saturday last, at the age of eighty-six. Frede- rick Ponsonby Earl of Bessborough, Viscount Duncannon, county Wexford, Baron Bessborough of Bessborough, county Kilkenny, in Ireland, Baron Ponsonby of Sysonby, in England, and Vice-Admiral of Munster, was born on the 26th January 1758, and succeeded his father in 1793. He was married in 1780, to Henrietta Frances Spencer, daughter of John first Earl Spencer. John William, the present Earl, was born in August 1781; and was married, in 1805, to Maria Fane, daughter of John Earl of Westmoreland, who died in 1834, after having borne a family of fourteen sons and daughters. The eldest son, John George Brabazon, now Viscount Duncannon; was born in 1809. The late Earl's second son, Sir Frederick Cavendish Ponsonby, died in 1837; and the third son, William Francis Spencer Ponsonby, was created Baron de Mauley, by patent, in 1838. His only daughter, Ca- roline, was married to the present Viscount Melbourne, and died in 1828.

The Earl of Carlisle is suffering from an attack of paralysis. The Earl of Aberdeen is indisposed at Argyll House ; having suf- fered for some days from cold and fever.

Tuesday's Gazette contained an order for a Court mourning for tbe Grand Duke of Saxe Coburg Gotha, to commence on the 8th instant.

The Queen has sent a donation of 251. to the fund for restoring the Round Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Cambridge.

A balance-sheet of the public income and expenditure has been printed, by order of the House of Commons. The Standard thus pre- sents the totals and extracts a moral favourable to its proteges the Ministers- " The net income and expenditure of the year are given as follows—

Income 452,582,817 10 2 Expenditure 51,139.514 11 5}

Balauce iu favour of Iacome 1,443,302 18 Se We shall be told, however, as we have been told a hundred times, that all this balance is China money. Let us see how that matter stands: the receipts from China are considerable, but so are the demands upon the account of China, viz.—

Total from China £1,315,209 On the other hand. the China expedition costs X 416.056 Oplum.compensasion paid 1,245,823 ---- £1,661,879

Now, deducting the whole of the China money received from the Chinese ex- penditure, we have thus a balance of loss of 346,6701.; so that if both sides of the China account were struck from the balance-sheet, we ahould have a sur- plus of 1,789,972/. But this is not all : we have another extraordinary item to deal with, viz. 262,000/. on account of the Exchequer-bill forgeries ; raising the bona fide surplus to 2,051,972/.—a surplus of two millions sterling, on the com- mencement of the third year of Sir Robert Peel's Administration. Would any one have believed this possible in February 18411' " The Janus steam-frigate was launched at Chatham on Tuesday, in the presence of Mr. Corry, a Lord of the Admiralty, and several of the local authorities. Its extreme length is 180 feet ; extreme breadth, 30 feet; moulded depth, 29 feet 4 inches; draught of water, (laden,) 11 feet 2 inches. The Janus takes its name from its being fitted with a rudder at each end, only one rudder to remain in place on ordinary oc- casions. The engine will be a rotary engine, invented by the Earl of Dundonald, who designed the vessel.

On Friday, the ship Mary Sharp, Captain Mills, the first of a regular line of Post-office packet-ships for New South Wales, sailed from Gravesend, for Sydney, carrying out all letters which were posted at the General Post-office up to Thursday evening.—Times.

We have reason to know that the negotiations for marrying the Prince Trapani of Naples to the young Queen of Spain are defini- tively broken off. Two negotiations have been commenced—the one between the Carlist party, Don Carlos having abandoned a part of his pretensions, for a marriage between the Queen and the Prince of Astu- rias; and the other having for object the nuptials of the Duke of Cadiz with his royal cousin. Queen Christina has expressed herself favoura- ble to the latter project, since the death of her sister.—Morning Herald.

We have seen a private letter from a party on whose intelligence we can rely, stating that several gentlemen had left St. Petersburg for Cabal; that some of them are spies under the guise of naturalists ; and that we should be informed by him of their names.—Morning Herald.

A chair, which had been in Mr. O'Connell's family for three hundred years, was received a few days since at Washington, as a present from the great Agitator to Mr. Robert Tyler. The President of the United States was the first person to sit in it.—Philadelphia Letter.