otherwise must have brought so much relief, she became
a new source of trouble to her royal husband. George had made up his
mind to pay a visit after his coronation to his subjects in Ireland, to
"the long cherished isle which he loved," as Byron says, "like his
bride." He had got as far as Holyhead on his way when the news reached
him of the Queen's illness, and he thought that it would be hardly
becoming for him to make his first public appearance in Ireland at such
a moment, and to run the risk, perhaps, of having his royal entrance
into Dublin accompanied by the news that his Queen had just died.
Then, when the news of her death did actually reach him, it was still
necessary to make some little delay--joy bells and funeral bells do not
ring well together--and thus George, even as a widower, found his wife
still a little in the way. The remains of Caroline Amelia were carried
back to her native Brunswick, and there ended her melancholy story. It
is impossible not to regard this unhappy woman as the victim, in great
measure, of the customs which so often compel princes and princesses to
leave reciprocal love out of the conditions of marriage. "The birds
which live in the air," says Webster's immortal "Duchess of Malfi,"

On the wild benefit of nature, live
Happier than we, for they can choose their mates.

Other women, indeed, might have struggled far better against the
adverse conditions of an unsuitable marriage and have borne themselves
far better amid its worst trials than the clever, impulsive,
light-hearted, light-headed Caroline Amelia was able to do. There
seems no reason to doubt that she had a good heart, a loving nature,
and the wish to lead a pure and honorable life. But she was too often
thoughtless, careless, wilful, and headstrong, and, like many others
who might have done well under fair conditions, she allowed the worst
qualities of her nature to take the command just at the very moment
when there {12} was most need for the exercise of all that was best in
her. Even with regard to George himself, it seems only fair and
reasonable to assume that he, too, might have done better if his
marriage had not been merely an arrangement of State. Perhaps the
whole history of State marriages contains no chapter at once more
fantastic and more tragic than that which closed with the death of
Caroline Amelia, wife of George the Fourth.

[Sidenote: Death of Napoleon Bonaparte]

While the joy-bells