Should it be imagined that the specification of certain incongruities is too severe, the Author solicits credence for an assurance that he has exclusively referred to the excrescence and not the character. There is not an individual in the world whom he has intended to deride.
The vindication he has offered in the sequel is totally disinterested; the persons referred to are entirely unknown to him.
The term Moral prefixed to this Address, may appear disingenuous.—Much difficulty arose in fixing on a single appellation which should embrace a distinguished feature in the address, and yet contra-distinguish it from one purely medical.
Should any hint he has dropt prove useful in quieting unwarrantable fear, or in establishing more safe and happy arrangements in child-birth, or in conducing to a more generous and comprehensive treatment of female diseases or diseases in general, the Author will be most amply recompensed.
Great Prescot-Street,
Nov. 24, 1817.
AN ADDRESS.
There is not an event within the recollection of the British nation, which has called forth more universal and unfeigned sorrow than the death of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales.
The earliest indications of her character,[1] as well as its progressive developement, concurred to mark a strong and independent mind; yet did she also afford a striking example of the compatibility of a cultivated mind and uncontrolled judgment, with that purely feminine delicacy of manner, which designates the sex, and constitutes one of its peculiar excellences. Although she occupied a station which denied the accustomed facilities of appreciating human excellence, yet the agreement of testimony, passing through diverse channels, fully authenticates the inference, that she was not merely elevated by royal ancestry, but was distinguished by superiority of natural faculties and intellectual attainments, and by a decided attachment to the Protestant religion. Nevertheless she did not degenerate into masculine habits—a degeneracy, which not unfrequently renders unamiable, a female enriched with uncommon mental endowments.
Having chosen retirement, with her excellent consort, His Serene Highness Prince Leopold, we had probably long been ignorant of the prospective blessings which awaited our favoured land, had it not pleased Him who regulates the world by his providence, to transplant her hence, at a time the most unexpected, and in a manner the most interesting. At this moment her virtues shine with an almost overwhelming lustre; and whilst every eye fixes itself on her pre-eminent station, and the imagination brings to the present hour future years of sorrow, we hear an almost consentaneous exclamation—the Hope of England is departed!