sume 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 part of the country were 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 peremp tory 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 unprecedented 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-Coburg-Saalfeld, and of his wife Louisa, daughter of Augustus, Duke of SaxeGotha-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 ex