81G 



WtTETEMBEBG, WILHELM F. K. 



tudcs of life, become gray and feeble and sunk into 

 old men's graves, and this man still lives ! He walks 

 about among a generation whose grandsires were un- 

 born after he had passed the usual period of manly 

 pride. All his contemporaries are gone. No wonder 

 if at times, as we understand is the case, a haunting 

 sense of loneliness overwhelms him. Though he has 

 led a rude border life, and probably has little of sen- 

 timent in his composition, yet, in some dim way at 

 least, he experiences the feeling, so touchingly ex- 

 pressed by Wordsworth, writing under the shadow 

 of more than seventy years, of 



"One to whom Heaven assigns that mournful part, 



That utmost solitude of age to : 



And with his simple and unsophisticated conceptions 

 respecting a Deity, this feeling of solitariness; of re- 

 maining thus long the sole survivor of a generation ; 

 of walking about in this latter half of the nineteenth 

 century, and in these days of telegraphic despatches, 

 monitors, steam presses, and religion he was a man 

 capable of bearing arms in the days of Braddock's 

 defeat ! the sense, we repeat, of this exceptional 

 and anomalous lot, joined with his crude and untu- 

 tored notions upon religious subjects, has induced'in 

 his mind the curious fancy that perhaps God has 

 overlooked him. 



WttRTEMBERG, WILITEOI FKIEDRICH KAP.L, 

 king of, born in Silesia, September 27, 1781, 

 died at the Castle of Rosenstein, June 25, 1864. 

 He was the son of Duke Fricdrich of Wiirtem- 

 berg (afterwards the first king), and was edu- 

 cated principally at St. Petersburg and Geneva. 

 In 1797 his father became the reigning duke, 

 and the young prince, disliking his subserviency 



to France, entered the Austrian service, and re- 

 mained in it until 1806, when a positive com- 

 mand from his imperious parent compelled him 

 to leave it and to marry the Princess Carolina 

 Augusta of Bavaria. The union, however, was 

 merely nominal, having been forcibly imposed 

 upon both parties ; and some years later, upon a 

 reconciliation between the king and his son, it 

 was dissolved by mutual consent. In 1812 the 

 Prince accompanied Napoleon in his invasion 

 of Russia as commander of the "\Vlirtemberg 

 contingent, and greatly distinguished himself 

 by his vigor and success. In 1815 he drove a 

 French corps under Rapp behind the walls of 

 Strasbourg. In 1816 he married the grand 

 duchess Katarina Pavlovna of Russia, who died 

 in 1819, leaving him two daughters, one of 

 whom is the present queen of the Netherlands, 

 lie subsequently married his cousin Pauline, 

 daughter of Duke Ludwig of "VVurtemberg. 

 Prince Wilhelm ascended the throne on the 

 sudden death of his father in 1816, and at once 

 granted a Constitution to his people, which is 

 still in force. In 1848 he opposed, like all the 

 German princes, the Federal Constitution. 

 More recently his Government gained some 

 popularity by its attitude in the question of a 

 reconstruction of Germany, and in the Schles- 

 wig-IIolstein question, lie is succeeded by his 

 son, Karl Friedrich Alexander. 



