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Some fifty years ago, a young prince of a then obscure German House was serving under the Emperor Alexander in the great war against Napoleon. He was brave, handsome, clever, and, as events have proved, possessed of prudence beyond the ordinary lot of princes or private men. In 1814 he accompanied the Allied Sovereigns to England, and there his accomplishments attracted the attention and engaged the affection of the heiress to the English throne, the Princess Charlotte of Wales. They were married, and though an untimely death was destined soon to sever the union, yet from that time the star of the successful young officer and of the House of Coburg has been in the ascendant. From the vantage-ground of a near connexion with the British Royal Family they have been able to advance to a position in Europe almost beyond the dreams of German ambition. The Coburgs have spread far and wide, and filled the lands with their race.

They have created a new Royal House in England. The Queen is a daughter of Leopold’s sister; her children are the children of Leopold’s nephew. The Coburgs reign in Portugal; they are connected with the royal though fallen House of Orleans, and more or less closely related to the principal families of their own country. Prince Leopold himself has for thirty years governed one of the most important of the minor States of Europe, and his eldest son is wedded to an Archduchess of the Imperial House of Austria. Jealousy and detraction have followed these remarkable successes, but the Coburgs can afford to smile when their rivals sneer, for they have the solid rewards of skill, prudence, and that adaptability to all countries and positions which has distinguished the more able members of their family. It may be added, as the last memorable events in their annals, that two of them have successively had the refusal of the Crown of Greece.

The talents of the Coburgs have been conspicuous. King Leopold, the late Prince Consort, and the present Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, have been men much above the ordinary standard. They have had great opportunities, and they have known how to use them. Neither the Prince Consort nor the King of Portugal could, without offence, have taken a share in the politics of England and Portugal unless they had been gifted with much prudence and circumspection. No one who studies their history will believe that they and their kinsmen have merely had greatness thrust upon them. But, on the other hand, it cannot be doubted that they owe all to the excellent start which Prince Leopold’s good fortune gave their House. Had it not been for the elevation of the young soldier to the highest station in England, the Coburgs, instead of planting dynasties everywhere, might have been no more than any other of the five-and-thirty German reigning families, or the multitude of Princely and Serene, but mediatized personages who are scattered through the land. But when Leopold became an English prince, and his sister was the mother of the heiress presumptive to the British throne, the path to greatness was open to the enterprise of the family. How much one success leads to another in princely life has been shown in their history, and we have adverted to it because, if report speak true, another family, which, a few years since, was of hardly more account in Europe, is at this moment entering on a similar career.—Times.