Theodore Martin

“ During a visit of the queen to Sir Robert Peel at Drayton Manor in November, the prince went to Birmingham to inspect some of its chief manufactories. Birmingham was at this time the stronghold of chartism, and some of the ministry sought to prevent him from going there, being alarmed lest his presence might provoke some unpleasant demonstration. But the prince overruled their scruples, and the result showed that he had rightly understood the temper of the people. He was received by crowds that thronged the streets to excess with admirable good humour and the warmest demonstrations of loyalty. ”

“ He was not by any means sanguine that Peel could succeed in forming a ministry that would stand. His advice was: ‘Get, if you can, new men, young blood—the ablest, the fittest—and throw aside boldly the claims of all the “mediocrities” with which we were overladen in the last race. I don't promise that even that will insure success; but it is your best chance.’ Would Croker himself take office? was Peel's first question when they met. Nothing, was his answer, would induce him again to enter the House of Commons. ”

“ To pursue for a lifetime a political career so arduous demands more than energy and inclination; it demands also that earnest frame of mind which is ready of its own accord to sacrifice mere pleasure to real usefulness.’
Within the next few months Stockmar had the opportunity of observing the prince closely, and he satisfied himself that his mind and character were such that time and training were alone wanted to develop in him the qualities which Stockmar demanded as essential for the high vocation for which the prince's uncle designed him. ”

“ In the strongest man there is only a limited power of endurance. If he puts the work of eighty years into forty years, there can be but one result. So it was with the prince. While yet young in years he had done the work of a long life. During the three or four last years of his life signs were not wanting, in recurring attacks of illness, that he was using up his physical resources too rapidly. He had doubtless an inward feeling that this was so, and that the end might not be far off. Shortly before his last illness he said to the queen, ‘I do not cling to life, I set no store by it. ”

“ During this stormy session and the ministerial crisis which ensued on the fall of Peel's ministry at the end of June, the queen writes, the prince's ‘use to me and to the country by his firmness and sagacity is beyond all belief.’ He had by this time made himself fully master of the political situation at home and abroad, and his judgment and sagacity were daily making themselves more and more felt by the statesmen whose position at the head of affairs brought them into more immediate contact with him. Politics had now indeed become his favourite study. ”

“ They were years of great anxiety, in consequence of the state of affairs upon the Continent, the restless and vague ambition of the Emperor of the French, the struggles of Italy, ultimately triumphant, for independence, and the growing antagonism between Prussia and Austria in their struggle for supremacy in Germany. On the prince the government could at all times rely for valuable information, which was not always to he obtained through the ordinary official channels, and for the conclusions of a calm and penetrating judgment unswayed by political or party bias. ”

“ Clive by the originality and shrewdness of her talk held her ground among his most distinguished visitors, male and female, at Strawberry Hill. How well able she was to do so may be argued from what Johnson said of her to Boswell: 'Clive, sir, is a good thing to sit by; she always understands what you say. In the sprightliness of humour I have never seen her equalled.' And she, in no way awed by the great man, used to say of him, 'I love to sit by Dr. Johnson; he always entertains me.' Here is one of her sayings that would have delighted him. ”

“ There were a few good pictures by European masters in Boston, to which Copley, of course, had access, among them two portraits by Vandyck and one by Sir Godfrey Kneller. But, like most men of genius, Copley had to trust to his own persistent study and practice and his close habit of observation for those qualities in his pictures which gave them value. The multitude of his portraits executed in America is sufficient proof of his industry and conscientiousness. ”

“ To fit himself for accomplishing all this was the work of time, and the prince had to feel his way cautiously, and to inspire confidence in his ability and tact, no less than in his freedom from personal ambition. In Stockmar's fearless independence and great knowledge of the working of the English constitution, as well as of the forces at work throughout all the continental states, he knew that he should find the best support. To him, therefore, he appealed ‘to sacrifice his time to him for the first year of his life in England.’ Stockmar loved the prince and queen so well ”

“ Even while the most important events are in progress, and their issues undecided, he does not care to look into a newspaper;’ and this at the time was no doubt true of the man who, as the years advanced, allowed no incident of domestic or foreign politics to escape his notice, and concentrated the whole force of his mind upon their changing phases and possible eventualities. Stockmar's lessons on these points sank deeply into the prince's mind, and on his return to Coburg he set himself the task of making himself master of English history and language. ”

“ In colouring Copley avoided the opaque and monotonous smoothness of West. He always kept nature before him, and had no fear, as many of his contemporaries had, that she ‘would put him out.’ Many of his best pictures have gone to America; but his merits being now better appreciated in England, those that remain with us are not likely to leave the country. ”

“ A man of a character so marked and a disposition so resolute was sure to find it no easy matter to obtain the independence and power with which alone he could be satisfied. There were naturally in the royal household some who were reluctant to surrender the control which had hitherto been in their hands; there were others who scarcely concealed their disappointment that the queen had selected her husband from abroad. ”

“ The appointment of a young and untried man to so important an office was of course violently attacked. But in less than a month Perceval's estimate of the fitness of his young friend for the duties of his responsible office was fully justified. Croker had, with his wonted acumen, at once set to work to master all the details of his department as the first step to sound administration, and in doing so he found reason to suspect a serious defalcation in the accounts of an official of high rank and reputation which had escaped the notice of his predecessors. ”

“ The industry of Copley never flagged. Before he left America it has been ascertained that he had executed at least 290 oil paintings, forty crayon portraits, and nineteen miniatures. These have all along been highly prized by his countrymen, many of whom seized the opportunity of a visit to Europe to have their portraits painted by him. It is probably by his portraits that Copley's reputation will be longest maintained. There are many of them scattered throughout England. As a rule they bear the stamp of individuality, are well modelled, and rich in colour. ”

“ My Latin, too, proved a success.’ The prince was much gratified by this event, as one among many significant indications that, while he was gaining by degrees the confidence of the country, the queen was growing in popularity and establishing a firmer hold upon the loyalty of her people.
This was no unimportant gain, for the times were rapidly becoming more and more critical for crowned heads in Europe. Portugal, Spain, Germany, Austria, Italy, were all penetrated by a revolutionary spirit. ”

“ But Croker valued his own character for consistency too highly to enter government which could not have existed for a week, except upon a promise of such a measure of reform as he could not in his conscience approve. Before this Croker had determined to retire altogether from public life, as, ‘besides all other reasons, he felt his health could not stand the worry of business.’ This resolution he carried out upon the passing of the Reform Bill. Several seats were placed at his disposal, and the Duke of Wellington importuned him to re-enter parliament, but without success. ”

“ He had never been deceived, as Lord Aberdeen had been, into trusting Russia's protestations. 'We must deal with our enemies as honourable men,' he writes to Stockmar (27 Sept.) , 'and deal honourably towards them; but that is no reason why we should think they are so in fact; this is what Aberdeen does, and maintains that it is right to do.' The prince was alive to the danger of not letting the Emperor Nicholas see betimes that his designs of aggrandisement were seen through, and, if persisted in, would bring England into the field. ”

“ Nor was his influence less available in every movement for promoting the interests of art and science, for developing the education and improving the material welfare of the people. His speeches at meetings for promoting these objects were eagerly studied, and carried into the people's homes ideas which have since borne the best fruits. He always lifted his subject to a high level, and his life was felt to be impregnated by a noble sense of duty and a determination to do always what was right. ”

“ The maternal grandmother dreaded evil from the care of children so young being entrusted to a man. But though he was still so young that he liked to be carried up and down stairs, the Prince Albert hailed the change with delight, having from infancy shown a great dislike to being in the charge of women. ”

“ But under this conventional manner the latent fire of the true actress every now and then flashed out. Quin saw of what she was capable, and so early as 1744, when Garrick expressed a doubt of her powers to cope with the character of Constance of Bretagne in ‘King John,’ which was about to be revived at Drury Lane, said with some warmth, 'Don't tell me, Mr. Garrick ! That woman has a heart, and can do anything where passion is required.' He proved to he right. ”

“ The harmony of her voice was as powerful as the animation of her look. In grief or tenderness her eyes looked as if they were in tears ; in rage and despair they seemed to dart flashes of fire. In spite of the unimportance of her figure she maintained a dignity in her action and a grace in her step. ”

“ Its main idea was, that while the rich were bound to help, yet that 'any real improvement must be the result of the exertion of the working people themselves.' The favourable impression thus produced was deepened by the appearance of the prince at a meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society at York in July, when he surprised those who knew most about agriculture and the machinery employed in it by showing that he was thorough master of the knowledge which their whole lives had been spent in acquiring. ”

“ Charles Yorke, and Viscount Melville—all respected and got on well with him, and he had the courage to maintain his ground against the whims and vagaries of the Duke of Clarence, when lord high admiral, with a spirit for which in after years William IV bore him no ill-will. The duke once said to him, in 1815, that when he became king Croker should not be secretary of the admiralty. ‘I told him,’ says Croker, ‘“a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” ”

“ Spring Rice, writes of a speech Croker had recently made on this question, that ‘it showed him to be an honest Irishman no less than an able statesman ... ready to quit the road of fortune under the auspices of his personal friend Peel, if the latter was only to be conciliated by what Oxonians term orthodoxy and the Cantabs consider as intolerance.’ To have abandoned the lead of Peel would have indeed been a severe trial, for Croker had at this time been attached to him for many years by the ties of affectionate friendship as well as of political sympathy. ”

“ Wellington.’ When Sir Robert Peel was called, in August 1841, to form a ministry on the defeat of the Melbourne administration, he at once named as his chancellor Lord Lyndhurst, with whom he had for years ‘been on the most confidential intercourse on political matters,’ and on whom, to use his own words, ‘he could confidently rely when real difficulties were to be encountered.’ Lyndhurst was now in his sixty-ninth year, but he was strong, and proved himself quite equal to the heavy work of his office. ”

“ From 1758 onwards he made rapid strides in his art, both as a draughtsman and colourist. Of two of his portraits, Colonel and Mrs. Lee, painted in 1769, he often spoke in his later years as of an excellence which he never surpassed. Mrs. Pelham and her son moved in the best society of Boston, and that society was composed of remarkable elements, in which learning and general culture, statesmanship and business capacity, borrowed refinement from the presence of many women conspicuous for beauty and accomplishments. Copley was not the only artist there. ”

“ Copley's speech is said by Lord Campbell, who heard it, to have been ‘one of the ablest and most effective ever delivered in a court of justice.’ It was marked by that ‘luminous energy’ which characterised all his speeches. Not a superfluous sentence, no patches of rhetoric, the points chosen with unfaltering judgment, and driven home with convincing force, all indicating a mind which, as Sir Samuel Shepherd once said of Copley, ‘had no rubbish in it.’ Mainly through Copley's eloquence a verdict of acquittal was obtained. ”

“ In a memorandum by Baron Stockmar of the estimate formed by him of the prince's character during the Italian tour he notes that ‘his constitution cannot be called strong, but that with proper dietetic management it might easily gain strength and stability.’ He adds that ‘great exertion is repugnant to him, and his tendency is to spare himself both morally and physically,’ a tendency of which the prince most effectually cured himself within a very short period. ”

“ The commission included men of the first distinction in politics, art, and literature ; and this was regarded by the prince himself as his real initiation into public life, by bringing him into intimate relations with so many leading public men. The secretary of the commission was Sir Charles Eastlake, who was surprised at the wide and accurate practical knowledge as well as the highly cultivated taste of the prince. ”