'June, 1865.-No one felt the truth and anguish of this more than the Queen after Dec. 14, 1861, and never can she speak of " my children," but always says ours."

66

Up to their seventeenth year the cousins Albert and Victoria had never met. We have from the Queen's own hand a memorandum-her first impressions-on the occasion of his visit to England with his brother in May, 1836. Nothing was said at this time about a future alliance; but the circumstances would naturally make such an event seem probable to the world :

"The Prince was at that time much shorter than his brother, already very handsome, but very stout, which he entirely grew out of afterwards. He was most amiable, natural, unaffected, and merry: full of interest in everything; playing on the piano with the Princess, his cousin, drawing; in short, constantly occupied. He always paid the greatest attention to all he saw, and the Queen remembers well how intently he listened to the sermon preached in St. Paul's, when he and his father and brother accompanied the Duchess of Kent and the Princess there, on the occasion of the service attended by the children of the different charity schools. It is indeed rare to see a prince, not yet seventeen years of age, bestowing such earnest attention on a sermon.'-P. 217.

On the death of King William, in the ensuing year, the Prince writes the following letter:

'Bonn, 26th June, 1867.

'MY DEAREST COUSIN,-I must write you a few lines to present you my sincerest felicitations on that great change which has taken place in your life. Now you are Queen of the mightiest land of Europe, in your hand lies the happiness of millions. May Heaven assist you, and strengthen you with its strength, in that high but difficult task. I hope that your reign may be long, happy, and glorious, and that your efforts may be rewarded by the thankfulness and love of your subjects. May I pray you to think likewise sometimes of your cousins in Bonn, and to continue to them that kindness you favoured them with till now? Be assured that our minds are always with you. I will not be indiscreet, and abuse your time. Believe me always, your Majesty's most obedient and faithful servant, 'ALBERT.'

This letter is characteristic, not only in the deep religious view of the responsibilities of exalted rank, but also in placing those responsibilities at their highest, which is a trait peculiar to a strong sense of responsibility. This boy of eighteen, writing to a girl of the same age, that the happiness of millions is in her hands, was expressing no mere flourish; it was the habit of a mind giving all the weight of size and numbers to duties, in order to press their importance on mind and soul, and call in a sense of personal consequence on the side of virtue. A month later the Prince writes to his father:

'Uncle Leopold has written to me a great deal about England, and all that is going on there. United as all parties are in high praise of the young Queen, the more do they seem to manœuvre and intrigue with and

against each other. On every side there is nothing but a network of cabals and intrigues, and parties are arrayed against each other in the most inexplicable manner.-P. 148.

It was an occasion to call for all Leopold's sense and tact. To prevent the world's eye resting too much on his nephew, at this conjuncture he advised that the brothers should take a tour in Switzerland and Italy before the visit to England in contemplation. Some details of this tour are given. Prince Albert kept up a correspondence with his cousin throughout. He sent her a book of views of the places he visited: flowers from the Righi, and a scrap of Voltaire's handwriting from Ferney.

'The whole of these,' the Queen herself writes, 'were placed in a small album, with the dates at which each place was visited, in the Prince's handwriting; and this album the Queen now considers one of her greatest treasures, and never goes anywhere without it. Nothing had at that time passed between the Queen and the Prince, but this gift shows that the latter, in the midst of his travels, often thought of his young cousin.'

About this time, however, Leopold opened the subject to the young Queen, who probably was as familiar with the idea as the Prince. Her reception was so far favourable that the uncle has a conversation with his nephew, of which the King writes in the following terms to the family's most confidential friend, Baron Stockmar, in a letter dated March, 1838 :

:

'I have had a long conversation with Albert, and have put the whole case honestly and kindly before him. He looks at the question from its most elevated and honourable point of view. He considers that troubles are inseparable from all human positions, and that, therefore, if one must be subject to plague and annoyances, it is better to be so for some great or worthy object than for trifles and miseries. I have told him that his great youth would make it necessary to postpone the marriage for a few years. I found him very sensible on all these points. But one thing he observed with truth. "I am ready," he said, "to submit to this delay, if I only have some certain assurance to go upon. But if, after waiting, perhaps for three years, I should find the Queen no longer desired the marriage, it would place me in a very ridiculous position, and would, to a certain extent, ruin all the prospects of my future life."

This relates to the Queen's reluctance to commit herself, on which she writes:

'She thought herself still too young, and also wished the Prince to be older when he made his first appearance in England. In after years she often regretted this decision on her part, and constantly deplored the consequent delay of her marriage. Had she been engaged to the Prince a year sooner than she was, and had she married him at least six months earlier, she would have escaped many trials and troubles of different kinds.' -P. 165.

On September 12 of the same writes:

:

year, Baron Stockmar

"The young gentlemen arrived here yesterday. Albert is much improved. He looks so much more manly, and from his tournure one might easily take him to be twenty-two or twenty-three.'

At this time he was not nineteen. The letter goes on to observe :

'What his father says upon the subject of the marriage is true. Albert is now past eighteen. If he waits till he is in his twenty-first, twentysecond, or twenty-third year, it will be impossible for him to begin any new career, and his whole life would be marred if the Queen should change her mind.'-P. 219.

It is on occasion of this delay in making up her mind that we have one of the most remarkable passages in the book from the Queen's own hand. We can hardly enter into the amount of self-blame; considering the circumstances under which she would have been required to make up her mind, not having seen her cousin since he was grown up. But her testimony to the difficulties of a young girl's position, placed in so extraordinary an elevation, gives a new point to an old truism:

'The Queen says she never entertained any idea of this, and she afterwards repeatedly informed the Prince that she would never have married any one else. She expresses, however, great regret that she had not, after her accession, kept up her correspondence with her cousin, as she had done before it.

"Nor can the Queen now," she adds, "think without indignation against herself of her wish to keep the Prince waiting for probably three or four years at the risk of ruining all his prospects for life until she might feel inclined to marry! And the Prince has since told her that he came over in 183 with the intention of telling her that if she could not then make up her mind, she must understand that he could not now wait for a decision, as he had done at a former period when this marriage was first talked about.

"The only excuse the Queen can make for herself is in the fact that the sudden change from the secluded life at Kensington to the independence of her position as Queen Regnant, at the age of eighteen, put all ideas of marriage out of her mind, which she now most bitterly repents.

666 A worse school for a young girl, or one more detrimental to all natural feelings and affections, cannot well be imagined than the position of a Queen at eighteen, without experience and without a husband to guide and support her. This the Queen can state from painful experience, and she thanks God that none of her dear daughters are exposed to such danger."" -P. 219.

The Queen's hesitation to commit herself, affected the young Prince in a very characteristic manner; he realised at once all the inconveniences of delay, the annoyance of suspense, and the undignified position of an aspirant. In fact, considering the relative standing of the two parties, nothing can be a greater testimony to the force of his character than the attitude of almost equality he maintained in this most delicate and critical conjecture. We might call it policy if we did not see in it the natural expression of a high self-respect-never for a moment dazzled out of its propriety. Next year, October, 1839, the young

Prince, accompanied by his brother, sets out from Brussels on his great quest, bearing the following letter from his uncle:'Laeken, Oct. 8, 1839.

'MY DEAREST VICTORIA,-Your cousins will be themselves the bearers of these lines. I recommend them to your bienveillance. They are good and honest creatures, deserving your kindness, and not pedantic, but really sensible and trustworthy. I have told them that your great wish is that they should be quite unbefangen (quite at their ease) with you. I am sure that if you have anything to recommend to them they will be most happy to learn it from you.-My dear Victoria, your most devoted Uncle, 'LEOPOLD R.'-P. 222.

Whatever hesitation the young Queen may have felt beforehand was removed at sight of her lover, grown from a boy into a man, tall, handsome, engaging, and able to plead his own cause in manner, if etiquette forbade his doing so in words. The contretemps of the non-arrival of luggage, which we remember got abroad at the time, was no doubt highly amusing to this august little circle as an incident altogether out of the common way; one of the few similar shifts love could ever put them to.

Leaving Brussels on Tuesday, the 8th of October, the Princes arrived at Windsor Castle on Thursday the 9th, at half-past seven in the evening. They here met with the most cordial and affectionate reception from the Queen, who received them herself at the top of the staircase, and conducted them at once to the Duchess of Kent. The three years that had passed since they were last in England had greatly improved their personal appearance. Tall and manly as both the Princes were in figure and deportment, Prince Albert was indeed eminently handsome. But there was also in his countenance a gentleness of expression, and a peculiar sweetness in his smile, with a look of deep thought and high intelligence in his clear blue eye and expansive forehead, that added a charm to the impression he produced on those who saw him, far beyond that derived from mere regularity or beauty of features. "Their clothes not having arrived," the Queen says, "they could not appear at dinner, but came in after it, in spite of their morning dresses." Lord Melbourne, who, as well as Lord Clanricarde, Lord and Lady Granville, Baron Brunow, and Lord Normandy, was staying at the Castle at the time, said at once to the Queen that he was struck with Prince Albert's likeness to her.'-P. 22.

The young party immediately fell into a very agreeable, easy intercourse, and in the course of a week or ten days the fears of the young Prince were finally set at rest :

'On the 15th there was an important interruption to the ordinary routine of the day. The Queen had told Lord Melbourne the day before that she had made up her mind to the marriage, at which he expressed great satisfaction, and he said to her, as her Majesty states in her journal, "I think it will be very well received; for I hear that there is an anxiety now that it should be, and I am very glad of it;" adding, in quite a paternal tone, "You will be much more comfortable; for a woman cannot stand alone for any time, in whatever position she may be." Can we wonder that the Queen, recaliing those circumstances, should exclaim, "Alas, alas! the poor Queen now stands in that painful position!"

'An intimation was accordingly given to the Prince, through Baron Alvensleben, Master of the Horse to the Duke of Coburg, and long attached to his family, who had accompanied the Prince to England, that the Queen wished to speak to him next day.

'On that day, the 15th, the Prince had been out hunting early with his brother, but returned at twelve, and half an hour afterwards obeyed the Queen's summons to her room, where he found her alone. After a few minutes' conversation on other subjects the Queen told him why she had sent for him; and we can well understand any little hesitation and delicacy she may have felt in doing so ; for the Queen's position, making it imperative that any proposal of marriage should come first from her, must necessarily appear a painful one to those, who, deriving their ideas on this subject from the practice of private life, are wont to look upon it as the privilege and happiness of a woman to have her hand sought in marriage, instead of having to offer it herself.'-P. 224.

Nothing can be more simple and dignified in its simplicity than the Queen's narrative and comments on events so full of romantic interest; and this because the sole view of the book is to set forth the events of the Prince's life and his bearing under them. We are continually struck by the utter absence of all thought of self in the whole of this charming little history, where every personal detail would have been received with such lively, sympathizing curiosity. On the notable 15th, two letters were written, one by King Leopold, to give his nephew a helping hand; which, as his letters are always worth reading, we quote:

'MY DEAREST VICTORIA,-I was greatly pleased and interested by your dear letter of the 12th, which reached me yesterday evening. The poor cousins had all sorts of difficulties to encounter (during the journey to England). It was however a good omen that once when they were in danger on the Scheldt, the "Princess Victoria," from Antwerp, came to their assistance. To appear in their travelling dress was a hard case, and I am sure they were greatly embarrassed..

'I am sure you will like them more the longer you see them. They are young men of merit, and without that puppy-like affectation which is so often found with young gentlemen of rank; though remarkably well informed, they are very free from pedantry.

'Albert is a very agreeable companion, his manners are so gentle and harmonious that one likes to have him near oneself. I always found him so, when I had him with me, and I think his travels have still improved him. He is full of talent and fun, and draws cleverly. I am glad to hear that they please the people who see them. They deserve it, and were rather nervous about it. I trust they will enliven your séjour in the old Castle, and may Albert be able to strew roses without thorns on the pathway of life of our Victoria. He is well qualified to do so.'-P. 229.

The other, a very engaging one of the Queen's, announcing that the die was oast:

'Windsor Castle, Oct. 15, 1839. 'MY DEAREST UNCLE,-This letter, will, I am sure, give you pleasure, for you have always shown and taken so warm an interest in all that concerns