the Sovereign, as if in direct compensation for the storms that raved
and beat outside her home--a home now brightened by the presence of
five joyous, healthy children. It is a charming picture of the royal
pair and of the manner of life in the palace--styled by one foreigner
"the one really pleasant, comfortable English house, in which one
feels at one's ease "--that is given us by the finely discerning
Mendelssohn, invited by the Prince to "come and try his organ" before
leaving England in 1842, on which occasion the Queen joined her
husband and his guest at the instrument, enjoying and aiding in their
musical performance, and singing, "quite faultlessly and with
charming feeling and expression," a song written by the great master
who was now paying a farewell visit, with nothing of ceremony in it,
to English royalty. With a few touches Mendelssohn makes us see the
delightful ease and comfort of this royal interior, the Queen
gathering up the sheets of music strewn by the wind over the
floor--the Prince cleverly managing the organ-stops so as to suit the
master while he played--the mighty rocking-horse and the two
birdcages beside the music-laden piano in the Queen's own
sitting-room, beautiful with pictures and richly-bound books--the
pretty difficulty about her finding some of Mendelssohn's own songs
to sing to him, since her music was packed up and taken away to
Claremont--her naive confession that she had been "so frightened" at
singing before the master,--all are chronicled with not less zest and
affection than the graceful gift of a valuable ring "as a
remembrance" to the artist from the Queen, through Prince Albert. It
is a much more pleasing impression that we thus obtain than can be
given by details of State ceremonial and visits from other
sovereigns. Of these last there was no lack, and the princely
visitors were entertained with all due pomp and splendour; but
neither on account of these costly entertainments nor on behalf of
the royal children did the Sovereign ask the nation for so much as a
shilling, the Civil List sufficing for every unlooked-for outlay, now
that Prince Albert, by dint of persevering effort, had succeeded in
putting the arrangements of the royal household on a satisfactory
footing, sweeping away a vast number of time-honoured, thriftless
expenses, and rendering a wise and generous economy possible.

[Illustration: Balmoral.]

Formerly the great officers of the Crown were charged with the
oversight of the commonest domestic business of the palace. Being
non-resident, these overseers did no overseeing, and the actual
servants were practically masterless. Hence arose numberless
vexations and extravagant hindrances. In 1843 this objectionable form
of the division of labour was brought to an end, and one Master of
the household who did his work replaced the many officials who, by a
fiction of etiquette, had been formerly supposed to do everything
while they did and could do nothing. The long-needed reform could not
but be pleasing to the Queen, being quite in harmony with the upright
principles that had always ruled her conduct, she having begun her
reign by paying off the debts of her dead father--debts contracted
not in her lifetime nor on her account, and which a spirit less
purely honourable might therefore have declined to recognise.

[Illustration: Osborne House.]

Thanks to the Prince's able management, the royal pair found it in
their power to purchase for themselves the estate of Osborne, in the
Isle of Wight--a charming retreat all their own, which they could
adorn for their delight with no thought of the thronging public;
where the Prince could farm and build and garden to his heart's
content, and all could escape from the stately restraints of their
burdensome rank, and from "the bitterness people create for
themselves in London." Before very long they found for themselves
that Highland holiday home of Balmoral which was to be so peculiarly
dear, and in which Her Majesty--whose first visit to the _then_
discontented Scotland was deemed quite a risky experiment--was so
completely to win for herself the admiring love of her Scottish
subjects.

At Balmoral Mr. Greville saw them some little time after their
acquisition of the place, and witnesses to the "simplicity and ease"
with which they lived, to the gay good humour that pervaded their
circle--"the Queen running in and out of the house all day long,
often going out alone, walking into the cottages, sitting down and
chatting with the old women," the Prince free from trammels of
etiquette, showing what native charm of manner and what high,
cultivated intelligence were really his. The impression is identical
with that conveyed by Her Majesty's published Journal of that
Highland life; and, though lacking the many graceful details of that
record, the testimony has its own value. Happy indeed was the
Sovereign for whom the black cloud of those years showed such a
silver lining! Other potentates were less happy, both as regarded
their private blessings and their public fortunes.

It would be agreeable to English feelings, but not altogether
consonant with historic truth, if we could leave unnoticed the
scandalous attempts on the Queen's life which marked the earliest
period of her reign and have been renewed in later days. The first
attacks were by far of the most alarming character, but Her Majesty,
whose escape on one occasion seemed due only to her husband's prompt
action, never betrayed any agitation or alarm; and her dauntless
bearing, and the care for others which she manifested by dispensing
with the presence of her usual lady attendants when she anticipated
one of these assaults, immensely increased the already high esteem in
which her people held her. The first assailant, a half-crazy lad of
low station named Oxford, was shut up in a lunatic asylum. For the
second, a man named Francis, the same plea could not be urged; but
the death-sentence he had incurred was commuted to transportation for
life. Almost immediately a deformed lad called Bean followed the