he
chose a young French painter, Fabre, as his successor, and to him she
left her rich collection of relics, spoils of the poet and the king. A
beautiful, witty, and engaging woman, she was long a centre of society
in Italy. She died in 1824. In 1784 Charles sent for his daughter by
Miss Walkinshaw. Both had long been maintained by the cardinal. He made
her Duchess of Albany, medals were designed, if never struck,
representing her as _spes ultima et exigua_, "the last frail hope," of
the Stuarts. For the last time, in conversation with a Mr. Greathead,
the old spirit blazed out. His face brightened, he began the tale of his
campaign, but, when attempting to narrate the butcheries of Cumberland,
the cruel executions in London, he fell on the floor in convulsions. He
used to solace himself by playing on the pipes, and at the sound of the
martial music which he had heard on three stricken fields, he was able
to live in the past. On January 31, 1788, the anniversary of the death
of Charles I., Charles Edward passed away from earth. His daughter did
not long survive him; she was killed by a fall from her horse. Henry now
took the title of Henry IX. "by grace of God, not by the will of men."
He died in 1806; the French had stripped him of all his property, even
the famous Sobieski rubies were gone, and he was in receipt of a pension
from the English Government. In 1819 George IV. erected a monument by
Canova, in St Peters at Rome, to "James III., son of James II., King of
Great Britain, to Charles Edward, and Henry, his sons, the last of the
Royal Stuart line. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." Sir Walter
Scott visited this alone of Roman sights, in 1832, just before he came
home to die.

Had Charles fallen at Culloden, history could find no blot on his name,
no stain on the white rose. Surviving, as he did, a broken-hearted
exile, with no home, no chance of a career, "eating his own heart,
shunning the paths of men," as Homer says of Bellerophon, he fell a
victim to the habit which has ever the same wretched results, which
turns a hero to a coward, a gentleman to a brute. Yet, in his one year
of brilliance, he won immortal love. Scott had seen strong men, the
prince's ancient comrades, weep at the mention of his name. No man, in
any age, ever inspired such a large, such a gallant, such a tender and
melancholy body of song. Even now as one hears the notes of

"Will ye no come back again,
Better lo'ed ye canna b