Page:The Queens of England.djvu/581

ADELAIDE. It was a part of her nature to avoid ostentation ; but while we have only the land-marks of general history to assist us in pointing out her career of charity and humility, it is at least satisfactory to observe, that all classes of her subjects have testified their approval of their Queen Consort, and their respect for their Queen Dowager. Hers was a life, however, singularly barren of the multifarious accidents and adventures which befel so many of her predecessors on the English throne ; her destiny seems to have been cast according to the quiet, religious bent of her mind, and the strict morality of her retiring disposition. She was the eldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Meiningen, one of the small states of the German Empire, and was born August 13, 1792. She had a sister two years younger than herself named Ida, and a brother eight years her junior, named Bernard Henry, who succeeded to the dukedom, Ade- laide was but eleven years old at the death of her father, which left her mother regent and sole guardian over her childhood. To her early lessons was owing, doubtless, that secluded and pious character which the queen bore through life, for she was educated in the strictest privacy, and with a profound regard for religious observances. Adelaide early displayed this sedate disposition, by avoiding even the ordinary amuse- ments adapted to her youth. Her benevolence shone forth, too, at the same early period, in her co-operation with her sister in the establishment of schools for the poor, and in the relief of the infirm and needy. The exercise of these virtues reached the ears of Queen Charlotte of England, who recommended her as a fitting companion for her third son William Henry, Duke of Clarence. A correspondence was accordingly entered upon between the two courts, which terminated in the arrival in Eng- land of the Duchess of Meiningen with her daughter, and. 527