his death, and finally to receive the condolence of visitors, laying the while on a state bed of mourning, in a chamber lighted with tapers, the walls, floor, and ceiling covered with black cloth. Queen Adelaide stayed by her husband to the last, then laid his unconscious head upon the pillow, and quietly withdrawing to her chamber, looked for consolation to other sources than the visits of courtiers shaping their faces to the humour of the hour.

The respect of the royal widow for the deceased King did not cease here. On Saturday night, the 8th of July, she attended the funeral ceremony, at Windsor, being present in the royal closet during the whole ceremony. She is the only Queen of England who saw a King, her Consort, deposited in the tomb.

In the following month, the Dowager Queen left Windsor Castle, to which the shouts of a joyous people welcomed her successor. From that time, she may be said to have commenced her own course of dying. Her story is really, henceforward, but the diary of an invalid. The nation, through the legislature, condoled with her upon her bereavement, and as she descended the steps of the throne to resume her old unostentatious privacy, there was not a man in the realm who failed, in some wise, to greet her, or who did not acknowledge that she had borne greatness with honour, and had won the hearts of a people who had been once forward to censure her.

From this period, her life was one of suffering, but it was a suffering that never rendered her selfish. In her worst hours of anguish, her ear was open, her heart touched, her hand ready to relieve her sisters in affliction, and to remedy the distresses of all who really stood in need of the royal succour. For nearly twelve years she may be said to have been dying. The sunniest and most sheltered spots in this country were visited by her, but without resulting in permanent relief. The winter of 1837-8 was spent at St. Leonard's. An attack of bronchitis, in the autumn of the latter year, drove her for refuge and remedy to Malta, where the church raised by her at Valetta,—the cathedral church of Gibraltar,—at an expense of £10,000, will long serve to perpetuate her memory. On her return in May 1839, she became, for a time, the guest of various noble hosts in England. In 1840, she visited the lakes, and established her home, subsequently and for a brief period, at Sudbury. Her next homes,—the frequent changes indicating increased virulence of disease,—were at Canford Hall, Dorset; Witley Court, Worcester; and Cashiobury, near Watford: thence she departed on one short and last visit to her native home, from which she returned so ill that, in 1847, she repaired, as a last resource, to Madeira, whither she was conveyed in a royal frigate.

The progress of the sick Queen over the water, was not without its stateliness and solemnity, mixed with a certain joyousness, acceptable to, though not to be shared in by the royal invalid. Before the squadron departed from Spithead, on Sunday, the 10th of October, full divine service was celebrated on board the Howe, the ship's chaplain reading the prayers, the Queen Dowager's preaching the sermon, on a text altogether foreign to so rare and interesting an occasion:—"But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets," (Rom. iii. 21.) After service, the squadron stood forth to sea, no incident marking its way till the following Tuesday. On that day, a bird winging from the Bay of Biscay, fluttered on to the Howe, perched on the yards, and then flew from one point to another, and back again, as if he had made of the gallant steamer a home. A sailor, named Ward, attempted to capture the little guest, in pursuing which into the chains, being more eager than considerate, he fell headlong over into the waves, while the Howe pursued her forward way. In an instant after alarm was given, however, the life-buoy was floating on the waters, a boat was pulling lustily towards the seaman, and the Howe slipped her tow ropes, and made a circuit astern to pick up rescued and rescuers. Ward, meanwhile, had by skilful swimming, gained fast hold of the buoy, and was brought on board little the worse for his plunge and his temporary peril. Queen Adelaide was more moved by this accident than the man was himself. On the following Sunday, the Queen was better able than she had previously been, to turn the accident to some account, for Ward's own benefit. Her Majesty had attended the usual service on board, and had listened to another sermon from the ship's chaplain, this time on a subject as unappropriate as that of the preceding Sunday:—"And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission," (Heb. ix. 22),—the ship's company were repairing to their respective quarters, when Ward was told that the Queen Dowager requested to see him. If this message disconcerted him more than his fall into the Bay of Biscay, he soon recovered that self-possession which no man loses long, who has a proper feeling of self-respect. Besides, the widowed Queen, in her intercourse with persons of humble station, wore habitually that air—