Page:The Queens of England.djvu/567

 CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK. 515 testified by several charitable foundations, visits to public buildings, and personal attendances on the indigent and dis- tressed. The children of the poor would often follow her foot- steps in her walks amid the palace gardens, being sure of a kind and affectionate welcome. The peculiar love of the princess for children afterwards was painfully injurious to her. When seventeen years of age, a mutual attachment is said to have been formed between Caroline and a German prince of much reputation and merit, which, however, for reasons of state, and from motives of family pride was discountenanced as soon as discovered by the Duke of Brunswick who in this matter was influenced by his consort. The young prince after- wards fell in battle, and the princess, whose heart had been much affected by the intervention of the parental authority, was irretrievably wounded by the loss of the object of her attachment. The King of Prussia afterwards made overtures for her hand, and received a positive refusal ; so that at the time Caroline reached her twenty-sixth year, she was yet un-. married. To the great joy of the Duchess of Brunswick, in the year 1794, the duke, her husband, received a formal pro- posal from George the Third for the hand of her daughter Caroline : the news, however, was heard by the young princess with a composure amounting to indifference. Not that she was insensible to the honor conferred on her, in being selected as the bride of the heir apparent of the English throne; but she was already acquainted in part with some of the features of the character of her future royal lord. She had doubtless learnt that interest and ambition were the motives which induced him to seek her alliance. Was there not reason to despise an alliance with a man overwhelmed with debt, who sought only an in- crease of income, and whose associations with Mrs. Fitzherbert, the Countess of Jersey, and others, had been sufficiently notori- ous to reach the ears of his future consort? Add to this the circumstance that Caroline had buried her own affections in an. early tomb. If, however, the faults of the prince were known to Caroline, she had heard, too, of his many accomplishments, and accordingly yielded her consent to become the wife of the most finished gentleman in Europe. Caroline quitted Brunswick, December 30, 1794, accompanied by her mother and a numerous train, and followed many miles on her route by the acclamations of the populace and the prayers of the poor, that a blessing from above might attend her union.