QUEEN VICTORIA'S LETTERS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12966, 20 November 1907, Page 8

QUEEN VICTORIA'S LETTERS.

/ SIDELIGHTS OF HIiSTOKY

INTERESTING EXTRACTS

The following appears in "Argus," telegraphed from Fro- j mantle: — j Hie Moldavia, which arrived from J London to-day, brings the first ccpy j of Quevn Victoria's letters, elit.d by I Lord F/sher and Mr A. C. Benzol:, and j publish.d by John Minna. They comprise, three volumes of the tn«*t int.-r----uvrting liooku of the generation. 'I he ' letters cover the period between lho. and lW.il. and throw many sidelight...on coil it and political life in tlut poriod. In one Queen Victoria, writes <»" tie' Spartan simplicity of her youth. I -,\as liroiight up veiy simply : never had a room to uiyM.df tili 1 «ii» m-aiiy grown up. [ «ilwayt> slept ;i; my lii'itn'ti room till 1 oaiiio to the throne. I •Bin-. i:ot fond of lea,-.:ing ai* a !:;;> child, and baffled every altemp: :•• teach mo my letter.*, up to five yi>;n.oid, vheii I consentid to h-nni ihcm 1 ;.- their bemg written before me.' .Many of the (Juee,, , niotl <.on!i-i. :.- ti.il letters aro to her une.'e. Lc-pi-.i;. King of the Belgians. -Uiir fi.ei-.1. .Mr Hume," her .Majesty told h< r uncle, ■•m«i<lo a mo.-t violent -im-i ' h .:' tho dinner given him ami oi.i (i. ■•■.:<■ Byng at Drury lane lact v ■■•<■■ i:.Ciillo.l I'eel an<l M>iiio (.tin- - I' ■•■• ' ' cloven hoof, which 1 ll.i.ii. iai!.. i' wrong. I think tiiat hiifh jjimi •• .olenot and striving a p.-.y < i. ie<;h .- .h -. Lon't 3-011, dear illicit .- 'I hey irritate one another so use!e.s.-ly by c,ib;.:g one another fools, bloekhouds, liars, ond i-o forth, for no pu.r[xit«e. 1 think vmlonivi so bud in everything.'' Queen Victoria's first judgment of j Peel was not favourable. "My impressions, '' she wrote, "is that ho is not | happy and sanguine." Nor was the. Queen's judgment softened when Peel j insisted on her giving up her ladu-.-.. ; Sir Robert Peel, in the famou.s di.- ■ Elite as to tho appointment, of the adics of tho Bedclwiuiber, ciaim.d that U> him belonged the right of 110.111- , nating tho ladios holding plaoiw at j Court after ho hud formed bin Cabi- | net. He considored some of thciio | Belooted by Melbourne had a marked | political bius. Queen Victoria juxmitivoly refused to agroo to Peel'.s demand. She wrote to Melbourne that in her interviews with Peel "she wo« calm, but very decided. You would have been pleased with my composure. Tho Queen of England will not submit to trickery. Keep yourself in readiness, for you may soon bo wanted.' Melbourne was wanted very soon, but writing 00 years afterwards Queen Victoria said:-"I was young then. Perhaps I should have acted differently if it had all to be done again. lliat was one of the Queen's greatest, virtues—to revise any judgment which she thought untenable. Aberdeen, I'almoraton, and Disraeli all began by winning her displeasure, and ended by. winning nor cordial friendship. But it wan Peel of whom she most eltectttally changed her opinion. From open hostility alio passed to a generous admiration. We havo seen what a view she held in 1839. Six years later alio wrote to the King of the Belgians as follows:— "I have little to add to my letter of yesterday, except my extreme admiration of our worthy Peel, who shows himself a man of unbounded loynlty, courage, patriotism, and highmindedness, and his conduct towards mc has been chivalrous almost, I might Bay -" , , » 1 X Palmerston proved much harder to deal with than Peel. The Queen was constantly compelled to call him to book for failing to submit despatches to hnr before sending them off, and tvs he constantly neglected to do so, "the Queen must again remind Lord ralinerston," sho writes repeatedly, and he excuses himself on the plea that public business will not brook delay. On one occasion his impertinence passes all bounds. "Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and has a groat many apologies to maJte for not haying attended your Majesty's council to-day, and tlie more so,, as his absence arose from inadverterice., which ho is almost ashamed to mention; but having got on horseback to rido to tho station, with his thoughts occupied with some matters which he was thinking of, he rodo mechanically, and, in a fit of absence, to the Nino Elms station, and did not recollect his mistake till there; and. although he made the beat of his wny afterwards to Paddington, he could not get there in time for the train that would have taken him early enough to Windsor." The Queen strongly objected to Palmerston's appointing many extreme low churchmen to the Episcopal Bench, ns she had objected to the Puseyito appointments of Aberdeen. When Palmerston proposed to bribe John Bright to suppress his revolutionary sentiments lny making him 11 right honourable, tho Queen replied with a stiff refusal. Sho wrote:—"lt would" bo impossible, to allege any service Mr Bright bos rendered, and if the honour were looked upon as the reward for his systematic attacks upon the institutions of the country, every erroneous impression might bo produced as to the feeling which the Queen or her Government entertain towards - these institutions. Moreover, it is very problematic whether such an honour conferred on Mr Bright would, a* suggested, wean him from his present line of policy: whilst, if he continued in it, ho would only have obtained additional weight in the country by his propounding hi.s views as one of the Queen's Privy Councillors." The revolutionary .symptoms of the nineteenth century received very interesting comment from the Queen in a letter to the King of the Belgians.! She wrote:—"[ feel an uncertainty in everything existing, which uncertainty one never felt as much before as when one thinks of one's children and their education, and prays for them. I always think and say to myself, 'Let them grow up tit for whatever station they may be placed in. high or low. This idea one never thought of before, but,l do always now. Altogether, one's whole disposition is changed. Bores and trifles, which one would have] complained of bitterly a few mentlis! ago, 0110 looks on as good things, and 1 finite a blessing, provided oiie can | keen one's jiositiou in quiet." 1 TllO Queen, in one of her letters. | wrote of the Emperor Napoleon ,- as a very extraordinary- -011.> might say, a mysterious man, who believed fuliv in his star.'' Of the Emperor Nicholas sh» wrote:—'His mind if, an uncivil-! ised one. Politics nnd military con- j cents are the only things he takes a groat interest in. I'nfortunatelv he does not like being told what is' unpleasiug and contrary to his wiishes. and gets very violent when he lieari the real truth, which consequently is not told hint. There is th** uiNcrv ol l>ejng violent and passionate " The correspondence reveals the fact of tho Queen having advanced Lord Melbourne money through a private source, when he was in financial difficulties. In another imstauce. the Queen's generosity is given. In the case of I/ord Haglan. the' Queen wrote: — "It would be a pity if lie declined 1 peerage because of the fees." and sh. offered to provide them herself—«>ire £.500 —in surh a way that it should never be known through what source the iponev came. ,- I