BOOKS.

NEKLE'S LIFE OF THE DUKE OF KENT.* IT would seem that royalty is fated to be unfortunate in do- mestic relations. A better "family man" than George the Third it would be difficult to find. He paid the greatest attention to the education and habits of his children, and he set them an example in his own person such as even few private gentlemen offer. Queen Charlotte was equally attentive to her family, whatever unpo- pular peculiarities she might possess; and no one could accuse either parent of inculcating habits of extravagance, or of allowing any approach to irregularity of conduct, so far as they could prevent it ; though we think it not unlike) y that notions of the royal na- ture not quite consistent with the public opinion that wits and phi- lesophers had been inculcating for more than half a century, as well as ideas of the necessity of its external splendour which parental parsimony did not furnish means to support, were in- fused into all the children. Be this as it may, nearly all the sons broke loose, and went in different ways according to their natures, —the Duke of York one way, the Duke of Clarence another, the Duke of Cumberland another, the " spem gregis " very many ways. The Dukes of Kent and Sussex too went their own way, though more respectably ; and in short, the Duke of Cambridge was the only one of the sons who did not give uneasiness or offence to the paternal mind, either by public scrapes or public opposition.

Of all the children, Edward Duke of Kent was the one that in regularity of conduct, business habits, activity, and sober energy, approached most nearly to the character of his father ; he was an enlarged and very much improved edition of George the Third. Yet he was the only son whom the King, the Queen, the Royal Family, and the Ministry, (no doubt, under orders,) not only ne- glected and opposed, but positively spited and tormented through life. The reason of this has been sought for in the liberal political and religious opinions of the Duke of Kent : but the ill-feeling seemed to begin before such opinions could have been displayed. The Duke of Sussex, too, was as liberal, and in his marriage ex- hibited more public opposition; yet, though coldly looked upon, he was not so positively oppressed as Kent. The subject is perhaps what the late Mr. D'Israeli would have termed a branch of secret history ; unless we assume that the independence, firmness, and severity of spirit which characterized the Duke in after life, dis- played itself in boyhood in a manner that deeply sinned against the formalities of a palace. The only ground, however, that we have for this conjecture, is an anecdote told by the Duke's tutor, the late Bishop Fisher, in the presence of Mr. Neale himself. " At Kew Palace there was a time-piece highly prized by George the Third : it was a clumsy affair; there was nothing particular in its construc- tion, or ingenious about its movement. The only attraction it possessed arose from its historical associations. It had belonged, if my memory rightly serves me, to the youthful Duke of Gloucester, son of Queen. Anne. One morning the pedestal of this relic was found vacant, and the time-piece itself lying on the ground, a wreck. It had been battered by some heavy instru- ment, and lay shivered in fragments. Repair was hopeless. The dial was damaged irreparably. The King's displeasure was not light; and immediate inquiries were instituted. They issued in no satisfactory result : the culprit could not even be guessed at; no one had witnessed the disaster ; no one could explain its occurrence. After many hours had elapsed, by mere chance a question was put to Prince Edward. I did it,' was the instant and un- hesitating rely But,' said one party, anxious to screen the intrepid boy, (I suspected, from a little tremor in the voice, that it was the Bishop him- self,) Your Royal Highness did it by accident ? "No ; I did it intention- ally.' But your Royal Highness regrets what you have done ? " No; net at all' Not sorry ? "No ; I may be sorry for it tomorrow, but I certainly am not sorry for it now.' It was impossible to get over this avowal. The Prince was punished, and not slightly. The Bishop paused, and then added in a low but emphatic tone, ' When was it otherwise, in childhood or man- hood ? when, and where ? '

" Hrs. Fisher interposed. The tenderest and most vigilant of nurses, she saw at a glance the invalid's emotion, and was most desirous to terminate it; her wish was to stem the tide of these reminiscences at once.

" The anecdote is complete, is it not, Bishop ? ' "'Not quite. The boy was father to the man. In this trait of character lies the secret of many of the after sorrows of his life. With him truth was omnipotent : he could not dissemble. Were those who in a measure con- trolled his destiny able justly to estimate his character? could they appreciate it? did they ? I fear not.'

The severe domestic discipline which George the Third main- tained over his family, to the great delight of that large class of "respectable people" who are taken by appearances, was carried out more steadily in the case of the Duke of Kent than could be well managed as regarded his elder brothers, who remained at home. In 1785, in his eighteenth year, Prince Edward entered the Army ; and was sent from the gayeties and temptations of town to prosecute his military studies at Luneburg in Hanover, under a German Commandant and Governor. Here the persecutions and troubles of his life began, and may be said to have never ceased. His superior officer and tutor was a military martinet, after the strictest Prussian fashion of the day ; he also illustrated in per- fection the then popular notion of the pride and meanness of the Germans. The allowance for Prince Edward was a thousand a year ; out of which the sum of a guinea and a half per week, sometimes melted down by military forfeits to twenty-two shil- lings, was allowed him for personal expenses ; the tutor main- taining the establishment on the most niggardly footing in order to make a purse for himself. Mr. Neale also represents the Duke as complaining in after life of having been subjected to a syatem of espionage and having his letters to England intercepted; while he • The Life of Field-Marshal his Royal Highness Edward Duke of Kent; with Ex- tracts from his Correspondence, and Original Letters never before published. By Erskine Neale, M.A., Rector of Kirton, 8Le., &c. Author of " The Closing Scene,''

• " The Bishop's Daughter," &c. Published by Bentley.

justly enough observes, that the military system in which the Prince was then trained gave him those habits of exactness and severity that subsequently rendered him unpopular with the British Army. After a year of discomfort, Prince Edward was removed to Geneva, but still under the same control, with still greater vexation. The allowance was increased to 6,000/. a year ; but the Prince's pocket-money was kept the same : he was subjected to the more than annoyance of having a valet forced upon him whom he disliked, and whom he suspected of being a spy ; while at Geneva he was thrown into the company of young Englishmen of rank very much inferior to his own but pos- sesarng a 'far larger command of money, and making of course a much better appearance than himself. The natural result was the foundation of aload of debt, which pressed upon him through life, and may be said to have embittered it. Both the Duke and his biographer, it appears, attributed all he suffered to the King : but we think that unlikely. The King, with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York before his eyes, might naturally enough wish his younger sons removed from London; and he had very strict notions of authority and discipline ; but the niggardliness of the whole management would seem more ascribable to the parsimo- nious Queen, and to supply evidence of the opinion generally entertained, that she narrowly and unjustly favoured the Germans. The Prince at last found the life he led so irksome, that he secretly left Geneva and returned to London. It was no doubt a disre- spectful course, but nothi e to be compared 'with that breach of naval discipline which induced the Duke of Clarence to bring home his ship because he got tired of the station to which the Admiralty had ordered him. Prince Edward, however, was directly subjected to a punishment intended to be as severe ; and the indi- rest effects were perhaps more unfortunate, by increasing the evil estimate in which he was held. He was peremptorily ordered to Gibraltar, and to embark within twenty-tour hours after the re- ceipt of the order. On the night of his departure ho was admitted to a cold and formal interview with the King, of a few minutes' duration, and then packed off for garrison duty, without any out- fit or the means of purchasing one.

The consequence was an addition to his debt ; which in the course of years was considerably increased by ill-luck,—no fewer than six equipments, valued.at 30,0001. in the aggregate, having. been lost by wreck or taken by the enemy. Why they were net insured does not appear.

The exile to Gibraltar, however, gave Prince Edward an oppor- tunity of seeing hard service, which he would net have attained had he been a favoured son. Having been appointed Colonel of the Fusiliers, ho carried out his German notions of discipline so stringently as to render himself very unpopular with the men. In the case of another Colonel this might have passed unnoticed; but ears at home were greedy for complaints against the King's son, and in 1791 he was ordered to Canada as a further punishment His nominal allowance at Geneva while under Baron Wangenheim had been 6,000/. ; when sent on service in the public capacity of Colonel of a regiment, it was cut down to 4,000/. Finding this sum insufficient for his position, and. that his debts were still increasing, the Prince, in 1793, applied for permission to join the army under Sir Charles Grey, who was then engaged in the West Indies, waging Pitt's little war against the little French settlements. This permission was granted; and the Prince, in one of his melancholy, letters, written some time afterwards, seems to have entertained an angry notion that some had hopes of getting rid of him by the fortune of war. If such were really the case, there was a double disappointment. He not only escaped the " bloody war" and the " sickly season," but greatly distinguished himself on every occasion. At St. Lucia he commanded the Grenadiers, whom he led to the assault on Memo Fortune, and when the post was carried, planted the British colours with his own hand. For his gallant conduct in the West Indies the Prince received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament—the only member of his family who earned that compliment for services actually rendered in the field; but it was probably no recommendation to favour.

He could not, however, be altogether overlooked. An accident compelled his return to England : on his recovery, Prince Edward, now Duke of Kent, was appointed . Commander-in-chief of the Forces in British North America, and took up his residence at

'Halifax in Nova Scotia. Of his conduct there Reliburton has left a general pan military rule, in a letter written for the purpose of th• is biography.

" At the time of his arrival the habits of the garrison were very dissipated. The dissipation, indeed, was not confined to the military ; the civil society partook of it largely. It was no unusual thing,. to see gentlemen join a com- pany of ladies in a state of intoxication, which would now be deemed very disgraceful, but which was then merely laughed at by the ladies themselves. His Royal Highness at once discountenanced such conduct. Among the military he soon put an end to it by parading the troops every morning at five o dock ; and as he always attended himself, no officer could of course feel it a hardship to do so. Themiprovement which thus took place among the gradually extended to their civil acquaintances; and his Royal Highness thus became instrumental in improving both. "Gambling also prevailed to a greatextent ; but his Rosa' Highness never touched a card ; land as the early parades compelled its former military votaries to retire early to bed, gambling as well as drinking fell into disuse." In 1800 the Duke of Kent left North America, accompanied by various valedictory addresses. in 1802 he received his unfortu- nate appointment as Governor of Gibraltar. At that time the Bri- tish Army, though better than it had been at the breaking out uf the Revolutionary war, had by no means reached the state of died- pline to which it was afterward brought by Arthur Wellesley and the Peninsular campaigns. The garrison of Gibraltar, alike removed from the presence of an enemy and the check of public opinion, was in a state of scandalous disorder and disorganization. Drunk- enness was universal ; the consequent mortality great; and the state of the soldiery almost incredible. Walsh, who in 1803 pub- lished a Journal of the late Campaign in Egypt, declares that "in no part of the world exist such repeated scenes of intoxication ; and speaks of " soldiers and sailors literally lying in the streets in the most degrading state of inebriety." Mr. Neale gives a still more disgraceful description of the garrison.

On the very day the Duke landed on the Bock,- he had an immediate opportunity of forming a judgment of the exterior appearance of the troops, as they assembled in review order on the Grand Parade, and afterwards formed a line from thence to the Lieutenant-Governor's quarters, where the Duke at first took up his residence. To describe the slovenliness of their appearance, the total want of uniformity in their dress and appointments, the inaccuracy of their movements, and the unsteadiness of both officers and men, is beyond the power of language. Nor was their state of discipline less obnoxious to censure. The grossest irregularities characterized the bearing of the men when off duty. In the public streets, they might be seen by scores in a state of the most disgraceful intoxication, and altogether so clothed as to resemble a roving horde of lawless plunderers rather than drilled and organized soldiers. " Complaints of their unrestrained licentiousness were rife on every side. " There were instances of the soldiers, at noonday, having seized females and carried them behind the bastions to brutalize and violate their persons by force. This was attested on oath.

" Discipline had become a byword. Every man did that which was 4 right in his own eyes.' The Duke remained a silent, inactive, and dis- gusted spectator of such scenes for some days : he knew his duty, and al- though determined to do it, wished previously to ascertain whether the men were absolutely depraved and incorrigible, or whether the officers had been (as was certainly the fact) culpably careless, supine, and inattentive to their duty. His Royal Highness saw with great regret that much reproach was imputable to the latter. In the mean time, there did not pass a single day without complaint that the soldiers had committed some outrage on the per- sons or depredation on the property of the inhabitants ; of mutiny towards the noncommissioned officers, or of Berne military crime, such as drunken- sees on guard or negligence of sentries on their posts : of minor offences the number was beyond belief."

It was to remedy this state of things that the Duke of Kent was appointed, with full powers, and with promises of support both from the Ministry and from his brother the Duke of York, then Commander-in-chief. By stringent regulations, by frequent and -early parades, and by closing many of the wine-houses, (though their licences were a source of income to himself,) the Duke succeeded in restoring some degree of order, and, the best test of all, diminishing the mortality. This conduct of course was unpopular with the men, and not very favourably looked upon by the officers. Mr. Neale tells some apocryphal-looking stories about a conspiracy, in which some of the officers, headed by the second in command, were engaged to promote a mutiny among the men. The general scheme was to seize the Duke, put him on board a ship in the harbour, and send him home ; but a darker pro- ject it is said, was entertained by some, and they intended to shoot him in the melee. On Christmas eve, 1802, an outbreak took place among the Royals : it was put down by the grenadier company of the Twenty-fifth, who fired upon a large party, of the rioters sent to entice that corps to join them ; and five of them were wounded. On the 27th December, the Twenty-fifth got drunk; and about a third. of them riotously attacked the barracks of the Royals ; but were repulsed by the artillery, assisted by the former mutinous regiment. In consequence of this outbreak, the Duke was ordered to return home, " to explain in person the circumstances connected with the recent events that have occurred at Gibraltar." This, however, was a recall. He was not, indeed, deprived of his office, (which was administered by a Lieutenant-Governor) ; but all the departments of Government shifted off hearing his explanation ; nor, when the Duke of York some years afterwards wrote to him frankly that he never would be employed again, could all his ef- forts obtain a court-martial, inquiry, or indeed an answer. So far as military or official life was concerned, he was a doomed man. Mr. Neale states that his recall from Gibraltar was said to have been against the opinion of the King, and that the Prince of Wales loudly protested against its impolioy and injustice ; but that the Duke of York " insisted" on the recall.

During all this time, the Duke's pecuniary embarrassments were increasing : indeed, embarrassment formed what in epic poetry would be called the action of the piece,—the beginning, the middle, and the end. The debt, begun in Germany and increased at Geneva for private expenditure, had. the additional load of military expenses and equipment efided. to it at Gibraltar. In America it was swelled by the expenses of staff, public table, and the style expected for a Prince of the Royal Blood ; a style, we suspect, ever present to the mind of the Duke of Kent, and to which everything else gave way. Whether this debt really needed to have been increased to the amount it reached, we do not undertake to' -determine. There is no doubt but that the whole treatment of the Duke of Kent was one of incredible meanness, spite, and purposed degradation, let it emanate from whom it would. The Dukes of York and Clarence received their Parliamentary provisions soon after they came of age ; the Duke of Kent's was postponed till he was thirty-three, causing an annual disadvantage to him of 12,0001. The Duke of York when he went to Holland received upwards of 70,0001., and had besides the Bishopric of Osnaburg, worth about 16,0001. a year. The Duke of Clarence on three several occasions had money granted him to pay his debts. The Duke of Kent had no extraneous assistance whatever. The King, it is said, promised to pay his Gibraltar debt, and Pitt and Adding- ton to make up the disadvantage arising from the long delay of his Parliamentary pension: but neither of these promises was ever fulfilled. The Duke himseW made frequent efforts to reduce the accumulation of debt, and sometimes succeeded, by making sacri- fices, or placing his whole income in the hands of trustees ; but he never shook off its load, which towards the close of his career pressed heavily upon him. It is remembered i by many, that on his marriage, he and the Dutchess lived abroad in order to pay off some of his English encumbrances. Both the Duke and the Dutchess, however, were exceedingly anxious that the present Queen should be born in 'England. This was only accomplished with difficulty, and by the aid of private friends. The following is Mr. Neale's account of the embarrassments which attended the birth of one who is now the most powerful monarch in the world.

" In a long letter, addressed to Dr. Budge, dated Amorbach, 19th March 1819, the Duke says-

" 'The interesting situation of the Dutchess causes me hourly anxiety ; and you, who so well know my views and feelings, can well appreciate how eagerly desirous I am to hasten our departure for Old England. The mantis thought likely to occur about the end of next month. My wish is, that it may take place on the 4th of June, as this is the birthday of my revered father ; and that the child, too, like lain, may be a Briton-born.' "In this patriotic desire the Dutchess fully participated. Fresh sacri- fices became necessary, in order to enable them to fulfil what was considered by their Royal Highnesses as no less a duty to the Royal Family and to the country, than to themselves and their expected infant : but so difficult was it found to procure the means for accomplishing this important object, that her Royal Highness had completed the seventh month of her pregnancy, before, at its most dangerous period, she was enabled to set out towards Eng- land. Being literally. prevented,' was the expression of her royal husband, from moving until then, through the want of means to meet the expenses of the journey.'

"One can with difficulty imagine a position more trying to the feelings of a husband and a prince. In his case such an exigency would appear incre- dible, were it not supported by ineontestible evidence. That it,brands with cruelty the memory of other parties, and that written docunients, still ex- tant, support the charge, is a fact that defies contradiction. "The Duke's exigencies were known to the luxurious Sybarite at Carlton House. They were no secret to the Premier, Lord Liverpool. The Regent and his Minister were fully cognizant of the Duke's intense, restless, and in- describable anxiety to reach kngland. They were aware of the duation of the Dutchess. They knew—none better than they—that that clear-sighted woman was tremblingly alive to the importance of her child being born in England, close to the seat of government, and under the surveillance, so to speak, of the Great Officers of State. They knew that both Duke and Dutch-

depreeated the idea of their thild being born abroad; of its first seeing the light in a retired spot in Getnmuy, and being subjected to the thousand- and-one rumours that might hereafter be raised relative to its identity. Where was the affection of a brother ? where the liberality of a prince ? where the ceaseless jealousy for the honour and interests of his house, which one would suppose would animate the heir apparent to a throne ? They slept. "Not the slightest effort was made by either Regent or Minister to relieve that noble spirit from the crushing anxiety which then oppressed him. No tender of the slightest pecuniary assistance from those in power greeted him. Firm, devoted, but untitled, and comparotively speaking humble friends in England, made the requisite remittances, and surmounted the difficulty. The eldest brother, the Regent, the virtual head of his house, was, -if the slightest reliance is to be placed on written documents, desirous only to sur- round his path with future and fresh perplexities.

" A gentleman whose opportunities for information were groat, and whose testimony is above all suspicion, thus writes me in reference to this moment- ous period-

" The Regent, latterly, took great umbrage at the Duke, on two accounts. First, for the facts,' for such they are, which he introduced in his memorial to the Government for the payment of his claims for remuneration for losses, and for fulfilment of the promises made to him by Mr. Pitt. These facts re- lated to the Duke of Clarence, and to the sums of money which his Royal Highness had received from dovernment. It was foreseen that these state- ments would give great offence ; but the Duke was resolute ; and in the me- morial went—entire. The next time the Duke met his brother, the Regent, at the Spanish Ambassador's, he shook hands with the Dutchess, but took not the slightest notice of the Duke ! Another and further ground of offence was his coming from Amorbach, against the express injunction of the Regent, for the confinement of the Dutchess. It was intimated to him (if I can find his letter on this subject., I will forward it—it is preserved) that he would not be well received. This from a brother!'

"Providentially, no injury resulted from the Dutchess being obliged to travel at so late a period of her pregnancy; and the journey was accomplished in sufficient time to answer the proposed object. On the 24th of May 1819, a little Princess made her appearance at Kensington Palace ;—to be, ere many months passed, fatherless ; and within twenty years from that date, to ascend the throne of England."

Within nine months of the birth of his daughter, the father was no more. He had retired to Sidmouth for the Dutehess's health. In the middle of January, he walked with Captain Conroy in the plantations, and got his boots " thoroughly soaked." Mr. Neale says he intended to change them, but was detained by the smiles of the baby princess : it was reported at the time that he laughed, at the idea of wet boots hurting him. During dinner and the evening, he felt chilly and uncomfortable : his medical adviser, Dr. Wilson, prescribed ; but he declined to take the medicine, thinking he should be better after a night's rest. Next day he was worse ; rapid inflammation of the lungs set in, and hurried him off in a few days, in spite of the most active treatment. He died on the 23d January 1820, in his fifty-third year ; having been born on the 2d November 1767.

The Reverend Mr. Neale appears to have had access to the pa- rrs and correspondence of personal friends of the Duke ; though in some cases he complains of information having been withheld, and in others where it was granted, that the grant was confined to inspection of correspondence, not to the permission of copying. If these limited means were insufficient for a full picture of the Duke of Kent in his private capacity, they were enough to furnish materials for the life of a prince who lived so much in public. His military career was contained in records of some kind : so were his Parliamentary and charitable-meeting exertions,—for he was a steady, active, and most useful patron of numerous institu- tions ; possessing considerable skill in • an alter-dinner audience, and appealing to the pocket at the me ling moment. More

of his pecuniary story was also known than is often the case with embarrassed princes. The Duke, feeling that he had no- thing to conceal, was pertinacious in bringing his case before the Government in formal documents; and those foiling, indirect appeals were made to the public by the Duke's friends, with his sanction, through the press, and finally through Parliament. These things, though forgotten now, caused excitement at the time, and possibly scandal in courtly minds, and are readily accessible to an inquirer.

Mr. Neale has produced a clear narrative of the principal fea- tures in the life of the Duke of Rent, but without superseding the necessity of another biography even with existing materials. The substance of his book is too uncritical, the tone too uniformly pa- negyrical ; the style loose in texture, and too inflated. The au- thor belongs to an indifferent school of composition, having en- grafted the strained loftiness of the popular preacher upon the ar- tificial wordiness of the magazine-writer. A graver fault in bio- graphy, is that dramatizing tendency which is most found among platform divines and Frenchmen, and by which a scanty substra- tum of fact is expanded into a dialogue and scene with internal evidence of the interpolations. This throws an unpleasant air of doubt over many of Mr. Neale's representations : we never feel sure how much is the author's own account, unless he is ac- tually quoting.