QUEEN VICTORIA

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 98, 27 April 1935, Page 24

QUEEN VICTORIA

WRITES A "BEST SELLER"

DEAN'S TEMERITY AND TACT

Of all Queen Victoria's many titles to fame, one not commonly remembered is that she was the author of a "best seller." This was entitled "Leaves from a Journal of Our Life in the Highlands from 1848 to 1861." E. F. Benson in his "Queen Victoria," just published by Longmans, says:—"lt was out and away the best seller of the year, and there is nothing to wonder at in that, for it consisted entirely of those domestic trivialities into which, in the lives of the eminent, the public love to be admitted. Simplicity was the keynote of its contents and its style: it dealt with picnics, and dogs, and sunsets, with teas on the hillside, and the difficulty of making water boil out of doors, with Albert stalking a stag and Vicky sitting down on a wasps' nest." As literature, however, the book had little, if anything, to commend it. It was, nevertheless, followed up with "More Leaves," which was even worse. But Queen Victoria; when contemplating the issue of a third volume, "was induced to abandon this injudicious project on the very frank advice offered by her new Dean of Windsor, Ran : dall Davidson. He told her with great tact some of her subjects had not shown themselves worthy of being admitted into further confidence about her private life, and after a long silence of deep displeasure, in which he wonr dered whether he had better resign the Deanery, she sent for him again, talked to him with, her usual freedom and confidence, and no more was heard of Volume,llL" How many modern writers of best sellers show a like restraint! On her advent into" the literary world the Queen arranged, to meet Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Grote, and Mr. Robert Browning at tea. Carlyle "thought it 'impossible to imagine a politer little woman,' and her demeanour was very pretty and gracious." She was not so complimentary—she thought him "a strangelooking, eccentric old Scotchman, who holds forth in a drawling melancholy voice, with a broad Scotch accent, upon Scotland and upon the utter degeneration of everything," but Mr. Browning was "a .very agreeable man." The Queen's relations with family, friends, and Ministers are touched upon by Mr. Benson in an entertaining manner. While Gladstone with his superb conscientiousness lectured Queen Victoria on her royal duties of opening Parliament,' opening bridges, and entertaining foreign potentates, Disraeli, with his flamboyant courtesy, was more to her taste. He likened himself, somewhat fantastically, to "young Valentine lying on a grassy.,bank and ■ receiving this token from a rosy cloud," and compared the Queen to Titania. At another time he wrote: —"It may be unconstitutional for a Minister to seek advice from his Sovereign, instead of proffering it; but your Majesty has, sometimes,' deigned to assist Mr. Disraeli with your counsel, and he believes he may presume to say, with respectful candour, that your Majesty cannot but be aware how highly Mr. Disraeli appreciates xy<mr Majesty's judgment and almost unrivalled experience of public life." (From Mr. Benson's book one learns that Prince "Bertie," who was afterwards to be King Edward VII, realised independently the value of the Suez Canal shares. The sole credit for the idea of purchasing these shares is usually given to Disraeli. The Queen, says Mr/ Benson, had eventually, at Disraeli's insistence, agreed to allow Bertie to go to India as her representative, and on his way through the Red Sea, "the Prince wrote to Lord Granville about the Suez Canal." "It is certainly an astounding work, and it is an extraordinary pity that it was not made by an English company and kept in our hands because, as it is our highway to India, we should (in-case of trouble there).be obliged to take it— by force of arms if necessary." .In the same month . Disraeli purchased the shares, telling the Queen: "It is just settled; you have it, Madam."