Sidney Lee

“ Lord John and his chief at once avowed a resolve to serve the interests of Italy at the expense of Austria, and won, in the inner circle of the court, the sobriquet of 'the old Italian masters.' At the same time the course of the negotiations between Napoleon and the emperor of Austria was perplexing alike to the queen and to her ministers. Napoleon had at Villafranca arranged mysterious terms with the emperor of Austria which seemed to the friends of Italy far too favourable to Austria, although they gave France no advantage. Austria was to lose Lombardy, but was to retain Venetia. ”

“ Smith's independence of temper was always strong, and he was inspirited by the knowledge that he was in a position to pursue single-handed an aim in behalf of which government organisation had elsewhere been enlisted. It would be difficult in the history of publishing to match the magnanimity of a publisher who made up his mind to produce that kind of book for which he had a personal liking, to involve himself in vast expense, for the sake of an idea, in what he held to be the public interest, without heeding considerations of profit or loss. ”

“ On the day following O'Connor's senseless act the queen addressed a second letter to the public, acknowledging the fervent demonstrations of loyalty which welcomed her and her son on the occasion of the public thanksgiving.
That celebration, combined with its anxious cause, strengthened immensely the bonds of sentiment that united the crown and the people. There was need of strengthening these bonds. Every year increased the feeling that the queen's reluctance to resume her old place in public life was diminishing the dignity of the crown. ”

“ The princess of Wales, the daughter of the king of Denmark, naturally felt acutely her father's position, and when, in December 1863, she and her husband were fellow-guests at Windsor with the crown prince and princess of Prussia, the queen treated Schleswig-Holstein as a forbidden subject at her table. To her ministers and to the mass of her subjects, moreover, the cause of Denmark made a strong appeal. The threats of Prussia and Austria to attack a small power like Denmark seemed to them another instance of brutal oppression of the weak by the strong. ”

“ Even from the lower ranks of her household she welcomed sympathy and proofs of personal attachment. She found Scotsmen and Scots-women of all classes, but especially of the humbler, readier in the expression of kindly feeling than Englishmen and Englishwomen. When she paid, in May 1862, the first painful visit of her widowhood to Balmoral, her reception was a real solace to her. Her Scottish chaplain, Dr. Norman Macleod, gave her more real consolation than any clergyman of the south. She found a satisfaction in employing Scots men and women in her domestic service. ”

“ The mighty outburst of enthusiasm which greeted the queen, as loudly in the colonies and India as in the United Kingdom, gave new strength to the monarchy. Thenceforth the sovereign was definitely regarded as the living embodiment of the unity not merely of the British nation but of the British empire. ”

“ It would not be accurate to describe him as a man of great imagination, or one possessed of literary or artistic scholarship; but it is bare truth to assert that his masculine mind and temper were coloured by an intuitive sympathy with the workings of the imagination in others; by a gift for distinguishing almost at a glance a good piece of literature or art from a bad; by an innate respect for those who pursued intellectual and imaginative ideals rather than mere worldly prosperity. ”

“ But she was under no illusion as to Gladstone's resolve and power to pass the bill through parliament. She frankly admitted that the House of Commons had been 'chosen expressly to speak the feeling of the country on the question,' and she believed that if a second appeal were made to the electorate it would produce the same result. Common sense taught her that the quicker the inevitable pill was swallowed the better for the country's peace. But she saw that a fruitless and perilous resistance was threatened by the House of Lords. ”

“ Through all the ranks of the nation the marriage of the queen's eldest son, the heir to the throne, evoked abundant enthusiasm. There was an anticipation that the queen would make it the occasion of ending the period of gloomy seclusion in which she had chosen to encircle the court. At her request parliament readily granted an annuity of 40,000 l. for the prince, which, added to the revenues of the duchy of Cornwall, brought his income to over 100,000l. ”

“ No monarch occupied Buckingham Palace before Queen Victoria, for whom it was for the first time put in order. A contemporary wag in the 'Times' declared it was the cheapest house ever built, having been built for one sovereign and furnished for another. But inconvenience with which William IV credited it proved real, and it underwent radical alterations and additions at the instance of the queen and Prince Albert before it was deemed to be adapted for its purpose. ”

“ His presence was certain to provoke complications in the command of the allied forces in the field. The emperor hinted that it might be well for him to discuss the project in person with the queen. She and her advisers at once acceded to the suggestion, and she invited him and the empress to pay her a state visit. On all sides she was thrown into association with men who had inspired her with distrust, but she cheerfully yielded her private sentiments at the call of a national crisis. The queen made every effort to give her guests a brilliant reception. ”

“ Members of the Hanoverian family on the English throne had long been accustomed to seek husbands or wives at the minor courts of Germany, but the private relations of the English royal house with those courts became far closer than before through the strong family sentiment which the Duchess of Kent not merely cherished personally but instilled in her daughter, the queen of England. For the first time since the seventeenth century, too, the private ties of kinship and family feeling linked the sovereign of England with rulers of France and Portugal. ”

“ But, despite the poignancy of her sorrow, and the sense of isolation which thenceforth abode with her, her nerve was never wholly shattered. Naturally and freely as she gave vent to her grief, her woe did not degenerate into morbid wailing. One of its most permanent results was to sharpen her sense of sympathy, which had always been keen, with the distresses of others, especially with distresses resembling her own ; no widow in the land, in whatever rank of life, had henceforth a more tender sympathiser than the queen. ”

“ She died of diphtheria at Darmstadt on 14 Dec., the seventeenth anniversary of the prince consort's death. It was the first loss of a child that the queen had experienced, and no element of sorrow was absent. The people again shared their sovereign's grief, and on the 26th she addressed to them a simple letter of thanks, describing the dead princess as 'a bright example of loving tenderness, courageous devotion, and self-sacrifice to duty.' She erected a granite cross to her memory at Balmoral next year, and showed the tenderest interest in her motherless family. ”

“ Since the public were slow to appreciate the 'Pall Mall' of an afternoon, he, for three weeks in the second month of its existence, supplied a morning edition. But buyers and advertisers proved almost shyer of a morning than of an evening, and the morning issue was promptly suspended. Smith's spirits often drooped in the face of the obduracy of the public, and he contemplated abandoning the enterprise. His sanguine temperament never prevented him from frankly acknowledging defeat when cool judgment could set no other interpretation on the position of affairs. ”

“ In immaterial matters the grant of a civil list pension or the bestowal of a subordinate post or title he not merely acceded to the queen's requests, but saw that effect was given to them with promptness. Comparing his attitude to the queen with Gladstone's, contrasting the harmony of his relations with her and the tension that characterised his rival's, he was in the habit of saying, 'Gladstone treats the queen like a public department ; I treat her like a woman.'
Disraeli's government began its work quietly. ”

“ The queen has acted towards me not merely (as every one who knew her majesty's character must have anticipated) with perfect fidelity and honour, but with great kindness and consideration. There is every facility for the despatch of public business, a scrupulous and most punctual discharge of every public duty, and an exact understanding of the relation of a constitutional sovereign to her advisers' (Peel Papers, ii. 544) . ”

“ She constantly reminded the government of the danger he was running. His influence with the natives of the Soudan unluckily proved to be of no avail, and he was soon himself besieged in Khartoum by the Mahdi's forces. Thereupon the queen solemnly and unceasingly warned the government of the obligations they were under of despatching a British expedition to relieve him. The government feared to involve itself further in war in Egypt, but the force of public opinion was with the queen, and in the autumn a British army was sent out, under Lord Wolseley, with a view to Gordon's rescue. ”

“ Who could have thought that that splendid, noble, knightly prince—as good as he was brave and noble—who was the admiration of all, would on the very day year (yesterday) be no longer in this world? His loss is indeed a very mysterious dispensation, for it is such a very dreadful public as well as private misfortune' (Life of Archbishop Benson, ii. 211) . Court mourning prevented any celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the queen's coronation on 28 June. But on her visit Balmoral in the autumn she took part in several public ceremonials. ”

“ No sultan of Turkey had yet set foot on English soil, and the visit, which seemed to set the seal on the old political alliance between the two governments, evoked intense popular excitement, sultan was magnificently received on his arrival on 12 July, and was lodged in Buckingham Palace. Though the queen took as small a part as possible in the festivities, she did not withdraw herself altogether from them. Princess Alice helped her in extending hospitalities to her guest, who lunched with her at Windsor and highly commended her attentions. ”

“ Parliament deliberately dissolved almost all the personal authority that the crown had hitherto exercised over the army. The prerogative of mercy was practically abrogated when the home secretary was in effect made by statute absolute controller of its operations. The distribution of titles and honours became in a larger degree than in former days an integral part of the machinery of party politics. The main outward signs of the sovereign's formal supremacy in the state lost, moreover, by her own acts, their old distinctness. ”

“ In May 1869 the queen visited the Westminster deanery mainly to make Carlyle's personal acquaintance. The Stanleys' guests also included Mr. and Mrs. Grote, Sir Charles and Lady Lyell, and the poet Browning. The queen was in a most gracious humour. Carlyle deemed it 'impossible to imagine a politer little woman; nothing the least imperious ; all gentle, all sincere . . . makes you feel too (if you have any sense in you) that she is queen' (Froude, Carlyle in London, ii. 379-80) . ”

“ The kinsmen and kinswomen with whom her relations were closest were German, and Germany had for her most of the associations of home. She encouraged in her household many German customs, and with her numerous German relatives maintained an enormous and detailed correspondence. Her patriotic attachment to her own country of England and to her British subjects could never be justly questioned, and it was her cherished conviction that England might and should mould the destinies of the world ”

“ Thereupon Lord Derby's cabinet drafted a proclamation to the people of India defining the principles which would henceforth determine the crown's relations with them. The queen was resolved that her first address to the native population should plainly set forth her personal interest in its welfare. She had thrown the whole weight of her influence against those who defended indiscriminate retaliatory punishment of the native population for the misdeeds of the mutiny. The governor-general, Lord Canning, who pursued a policy of conciliation, had no more sympathising adherent than the queen. ”

“ At the opening of 1847 the political horizon was clouded on every side, but despite the political anxieties at home threats of civil war in Ireland, and so great a rise in the price of wheat in England that the queen diminished the supply of bread to her own household the 'season' of that year was exceptionally lively. Numerous foreign visitors were entertained, including the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, the Tsar Nicholas's son, Prince Oscar of Sweden, and many German princes. ”

“ His third literary undertaking in the first year of his publishing career was of more permanent interest; it was Leigh Hunt's 'Imagination and Fancy.'
It was characteristic of Smith's whole life as a publisher that he was never content to maintain with authors merely formal business relations. From boyhood the personality of writers of repute deeply interested him, and that interest never diminished at any point of his career. In early manhood he was rarely happier than in the society of authors of all degrees of ability. ”

“ Yes ! it is a day which makes my heart swell with pride and glory and thankfulness ! ' In her eyes the great festival of peace was a thousand times more memorable than the thrilling scene of her coronation. In spite of their censorious fears foreign courts were well represented, and among the queen's guests were the prince and princess of Prussia. ”

“ In the middle period of her reign the popular interest, which her youth, innocence, and simplicity of domestic life had excited at the beginning, was exhausted, and the long seclusion which she maintained after her husband's death developed in its stead a coldness between her people and herself which bred much disrespectful criticism. ”