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Engraven after an original.

original miniature picture in the peforssion of The Princess Plixalith by special permission, for. La Botte Viembles

Printed for The Ball, befrister of the Wickly Nefonger, Strany 1.1977.

Bell's

COURT AND FASHIONABLE

MAGAZINE,

For JANUARY, 1807.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

OF

ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES.

The Thirteenth Number.

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS SOPHIA.

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS SOPHIA was born November 3, 1777.The education of this Princess has been similar to that of her Royal Sisters. Under the eye of her Majesty, and the superintendance of her truly amiable governess, Lady Charlotte Finch, she commenced that course of study, which had been traced out for the Royal pupils, with a zeal and an industry not inferior to any of her family.

Music and drawing, as we have often observed, are the most favourite studies of their Royal Highnesses; and in their pursuit of excellence in these branches of science, they have not only distinguished themselves as scholars and amateurs, but two of the Princesses have attained to a perfection which would not pass without its just applause in a master.

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Her Royal Highness the Princess Sophia is rendered extremely prepossessing by a loveliness and delicate vivacity in her manner, which, as softened by the most gracious affability, and heightened by the most perfect modesty, are, perhaps, the most attractive qualities in a young woman. One of her amusements is the unfashionable employment of the needle. The knowledge of this once famed instrument of housewifery has long ceased in the upper circles; it still, however, preserves its importance at Windsor Castle; and whilst the more elevated and refined arts are cultivated with an enthusiasm, to which nothing but more serious duties are suffered to give way, the primitive and truly English employments of our British matrons are not spurned or neglected.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

ON THE ADVANTAGES OF A WELL CULTIVATED MIND.

mind, give scope to its exertions, expand its ideas, present new combinations, and exhibit to the intellectual eye images new, various, sublime, or beautiful. The time of action will not always continue, the young ought ever to have this consideration present to their minds, that they must grow old unless prematurely cut off by sickness or accident; they ought to contemplate the certain approach of age and decrepitude, and consider that all temporal happiness is of uncertain acquisition, mixed with a variety of alloy, and in whatever degree attained, only of a short and precarious duration; every day brings some disappointment, some diminution of pleasure, or some frustration of hope, and every moment brings us nearer to that period when the present scenes shall recede from the view, and future prospects cannot be formed.

This consideration displays, in a very interesting point of view, the beneficial effects of fur nishing the mind with a stock of ideas that may amuse it in leisure, accompany it in solitude, dispel the gloom of melancholy, lighten the pressure of mis fortune, dissipate the vexations arising from baffled projects, or disappointed hopes, and relieve the tediousness of that season of life when new acquisitions can no more bo made, and the world can no longer flatter and delude us with its illusory hopes and promises.

IT is not without reason that those who have tasted the pleasures afforded by philosophy and literature, have lavished upon them the greatest eulogiums. The benefits they produce are too many to enumerate, valuable beyond estimation, and various as the scenes of life. The man who has a knowledge of the works of God in the creation of the universe, and in his providential government of the immense system of the material and intellectual world, can never be without a copious fund of the most agreeable amusement; he can never be solitary, for in the most Jonely solitude he is not destitute of company and conversation; his own ideas are his companions, and he can always converse with his own mind. How much soever a person may be engaged in pleasures, he will certainly have some moments to spare for thought and reflection; no one who has observed how heavy the vacuities of time hang upon minds unfurnished with images, and unaccustomed to think, will be at a loss to make a just estimate of the advantages of possessing a copious stock of ideas, of which the combinations may take a multiplicity of forms, and be varied to infinity. Those who have heard the frequent complaints of ennui among such as have no source of amusement in themselves, must feel some degree of commiseration for these whose minds, destitute of cultivation, must either be melancholy from the immediate impulse of ex- When life begins, like a distant landscape, ternal objects, or sink into a lethargic state of gradually to disappear, the mind can then receive torpid inaction. Mental occupations are a plea- no solace but from its own ideas and reflections; sing relief from bodily exertions, and that per- philosophy and literature will then furnish it petual hurry and wearisome attention which, in with an inexhaustible source of the most agree most of the employments of life, must be given ||able amusements, as religion will afford substan to objects which are no otherwise interesting than || tial consolation. A well spent youth is the only as they are necessary. The mind, in an hour of sure foundation of a happy old age; no axiom of heisure, obtaining a short vacation from the per- the mathematics is more true, or more easily plexing cares of the world, finds in its own con- demonstrated; old age, like death, comes untemplation, a source of amusement, of solace, expectedly on the unthinking, and unprepared, and pleasure. The tiresome attention that must although its approach be visible, and its arrival be given to an infinite number of things, which certain. Those who have in the earlier part of singly and separately taken, are of little moment, life neglected to furnish their minds with ideas, but collectively considered form an important to fortify them by contemplation, and regulate aggregate, requires to be sometimes relaxed and them by reflection, seeing the season of youth dissipated by thoughts of a more general and and vigour irrecoverably past, its pleasing scenes extensive nature, or at least of a different kind, annihilated, and its brilliant prospects left far and directed to objects of which the examination behind, without the possibility of a return, and may open a more spacious field of exercise to the feeling, at the same time, the irresistible en

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moral, as well as the physical world, the investigation of science, and the information communicated by literature, are calculated to attract attention, exercise thought, excite reflection, and replenish the mind with an infinite variety of ideas.

having squandered the former, or neglected the latter, feels the pressure of age and infirmity without any other resource than the precarious assistance of friends, the penurious support of parochial allowance, or the humiliation of mendicity, is in a situation truly deplorable, and

croachments of age with its disagreeable append-, and enquiry. The various phenomenon of the ages, are surprised and disconcerted by a change which, although they knew to be certain, they had scarcely expected, or for which at least they had made no preparation. A person in this predicament, finding himself no longer capable of taking, as formerly, a part in the busy walks of life, of enjoying its active pleasures, and The evening of life is a melancholy season sharing its arduous enterprises, becomes peevish when the whole day has been spent without and uneasy, troublesome to others, and burden- any preparation for its arrival. The man who, some to himself; destitute of the resources of in youth, has been favoured by fortune with philosophy, and a stranger to the amusing pur-affluence, or at least with competency, or has suits of literature, he is unacquainted with any enjoyed fair opportunities of acquisition, and agreeable method of filling up the vacuity left|| in his mind by his necessary recess from the active scenes of life; ignorance renders him obstinate, things that pleased him please him no longer, and experiencing this revolution in his own notions and inclinations, he thinks it ought also to take place in those of others. The plea- | with anguish of heart has reason to reproach sures and amusements of youth, however inno-himself as the author of his own misfortunes. cent, he stigmatizes with the name of folly and vanity, merely because they are no longer accommodated to his period of life, censures the conduct of the rest of the world, and because his own head is covered with grey hairs, thinks every one else should be old through complaisance. Finding the world neither able nor willing to consult his pleasures, or comply with his whims, he turns fretful and peevish, and wanting materials for the exercise of his mind, perplexes himself with useless cares, teazes himself for trifles, and instead of looking back on the illusory scenes of life with magnanimous indifference, and waiting for the conclusion with equanimity and fortitude, too often consumes his latter years in whimsical peevishness, and stupid vacuity of thought.

All this is the consequence of squandering the days of youth and vigour without acquiring the habit of thinking; excepting the case of the very lowest classes of society, to whom indigence has precluded the means of education, and continued labour has allowed no leisure for reflection, the period of human life, short as it is, is of sufficient length for the acquisition of a considerable stock of useful and agreeable knowledge, and the circumstances of the world afford a superabundance of subjects for contemplation

The condition, however, of that man, is scarcely less miserable, and certainly not less blamable, who having possessed abilities and leisure, has made no provision of knowledge for that season when the mind, no less than the body, requires to be well supported, when the gaiety of youth, and the vigour of manhood are no more, when the festive song and dance have lost their power of pleasing, and when the glittering shew, the delusive hopes and flattering prospects of the world no longer fascinate the imagination. The man of letters, when compared with one that is illiterate, exhibits nearly the same contrast as that which exists between a blind man and one that can see; and if we consider how much literature enlarges the mind, and how much it multiplies, adjusts, rectifies, and arranges the ideas, it may well be reckoned equivalent to an additional sense. It affords pleasures which wealth cannot procure, and which poverty cannot entirely take away. A well cultivated mind places its possessor beyond the reach of those trifling vexations and disquietudes which continually harrass and perplex those who have no resources within themselves, and, in some measure, elevates him above the smiles and the frowns of fortune.

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