Victoria Regina.

Observer, Volume 1, Issue 11, 27 November 1880, Page 93

Victoria Regina.

FORTY-THREE years ago, on the 20th of June, a firl of eighteen was aroused from her sleep at ye o'clock on a bright summer morning by the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham. In dressing-gown and slippers, with her Jong hair flowing in disorder over her shoulders, she went downstairs to hear the momentous tidings that she, Princess Victoria, was Queen of England. " She burst into a flood of tears," says the Archbi- hop, "and, trembling and faint, fejl down on her knee*, and entreated me to join Avith her in a prayer to Heaven for grace to ■discharge the duties' thus placed upon her." How the Queen has carried out those duties is too well known to need recapitulation. We •colonists are not ettusiv- ]y loyal folks. Perhaps the Duke of Edinburgh's cnduct during his visit to the A ntipode* rather disgusted us with royalty. But for Pier Majesty, at least, everyone feels respect. There can he no doubt that in the early part of her reign the Queen was strongly attached to'the Whigs, and that she looked up for advice in almost eveiything to her uncle Sussex and old Lord Melbourne, who happened to be Pirst Lord of the Treasury ; and when, at the end of four years, Peel and the Conservatives came into power, it was not at once that she took kindly to her new advisers. Plenty of proofs of this might be found in the journal of the Duke of Wellington's friend and correspondent, Mr. Raikes. I need not say that the Queen speaks German as- fluently as English; and German is still, as it was in the Prince Consort's time, talked in her own domestic circle. French is Her Majesty's language in ■writing or speaking to diplomatists ; but in the privacy of Osborne and Balmoral it is, and has always, been the " Deutsche Sprache." There is one thing to which the Queen has the most unconquerable aversion — that is, for any lady of her Court to betray the least of its secrets. I do not, of course, allude to important State secrets, but to such subjects of fossip as her daily mode of life — er hours of rising, going to bed, and so forth. We are occasionally let into a few of these in the book on her Highland life ; but, generally speaking, I fancy that she holds with the emperor mentioned by Tacitus when he says, "Maje'stati major ex longinquo reverentia."

■was always fond of drawing, and sketched well from nature. We have many "bold and characteristic sketches from her pencil in " Our Life in the Highlands;" and I have seen a pencil sketch of the front of Claremoiit, in very sharp perspective, drawn by her from nature whilst still a Princess, hut well worthy of being hung at the "Black .and White " exhibition for its boldness and freedom. That at sixty Her Majesty's hand has not lost its cunning may be inferred from the fact that she went out daily sketching the mountain scenery round Baveno last year. The Queen is, by the confession of more than one of her Prime Ministers, an excellent business woman. One of them, indeed, describes her as not only wonderfully conversant with State business, even before her marriage, but also as taking an "all-absorbing interest" in it. "When a messenger's box is "brought down to the Castle," he writes, "her countenance, which is naturally serious, brightens up immediately. She reads all the despatches, and makes her comments ; and is so engrossed by this one idea that she never enters into the light gossiping conversation to which most young women are addicted." I have seen several despatches in her handwriting, addressed to Lord John Kussell, Lord Melbourne, and Lord Aberdeen, with her signature, " The Queen," in the corner, after the manner of a frank. Whenever she used this superscription there was some remark or other endorsed on the paper within. The-e boxes are always sent

Women generally like, albeit in middle life, to feel some strong arm by their side on which to lean tor counsel aud advice even in little tilings. Before she -was married the Queen's friend was Lord Melbourne ; as a wife, she found her friend, as she ou#ht, in her husband And now, in her maturer years, she constantly consults in the lesser matters of everyday life two intimate friends — her chaplains, Dean Stanley and tlie Dean of Windsor, the latter ot whom, if I mistake not, is, in theory, the " confessor " of the Royal Household at Windsor.

The Queen is every inch a woman in her correspondence. I do not wish to read nicer short letters than tlio c which, as Princess Victoria, she wrote to Sir John Conroy nearly forty years ago, whilst on her tour in the Midlands and in North Wales with her mother — letters in which she orders bracelets, watches, rings, and other presents for those wlio made her tour agreeable at the various houses which she visited. And ten or twelve years later I was delighted Avith a right womanly note which she addressed to the Duchess of Gloucester, full of italics and notes of admiration, thanking her " dearest aunt " for the "pretty presents which she haji' lately sent to her dear little Bertie and Vie." In another letter the Queen shows the maternal element strongly ; while staying at Inverary Castle with the Duke of Argyll some thirty years ago, she writes : " Outside the: great gate stood the Marquis of Lome, just two years old, a dear, white, fat little fellow, with reddish hair, but very delicate features ; like both his father and mother ; he is such a merry independent little child. He had on a black velvet dress and jacket with a "sporran," a scarf, and a Highland bonnet." Little, indeed, could she then have imagined that the merry and chubby child would one day be her son-in-law. And, then, as to the art of saying or writing the right thing in occasions of deep grief and affliction — here I think the Queen of England shines out a true woman ; at all events few manifestos could have gone so straight to the hearts of all England as the letters which she addressed to her people on the deaths of the Prince Consort and the Princess Alice, and on the scarcely-expected recovery of the Prince of Wales. •'Extremely fond of art, too, is the Queen, aud when she is at Windsor she does not of ten let a in'o"nth.pass by without taking a peep into the Koyal Library, which coutains, besides the books accessible to visitors, one of the finest collections of engravings and specimens of the Old Masters, both English and foreign. There ■d|i*e drawers and drawers full of these, all carefifUy. catalogued and indexed. But what she prides herself most upon is her unrivalled collection of miniatures, a few only of which have ;seen-the light at various loan exhibitions ; and she is accustomed to boast, with a laugh, that in this respect she has only one rival in Great Britain, and that is his Scottish Majesty, the Duke of Buccleuch. Her Majesty shows her love of art in another way. From a child she

backwards ami forwards between the Queen and her Ministers by Koyal messengers, each of whom has a duplicate key. " It would be possible, of course, to give many incidents and recollections which would be read with thrilling interest hy a great number of people ; but I do not forget that I am writing of my Sovereign, and that the laws of good taste restrain the pen. It has fallen to my lot to see Her Majesty under a great variety of circumstances. What has struck me most is her consummate grace of manner, her unaffectedness, her great dignity, but above and beyond all these her supreme pity for the grief-stricken and the afflicted, whether he be highly or lowly-born. There is a gloriously-pathetic side to-the- Queen's character which shows itself in many ways. I thought it attained its most poetic point when I saw the Mother of England lay her wreath on the coffin of the Hope of France. ; ' E. L. Legge There is a good deal of excitement at the Thames about the mayoral election. There are two candidates — Mr. Wilkin.-on, the proprietor of the "Thames Advertiser," and Mr. Brassey, , a solicitor. The former is a clever journalist, j and a man of acknowledged ability. He | has done- the Thames a great deal of j good by means of his newspaper, attd if the people there do not elect him as their Mayor, they deserve— well, they deserve to have Nat Brassey.

the centre of the study, various objects scattered on the writing-table, and a candlestick on the ground, were a sufficient indication that this study had been the scene of the first struggle. But had the assassin here struck his victim, and had the latter managed afterwards to reach the bedroom to die ? or had Hardcastle, after in the first instance defending himself in the study, taken refuge in his bedroom, whither the murderer pursued him and where the fatal blow was struck ? This latter supposition would gain credence with any one who remarked, as we did, that after the strictest search we could not discover any sigu of blood in the study. " Pre-occupied with the important diity of ascertaining whether theft had followed in the wake of assassination, we searched one after the other all the drawers of the writing-table. One draAver only, the centre one, Avas half-open ; the key Avas in the lock, and a sum of tAventyfive sovereigns lay before our eyes. There Avere also papers in the draAver, the key of Avhich AA 7 e took possession of in order to restore it to the rightful owner. "In the rest of the room there was neither box nor receptacle of any description for money or securities.

"As we were about to cross the threshold of the bedroom door, Mrs. Hardcastle, who up to this time had been kept passive by the girl Mary, escaped from her arms and wanted to follow us. We begged of her, with every possible delicacy, to observe that her presence