It does not seem by any means clear, however, that Lord Melbourne and his colleagues deserved the savage censure of Lord Brougham merely for having returned to office and given up their original position with regard to the Jamaica. Bill. What else remained to be done? If they had refused to come back, the only result would have been that Peel must have become Prime-minister, with a distinct minority in the House of Commons. Peel could not have held his ground there, except by the favor and mercy of his opponents; and those were not merciful days in politics. He would only have taken office to be called upon at once to resign it by some adverse vote of the House of Commons. The state of things seems, in this respect, to be not unlike that which existed when Mr. Gladstone was defeated on the Irish University Bill in 1873. Mr. Gladstone resigned, or rather tendered his resignation; and by his advice her Majesty invited Mr. Disraeli to form a cabinet. Mr. Disraeli did not see his way to undertake the government of the country with the existing House of Commons; and as the conditions under which he was willing to undertake the duty were not conveniently attainable, the negotiation came to an end. The Queen sent again for Mr. Gladstone, who consented to resume his place as Prime-minister. If Lord Melbourne returned to office with the knowledge that he could not carry the Jamaica Bill, which he had declared to be necessary, Mr. Gladstone resumed his place at the head of his ministry without the remotest hope of being able to carry his Irish University measure. No one ever found fault with Mr. Gladstone for having, under the circumstances, done the best he could, and consented to meet the request of the sovereign. and the convenience of the public service by again taking on himself the responsibility of government, although the measure on which he had declared he would stake the existence of his ministry had been rejected by the House of Commons. Still, it cannot be denied that the Melbourne Government were prejudiced in the public mind by these events, and by the attacks for which they gave so large an opportunity. The feeling in some parts of the country was still sentimentally with the Queen. At many a dinner-table it became the fashion to drink the health of her Majesty with a punning addition, not belonging to an order of wit any higher than

that which in other days toasted the King "over the water;" or prayed of heaven to "send this crumb well down." The Queen was toasted as the sovereign of spirit who "would not let her belles be peeled." But the ministry were almost universally believed to have placed themselves in a ridiculous light, and to have crept again into office, as an able writer puts it, "behind the petticoats of the ladies in waiting." The death of Lady Flora Hastings, which occurred almost immediately, tended further to arouse a feeling of dislike to the Whigs. This melancholy event does not need any lengthened comment. A young lady who belonged to

the household of the Duchess of Kent fell under an unfounded, but, in the circumstances, not wholly unreasonable, suspicion. It was the classic story of Calisto, Diana's unhappy nymph, reversed. Lady Flora was proved to be innocent; but her death, imminent probably in any case from the disease which had fastened on her, was doubtless hastened by the humiliation to which she had been subjected. It does not seem that any one was to blame in the matter. The ministry certainly do not appear to have done anything for which they could fairly be reproached. No one can be surprised that those who surrounded the Queen and the Duchess of Kent should have taken some pains to inquire into the truth or falsehood of scandalous rumors, for which there might have appeared to be some obvious justification. But the whole story was so sad and shocking; the death of the poor young lady followed with such tragic rapidity upon the establishment of her innocence; the natural complaints of her mother were so loud and impassioned, that the ministers who had to answer the mother's appeals were unavoidably placed in an invidious and a painful position. The demands of the Marchioness of Hastings for redress were unreasonable. They endeavored to make out the existence of a cruel conspiracy against Lady Flora, and called for the peremptory dismissal and disgrace of the eminent court physician, who had merely performed a most painful duty, and whose report had been the especial means of establishing the injustice of the suspicions which were directed against her. But it was a damaging duty for a minister to have to write to the distracted mother, as Lord Melbourne found it necessary to do, telling her that her demand was "so unprece

dented and objectionable, that even the respect due to your ladyship's sex, rank, family, and character would not justify me in more, if, indeed, it authorizes so much, than acknowledging that letter for the sole purpose of acquainting your ladyship that I have received it." The "Palace scandal," as it was called, became known shortly before the dispute about the ladies of the bedchamber. The death of Lady Flora Hastings happened soon after it. It is not strictly in logical propriety that such events, or their rapid succession, should tend to bring into disrepute the ministry, who can only be regarded as their historical contemporaries. But the world must change a great deal before ministers are no longer held accountable in public opinion for anything but the events over which they can be shown to have some control.

CHAPTER VII.

THE QUEEN'S MARRIAGE.

ON January 16th, 1840, the Queen, opening Parliament in person, announced her intention to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-a step which she trusted would be "conducive to the interests of my people as well as to my own domestic happiness." In the discussion which followed in the House of Commons, Sir Robert Peel observed that her Majesty had "the singular good fortune to be able to gratify her private feelings, while she performs her public duty, and to obtain the best guarantee for happiness by contracting an alliance founded on affection." Peel spoke the simple truth; it was, indeed, a marriage founded on affection. No marriage contracted in the humblest class could have been more entirely a union of love, and more free from what might be called selfish and worldly considerations. The Queen had for a long time loved her cousin. He was nearly her own age, the Queen being the elder by three months and two or three days. Francis Charles Augustus. Albert Emmanuel was the full name of the young Prince. He was the second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-CoburgSaalfeld, and of his wife Louisa, daughter of Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenberg. Prince Albert was born at the

Rosenau, one of his father's residences, near Coburg, on August 26th, 1819. The court historian notices with pardonable complacency the "remarkable coincidence"-easily explained, surely-that the same accoucheuse, Madame Siebold, assisted at the birth of Prince Albert, and of the Queen some three months before, and that the Prince was baptized by the clergyman, Professor Genzler, who had the year before officiated at the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Kent. A marriage between the Princess Victoria and Prince Albert had been thought of as desirable among the families on both sides, but it was always wisely resolved that nothing should be said to the young Princess on the subject unless she herself showed a distinct liking for her cousin. In 1836 Prince Albert was brought by his father to England, and made the personal acquaintance of the Princess, and she seems at once to have been drawn toward him in the manner which her family and friends would most have desired. Three years later the Prince again came to England, and the Queen, in a letter to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, wrote of him in the warmest terms. "Albert's beauty," she said, "is most striking, and he is most amiable and unaffected-in short, very fascinating." Not many days after she wrote to another friend and faithful counsellor, the Baron Stockmar, to say, "I do feel so guilty I know not how to begin my letter; but I think the news it will contain will be sufficient to insure your forgiveness. Albert has completely won my heart, and all was settled between us this morning." The Queen had just before informed Lord Melbourne of her intention, and Lord Melbourne, it is needless to say, expressed his decided approval. There was no one to disapprove of such a marriage.

Prince Albert was a young man to win the heart of any girl. He was singularly handsome, graceful, and gifted. In princes, as we know, a small measure of beauty and accomplishment suffices to throw courtiers and court ladies into transports of admiration; but had Prince Albert been the son of a farmer or a butler, he must have been admired for his singular personal attractions. He had had a sound and a varied education. He had been brought up as if he were to be a professional musician, a professional chemist or botanist, and a professor of history and belles-lettres and the

fine arts. The scientific and the literary were remarkably blended in his bringing-up; remarkably, that is to say, for some half-century ago, when even in Germany a system of education seldom aimed at being totus, teres atque rotundus. He had begun to study the constitutional history of States, and was preparing himself to take an interest in politics. There was much of the practical and business-like about him, as he showed in after-life; he loved farming, and took a deep interest in machinery and in the growth of industrial science. He was a sort of combination of the troubadour, the savant, and the man of business. His tastes were for a quiet, domestic, and unostentatious life-a life of refined culture, of happy, calm evenings, of art and poetry and genial communion with Nature. He was made happy by the songs of birds, and delighted in sitting alone and playing the organ. But there was in him, too, a great deal of the political philosopher. He loved to hear political and other questions well argued out, and once observed that a false argument jarred on his nerves as much as a false note in music. He seems to have had from his youth an all-pervading sense of duty. So far as we can guess, he was almost absolutely free from the ordinary follies, not to say sins, of youth. Young as he was when he married the Queen, he devoted himself at once to what he conscientiously believed to be the duties of his station with a self-control and self-devotion rare even among the aged, and almost unknown in youth. He gave up every habit, however familiar and dear, every predilection, no matter how sweet, every indulgence of sentiment or amusement that in any way threatened to interfere with the steadfast performance of the part he had assigned to himself. No man ever devoted himself more faithfully to the difficult duties of a high and a new situation, or kept more strictly to his resolve. It was no task to him to be a tender husband and a loving father. This was a part of his sweet, pure, and affectionate nature. It may well be doubted whether any other queen ever had a married life so happy as that of Queen Victoria.

The marriage of the Queen and the Prince took place on February 10th, 1840. The reception given by the people in general to the Prince on his landing in England a few days before the ceremony, and on the day of the marriage, was