Queen Victoria | Page 2

otherwise; for, though it has made me in love with a few royal people, it has not made me in love with royalty. I cannot but think that, so far from its being a condition of itself ennobling to human character, those born into it have often to fight to maintain a native nobility,--as Queen Victoria has fought, as Prince Albert fought,--for I find the "blameless Prince" saying: "To my mind the exaltation of royalty is only possible through the personal character of the sovereign."
It suits England, however, "excellent well," in its restricted constitutional form; she has all the venerable, splendid accessories--and I hope "Albert the Good" may have founded a long race of good kings; but it would not do for us;--a race cradled in revolution, and nurtured on irreverence and unbelief, as regards the divine right of kings and the law of primogeniture. To us it seems, though a primitive, an unnatural institution. We find no analogies for it, even in the wildest venture of the New World. It is true the buffalo herd has its kingly commander, who goes plunging along ahead, like a flesh-and-blood locomotive; the drove of wild horses has its chieftain, tossing his long mane, like a banner, in advance of his fellows; even the migratory multitudes of wild-fowl, darkening the autumn heavens, have their general and engineer,--but none of these leaders was born, or hatched into his proud position. They are undoubtedly chosen, elected, or elect themselves by superior will or wisdom. Entomology does, indeed, furnish some analogies. The sagacious bees, the valiant wasps, are monarchists,--but then, they have only queens.
G. G.
LONDON, _October 20th_, 1883.

CONTENTS.

PART I.
CHILDHOOD AND GIRLHOOD

PART II.
WOMANHOOD AND QUEENHOOD

PART III.
WIFEHOOD AND MOTHERHOOD

PART IV.
WIDOWHOOD

ILLUSTRATIONS
1. THE PRINCESS VICTORIA. 2. QUEEN VICTORIA AT THE AGE OF 18. 3. THE DUCHESS OF KENT, MOTHER OF THE QUEEN. 4. THE QUEEN AT THE AGE OF 64. 5. PRINCE ALBERT, HUSBAND OF THE QUEEN.

PART I.
CHILDHOOD AND GIRLHOOD.

CHAPTER I.
Sketch of the Princess Charlotte--Her Love for her Mother--Anecdotes--Her Happy Girlhood--Her Marriage with Prince Leopold--Her Beautiful Life at Claremont--Baron Stockmar, the Coburg Mentor--Death of the Princess Charlotte.
It seems to me that the life of Queen Victoria cannot well be told without a prefacing sketch of her cousin, the Princess Charlotte, who, had she lived, would have been her Queen, and who was in many respects her prototype. It is certain, I think, that Charlotte Augusta of Wales, that lovely miracle-flower of a loveless marriage, blooming into a noble and gracious womanhood, amid the petty strifes and disgraceful intrigues of a corrupt Court, by her virtues and graces, by her high spirit and frank and fearless character, prepared the way in the loyal hearts of the British people, for the fair young kinswoman, who, twenty-one years after her own sad death, reigned in her stead.
Through all the bright life of the Princess Charlotte--from her beautiful childhood to her no less beautiful maturity--the English people had regarded her proudly and lovingly as their sovereign, who was to be; they had patience with the melancholy madness of the poor old King, her grandfather, and with the scandalous irregularities of the Prince Regent, her father, in looking forward to happier and better things under a good woman's reign; and after all those fair hopes had been coffined with her, and buried in darkness and silence, their hearts naturally turned to the royal little girl, who might possibly fill the place left so drearily vacant. England had always been happy and prosperous under Queens, and a Queen, please God, they would yet have.
The Princess Charlotte was the only child of the marriage of the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV., with the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, Her childhood was overshadowed by the hopeless estrangement of her parents. She seems to have especially loved her mother, and by the courage and independence she displayed in her championship of that good- hearted but most eccentric and imprudent woman, endeared herself to the English people, who equally admired her pluck and her filial piety--on the maternal side. They took a fond delight in relating stories of rebellion against her august papa, and even against her awful grandmamma, Queen Charlotte. They told how once, when a mere slip of a girl, being forbidden to pay her usual visit to her poor mother, she insisted on going, and on the Queen undertaking to detain her by force, resisted, struggling right valiantly, and after damaging and setting comically awry the royal mob-cap, broke away, ran out of the palace, sprang into a hackney-coach, and promising the driver a guinea, was soon at her mother's house and in her mother's arms. There is another--a Court version of this hackney-coach story--which states that it was not the Queen, but the Prince Regent that the Princess ran away from--so that there could have been no