THE PRINCE CONSORT.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 5, Issue 272, 12 April 1862, Page 2

THE PRINCE CONSORT.

crowd at a Royal progress or a coronation, but in its gentler and more affecting forms, the spectacle exhibited throughout the length and breadth of England on the third! Sunday in December, would not only have ' explained, but have riveted it for ever on i * his memory. T; From London to the Land's End, in the crowds that gathered round town churches ; as their congregations slowly filed but— in;.^ the little groups that met and talked toge-/' ther in such far-off country villages as the" news bad somehow reached— -there waslmt "

fFrom Blachwood's Magazine for January.) With trembling fingers did we weave The holly round the Christinas hearth A rainy-cloud possess'd the earth, And sadly fell our Christmas-Eve. Tbnhysok— ln Memoriam. Had any foreigner, unacquainted with our national habits of thought and feeling, and whose own education and sympathies were wholly democratic, sought an explanation of the old English term Loyalty — had he desired an illustration of its meaning, not as expressed by the shouts of an excited

:p^e^t|^g spo^e» l^f,: or thought of, for hou^^lt-iwas vthe , news that the Prince Cohort ,: was, deadr--" the Queers husba.nd^as uiany, a rough but kind -spoken voice. explained it to his neighbour. There -■were-many who had. never beheld the persons^ of 'the. Queen or the Prince — who 3cne>? them only as their rulers *by the grace of God ' — upon whom, neverthless, these tidings felt as of a private personal loss. For it was not only that there had been taken from us one who had long filled the foremost place in the public eye, and filled it worthily.; it was not merely that there had been struck down — sudden, as it seemed <to most of vs — one of the Heads of the people, who had so adorned his high calling as to have won the people's love ; it was all this, but it was something more. The first burst of national sorrow for the Prince was different, not only in degree, but in its very nature ; it was that, being what he was, he was the Husband of the Queen. . - C The first words that sprang to the lips of thousands were — not of the public loss, great and irreparable as that was felt to be, but—- "The poor Queen ! " Common words — not over courtly ; with little in tfiem of the ordinary euphemisms of loyal speech. " Most Gracious Majesty " — Sovereign Lady " — these were all good, in their time and place; but it was that homely phrase, that hearty English sympathy, that told the real strength of her subjects' love : that showed how the Royal aflliction had " bowed the heart of all the men of * England,*' even as the heart of one man." Now, when the suddenness of the shock has passed, and we can calmly call to mind all that he was, and all that he might yet have been, we have time to think and say, «' What a loss to England !" But the cry of that Sunday was the spark struck out at heat from the Heart of the nation — " The poor Queen !" It is no idle curiosity that gathers up, and dwells upon every particular of that anxious "week in the Royal Household. The (apparently) sudden access of dangerous symptoms on the Friday ; the Queen returning from her drive to find her husband all but hopelessly changed ; the watching through that long Friday night ; the young Princess, thrown "on her own responsibility," summoning her brother by telegraph ; his arrival in the dead of night ; the sudden gleam of hope that shone out again even on the Saturday morning ; the " one more night " — not to be granted — which if the sufferer could pass (so said the physician; it might prove the turning-point of recovery ; then, the long painful hours, when at last all hope was over, and the husband and the father, in the prime of his manhood, lay " dying fast." The sailor son far off across the Atlantic — the child left fatherless, away in France. And the one form of whose absence for a single moment the sufferer was impatient, which the dim eyes sought for almost in death — "He knew the Queen to .the last." These are details which the Queen of England will not have grudged to her subjects' knowledge ; for she knows they have been read with beating hearts and tearful eyes. It was not because these things were the gossip of a Court, that men have cared to read them ; but because every particular has come to us as tidings of those we love ;• because we have pictured to ourselves the scenes in that household with a personal interest — have associated them with our own painful memories or anxious fears. It was because we all felt that something more than Royal state was there — in the "King's Rooni." It was a faithful and • loving wife, not only a Queen — a daughter, not a mere Princess — who watched by that deathbed. More than all, because it was his unstained honor and manly virtue thai had made that household a pure and happy - one — that we so felt it ; and for that cause, too, many a stubborn English spirit would have watched there, at the door, or on the threshold, day and night, if he could have brought one ray of comfort to those anxious hearts, or a breath of ease to the sufferer. ■TfierevWere.no secrets about that deathbed ; nix^questionable favorites to exclude of be excluded.. He died — as a Prince should die^ 7 .;"":, .], 1 Royal though he was by birth, that royalty was of limited extent. His ancestral Principality was not larger than the estates of ; , many English nobles ; his own private fortune was but that of a younger brother. Though of the highest rank, according to the standard of courtesy, bis facc { essi9,n ta the place of Prince Consort of :,;,' : ",ore_j»t .Vßiijtein ' ; yras reality/ an immense •^-^el|^tiom.:;^it an advantage

brilliant future was not open to the eyes, of the young student of Bonn ; that liis excellent natural abilities were subject to careful training ; and that his youth escaped the risk of being clouded by the shadow of greatness to come. Still, the trial was a severe one. At an age when, in most of us, judgment is weak and passion strong, he found himself raised to a height of power and influence — if not of recognised authority — which would have been perillous indeed to a lower nature. He bore it well. He had his position to make, which was a harder task than to fill a station to which there was an established line of conduct, and recognised responsibility. There were no precedents of Royal Consorts which he might be safe in following. Howr he chose and kept his course, all England knows and confesses. If there ever was a man to whom the consciousness of well-used power was reward sufficient, without the outward praise and glory, that man was Prince Albert. He reaped many of the jealousies which power entails, and little of the fame which makes power sweet. How much this nation owes him for years of domestic tranquillity — for the growing esteem and affection which, year by year," has gathered round the Crown — for the training which has given us in the Royal Family such bright promise for the future, can be known but to few. None of us care to know too exactly ; none of us care to separate, even in thought, as to their will and their counsels, those Two whom only Death has divided. It is enough to know that the Queen had always by her side one to give her able and faithful counsel — to whom she could look with an entire and trusting affection — -who, even had it been possible for him to have interests apart from hers, was never governed by any selfish thought or ambition. If he had political opinions (and how could he not have them ?) he never obtruded them unfairly, or abused his high influence to any personal or party predilections. If men called him cold, at least he had no court favourites. If he was a foreigner by birth and education, he had as thorough an English heart as any prince born within the island. And perhaps in this instance the utterance of the general voice is not merely the feeling which, when the grave closes on the dead, forgets all past failings and remembers only the good ; it is rather the self-reproach, common to generous nations as to generous men, that we have lost one whose worth was so familiar that we were scarcely able to appreciate its full value until it had gone from our sight. It may seem to us that he has been called to his rest before his work was done. That question lies within the province of a Wisdom higher than ours ; nor will we augur future evil for a nation which knows how to honour a ruler such as him whom we have lost. If v»e had once a Queen who said she * took the nation for a husband,' jwe shall not now lack a people to stand in that stead to a widowed Queen. God willing, she shall not want for counsel, in any strait that may come. Again the question will be asked by high-minded men of all parties, ' How is the Queen's , Government to be carried on ? ' and it will be answered, honestly, laying self and party aside. Let such a man go to his grave ' among the kings,' with all honours that we can give him. For a King he was, in all but in name ; and one of England's best. Not one of iron hand and will, the hero of ' battle-fields and conquered provinces ; but such as our time needed ; wise, firm, temperate, pure, and true. When the nation reckons up her real Sovereigns, he will find his place amongst the Rulers of England. . -Even whilst these words are written, heralds have proclaimed his style and titles in the gorgeous, pageant that fills St. George's Chapel. „ That is the rite which custom has consecrated for the funerals of Princes, and it is well that it should still be observed. Let none call it an empty ceremony, or say that such pomp of woe mocks the cold clay that neither hears nor heeds. But the simple wreaths which affection laid upon his coffin were more honour than many crowns ; and deep in a nations heart and memory — graven in deeper lines, more lasting than on the coffin-plate — will live one title that is written there, the last and best — which is within no herald's cognisance, but which a mourning people whispers through their tears — VICTOIUUE KEGINiB CONJUGIS PEECABISSIMI.

Thrashing Machines rar Victobia.— The Herald states that the number of thrashing machines in the Ballaarat district is now solarge that the cost of thrashiing gfainJiaa beea reduced to lourpenoe per bushel. .