succession of clouds upon her eventful life. It was while this early tribulation pressed upon her heart that she gave expression to her feelings in the hymn so remarkable for its beauty and pathos. This is only my desire, This doth set my heart on fire, That I may receive my hire, O my soul, of heavenly birth, From below thy mind remove, If I do love things on high, O Lord, glorious, yet most kind, Let me grace increasing find, Me to Thee more firmly bind. To God glory, thanks, and praise, To me grace, O Father, send, Now to the true Eternal King, Not seen with human eye, Th' immortal, only wise, true God, Ill-fated hymnist! How many, many a time after she penned this first hymn, and gave it into the hand of her friend and tutor, Lord Harrington, was she called to test the faithfulness of her God in hours of trouble! She went a happy bride to her husband's hereditary palace at Heidelberg, became a happy mother at eighteen, saw her husband placed on the throne of Bohemia, and realized the dream of her own youthful ambition-a crown. But scarcely had she shown her queenly presence in Bohemia, before her husband was driven from his royalty. She fled for her life, and entered on the dark succession of misfortunes which crowded on her all through the "thirty years' war." Hers was indeed a life of royal suffering. Widowed at last, beggared, tortured by her father's crooked policy, living to hear of her brother Charles's death on the scaffold, parting with her children for lack of means to support them, treated with cold neglect by the only son who could help her, having her sound Protestant heart smitten at the perversion of others of her children to Romanism; yet her hopeful and buoyant heart kept up until, after forty sorrowful years of exile, and thirty years of desolate widowhood, she returned, at the age of sixty-five, to finish her eventful career in the land of her infancy.. She died in Leicester House, Leicester Square, leaving the relics of her royal furniture to be preserved in that same Combe Abbey which had witnessed the pleasures of her youth, and the beginnings of that piety which sustained her in sorrow, and gave peace to her last hour. Of her surviving daughters, it was said that Elizabeth, Abbess of Hervarden, was the most learned woman, that Louise was the greatest artist, and that Sophia, her youngest, was the most accomplished woman in Europe. Elizabeth's memory as a hymnist is remarkably associated with the names of some of the most distinguished hymnists of her time. Dr. John Doune wrote her epithalium on her marriageday. George Wither presented complimentary stanzas on her betrothal, and her music master was no other than John Bull, the reputed author of that national hymn in which all British hearts now offer their prayer for the illustrious living descendant of her youngest daughter God save our gracious Queen, God save the Queen! Send her victorious, Happy and glorious, Long to reign over us, God save the Queen! O Lord our God, arise, Scatter her enemies, And make them fall. Frustrate their knavish tricks, On her our hearts we fix: Thy richest gifts in store, May she defend our laws, And ever give us cause To sing with heart and voice, God save the Queen! On the Sunday after the coronation of Victoria, "our most religious and gracious Queen," there was an interesting scene at Brixham in South Devon. A crowd of sailors and fishermen attended the churchthe church that looks out upon Torbay, on whose waters so many of the hardy sons of that beautiful |