DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.
The close of this year was marked by an event that filled the nation with mourning; this was the death of the idolized hope of a free nation, the Princess Charlotte: she whose looks of health and gladdening smiles had been long hailed by the nation with heartfelt satisfaction by her future subjects, expired on the 6th of November, after giving birth to a still-born child. The indications of sorrow on this event becoming known were unusually general and sincere. The civic procession and entertainment on the Lord Mayor’s Day was abandoned; public entertainments were suspended; and on the 19th, the day of her interment, every shop was closed, and funeral sermons were preached in churches and chapels to large and attentive congregations. The day of her funeral was one of voluntary humiliation, and of sorrowful meditation on the instability of human happiness. Brief as were the days of this good princess, she had not lived in vain; her life was a bright illustration of piety and virtue. “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.”