she sank into utter despair; and it was long, long, ere she could arouse herself from the apathy it created, so as to be aware that she still had her child to comfort and console her. At length the blissful idea that she was a mother brought comparative tranquillity to her mind.

"Yes, I am a mother," she exclaimed, with a holy exultation. "Hush, all external things, let me enter into the inner chamber of my soul, and dwell with deliberate ecstasy on that sublime consciousness. Yes, I am a mother! I have a babe of my own, a precious feeble creature who will depend on me for every sustaining help, who will actually draw its own vital support from my very being. Oh! pure be the nutriment of this breast for thee! pure be its thoughts when cradling thy rest! What, shall I always despair?" she continued; "shall I always be a prey to sorrow? shall I never have reliance on that Providence who promises to aid those who trust in Him? He has blest me in my child, and He will bless me yet in its contrite father."

CHAPTER IV.

Oh, the dark days of vanity! while here
How tasteless! and how terrible when gone!

Gone! they ne'er go; when past they haunt us still,
The spirit walks of ev'ry day deceas'd,

And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns.

Young's Night Thoughts.

The ministers who were yet faithful to the real interests of their misguided monarch, and who beheld him with fear and consternation sink deeper and deeper into the vices which were ruining his constitution, and threatening the ruin of his kingdom, advised him, as the surest means of separating him from his dissolute associates, and alluring him from the dissipations they so recklessly encouraged, to travel for a time, to recruit his health, and enlarge his views of men and manners.

Christian, almost satiated with the pleasures he could so easily command, caught with avidity at the idea of the new ones awaiting him in other countries; he, therefore, instantly conceded to the suggestion, and taking a hasty leave of his young consort, set out with a splendid retinue to visit the court of his brother-in-law, George the Third, of England.

He was received with the greatest magnificence and splendour, the virtuous and domestic George easily believing, as he was informed, that the queen, his sister's, recent confinement and consequent delicate health, had alone prevented her accompanying her husband; had he known the truth, Christian would have been far from welcome; as it was, his presence created universal joy, and

a series of the most gorgeous entertainments followed in rapid succession, to amuse and gratify the handsome and popular young king. After seeing everything worthy of observation in that vast and flourishing country, Christian and his suite passed into Holland, from thence to Paris, and was on the eve of setting out for Italy, when he received the account of some serious misunderstandings having arisen between the three queens-his wife, his mother-in-law, Mary of Brunswick, and his grandmother; he hastened his return home to Denmark.

On his arrival he was considerably astonished at the change a few months had effected in the personal appearance of Caroline Matilda; her girlish figure had ripened into the full maturity of womanly beauty; her countenance, always lovely, had, from her early sorrows, assumed an expression of pensive tenderness and dignity, touching in the extreme; while her understanding, enlarged by experience and reflection, lent a charm to all she said.

The unaffected warmth of her reception, the total absence of all reproach, and the undisguised satisfaction she evinced at her husband's return, strengthened the impression her charms and good sense had made, and there was every probability that had Christian been left to follow his own inclinations, that, more enamoured of the queen than at their nuptials, now conscious of her immeasurable superiority over every other woman who had captivated his fickle heart, he would have realized the one fond hope so long cherished, and lived in perfect love and harmony with her again. But there were those still about the court whose interest it was to prevent this desirable re-union-those who knew that if once the virtuous wife obtained the ascendency over the mind of her husband, which is the natural result of high principles, blended with example, and that devoted self-abnegating affection so peculiarly the characteristic of a sincere and deeply-rooted love like the queen's, their influence would cease, and their anticipated aggrandizement vanish into the nothingness of a brilliant but empty dream.

Vague and uncertain rumours of the infidelity of the destined Caroline Matilda penetrated even into the domestic privacy of the absorbed young couple, but not absolute enough to shake the confidence of the king. The conspirators, finding this, determined to strike a decisive blow at once, and therefore openly charged her with harbouring a passion inimical to the peace and honour of his majesty.

The queen's own inadvertent conduct at this time in some measure confirmed these atrocious assertions. Conscious of her innocence, and her utter abhorrence of injuring Christian, even in thought, she treated with disdainful scorn the base insinuations of the fiends who sought her destruction, placing no restraint upon her outward actions, and endeavouring to show, by her sovereign

contempt, how little she regarded them. But, alas! that by which she intended to confound her enemies only furnished them with what they were pleased to term, blacker proofs against her.

The king had taken out with him, and afterwards brought back, a young physician named Struensee, a man of pre-eminent talents, unswerving integrity, prepossessing manners, and a pleasing and graceful exterior.

During their travels, by his enlarged views, disinterested conduct, undeviating attentions, and that delicate and refined tact, only highly cultivated minds display in their intercourse with their superiors, he had become especially endeared to Christian, and had gained considerable power over him, and was, in fact, mainly instrumental in cementing that union between him and his consort, whose first indications he hailed with cordial and heartfelt satisfaction.

The king, to testify his continued regard, and to reward the merit he knew Struensee really possessed, distinguished him by marks of the highest favour, making him first minister, with unlimited political sway, while the queen, grateful for the happiness she enjoyed through his benevolence, showed him the most flattering attentions on all occasions-attentions which he never for one moment thought of abusing; nay, so fully aware was he of the affected misconstruction placed on those innocent attentions by his enemies and hers, that, in his zeal to save her, he took the liberty of venturing to caution the queen against the danger she ran in so openly honouring him with those attentions, and he implored her, with all the sincerity of a true friend, to be more guarded, for her own sake.

"What," exclaimed the queen, indignantly, "would any one dare to insinuate that I have other motive in those attentions than to show the gratitude I feel, to reward virtue, and to honour the man whom my husband delights to honour, for his uprightness and honesty? Let them breathe their calumnious whispers, Struensee; secure in conscious innocence, I defy their malice to

injure me. No, if there is justice above it must recoil on the slanderers themselves."

"Alas! madam, conscious innocence may be, and is, doubtless, sufficient in the eyes of God, but it is not enough in the eyes of man, if even the shadow of indiscretion can offer a pretence for calumny. The malignant ones who envy the favourites of kings, and whose hearts are incapable of comprehending disinterested generosity, and attach an occult and sinister meaning to the most open and candid actions, seek my ruin, seizing on the marks of distinction with which your majesty honours me as proofs of undeniable guilt, or, at least, so they persuade others to believe."

"What others? Others, indeed! Who would give a moment's credence to their monstrous and shallow falsehoods? The slightest investigation would reveal their total want of foundation."

"True, madam; but the public will not take the trouble to investigate; too eager for news, it gladly believes, without going to the source from whence reports spring; and, alas! it receives far more favourably whatever tends to injure and villify, than that which is calculated to raise virtue, or increase respect for goodness. Your enemies know your perfect, your unsullied innocence; they also know mine, know that the angels above are scarcely regarded more holily by me than is the august partner of my sovereign; but that will not save us, lady; no, we are both doomed for exercising that righteous influence over one whose fine faculties are already partially impaired by the excesses into which he has been led by these traitorous wretches. Yet, if I alone could be the victim, rejoicingly would I, by a willing death, appease their hatred; but, oh! to think my young and idolized queen must be sacrificed too, to the Moloch of detestable envy, overwhelms me with horror-unmans me quite."

"And can you suffer your really superior mind to be shaken and intimidated by a few of the most idle words malice ever gave utterance to? Can you be content to submit to the ruin you imagine they threaten without one effort to escape it? I am not so easily alarmed, nor so yielding; I know that the timidity of innocence only strengthens the audacity of our oppressors, and that by fearing their machinations, instead of defying them, we allow them to triumph over us. Now, to prove to you how utterly I disregard these formidable enemies, how perfectly impossible I feel it is for them to injure me in the opinion of my beloved husband, and how in accordance it is with his desire that I should treat you with every kindness, I intend in future that you shall accompany me everywhere in public, even to-night to the theatre." "Madam, I implore you, for your own sake, consider--"

"No more, sir; your queen commands your attendance. Poor Struensee!" she added, in a milder tone, "fear nothing, the king knows my affection for him, that is enough; that will protect us both, I feel assured."

CHAPTER VI.

Oh! think what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots and their last fatal periods.
Oh! 'tis a dreadful interval of time,

Fill'd up with horror, and big with death.

Addison's Cato.

Nothing but the extreme youth of the queen, and the blind confidence she placed in the king's revived affection for her, could palliate or excuse the imprudences she now committed, really compromising her reputation in the eyes of the public-a reputation she would have died to preserve unstained, under the delusive idea that by thus openly defying her enemies she should defeat them.

Too often woman, in her ignorance of evil, from very thoughtlessness alone, and led away by the vivacity of youth, that pauses not to weigh the consequences of aught it undertakes, provokes those censures, and entails those suspicions on her character, which remain as a brand on it to the close of life, causing her to suffer, although innocent, incredible misery and mortification; being condemned by appearances, she never can justify herselfthe fiat of public disapprobation has been fulminated against her. A virtuous woman should seem so-the wife of Cæsar must not be suspected.

Caroline Matilda, according to her design, was accompanied everywhere by Struensee, who, lulled as well as herself into a fatal security by the cessation of the rumours, which had first excited so powerful an alarm, and the continued affection which the king manifested towards the queen, resumed his wonted confidence, and was again the active and indefatigable minister of state. But what he thought had ceased for ever, what the queen thought her courage had destroyed, was only the temporary hush of malice to concentrate all its force, like the brief pause in the storm-blast ere it rushes on in its last mighty fury of overwhelming destruction.

It was at the termination of a masked ball given in the royal palace that the conspirators resolved to bring their diabolical scheme to a final issue, by seizing on the person of the queen, Struensee, and all those who were attached to them.

Accordingly, as soon as every one had retired for the night, fatigued with the excitement and gaiety of the scene, they met in a remote part of the palace to mature their operations. The first thing to be effected, to ensure success, was to gain over the king as a partizan; this was accomplished by Rantzan, the chief of the plotters, rushing unceremoniously into his majesty's bed-room, with every demonstration of alarm and agitation, assuring him,