DEATH OF PRINCESS ALICE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume i, Issue 52, 25 February 1879, Page 3

DEATH OF PRINC ESS ALICE.

The Earl of Beaconsfield, in proposing an address of sympathy from the House of Lords to her Majesty the Queen upon the death oi Princess Alice, brought out one incident of pathetic interest. With peculiar felicity he spoke of the virtues of the illustrious dead : — "Princess Alice — for I will venture to call her by that uame, though she wore a crown — afforded one of the most striking con* trasts that I can remember of richnes s of culture and rare intelligence coin bined with the most pure and refined domestic sentiments. (Cheers.) You who know her life well can recall those agonising hours when she attended Che dying bed of her illustrious father, who had sketched out her studies aud formed her tastes. You can recall, too, the moment at which she attended her royal brother at a time when the hopeß of England seemed to depend on his life— (Cheers)— and now you can remember too well how, when members of her own family were striken by a malignant disease, she had been to them the angel of the house, till at last her own vital power was, perhaps, exhausted, and she has fallen. There is something wonderfully piteous in the immediate cause of her death The physicians who permitted her to watch over her suffering family enjoined her under no circumstances whatever to be tempteJ into an pnibrace. Her admirable self-restraint guarded her through the crisis of this terrible complaint in safety. She remembered aud observed the injuna tions of her physiciaus. But it became her lot to break to her son, quite a youth, the death of his youngest sister, to whom he was devotedly attached. The boy was so overcome with misery thut the agitated mother clasped him in her arms, and thus received the kiss of death. I hai'dly know an incident more pathetic. It is one by which poets might be inspired, and in which the professors of the fine arts, from the highest to the lowest branches, whether in painting, or sculpture, might find a fitting subject of com* meinoration."