Comments upon the young Queen by a contemporaneous writer in Blackwood—A new Throne erected for her in Buckingham Palace—A touching Anecdote related by the Duke of Wellington—The Queen insists on paying her Father's Debts—The romantic and passionate interest she evoked—Her mad lover—Attempts upon her life—She takes possession of Windsor Castle.

A writer in Blackwood, speaking of the Queen about this time, said: "She is 'winning golden opinions from all sorts of people' by her affability, the grace of her manners, and her prettiness. She is excessively like the Brunswicks and not like the Coburgs. So much the more in her favor. The memory of George III. is not yet passed away, and the people are glad to see his calm, honest, and English physiognomy renewed in his granddaughter."

Her Majesty's likeness to the obstinate but conscientious old king, whose honest face is fast fading quite away from old English half-crowns and golden guineas, has grown with her years.

The same writer, speaking of her personal appearance, says: "She is low of stature, but well formed; her hair the darkest shade of flaxen, and her eyes large and light-blue." A friend who saw her frequently at the time of her accession, said to me the other day: "It is a great mistake to suppose that the Queen owed all the charming portraits which were drawn of her at this time, to the fortunate accident of her birth and destiny. She was really a very lovely girl, with a fine, delicate, rose- bloom complexion, large blue eyes, a fair, broad brow, and an expression of peculiar candor and innocence."

A few days later there was a sensation in Buckingham Palace, at the setting up in the Throne-room of a very magnificent new piece of furniture—a throne of the latest English fashion, but gorgeous enough to have served for the Queen of Sheba, Zenobia, Cleopatra, or Semiramis. It was all crimson velvet and silk, with any amount of gold embroideries, gold lace, gold fringe, ropes, and tassels. The gay young Queen tried it, and said it would do; that she had never sat on a more comfortable throne in all her life.

Two stories of the young Queen have touched me especially—one was related by the Duke of Wellington. A court-martial death sentence was presented by him to her, to be signed. She shrank from the dreadful task, and with tears in her eyes, asked: "Have you nothing to say in behalf of this man?"

"Nothing; he has deserted three times," replied the Iron Duke.

"O, your Grace, think again!"

"Well, your Majesty, he certainly is a bad soldier, but there was somebody who spoke as to his good character. He may be a good fellow in civil life."

"O, thank you!" exclaimed the Queen, as she dashed off the word, "Pardoned," on the awful parchment, and wrote beneath it her beautiful signature.

This was not her last act of the kind, and at length Parliament so arranged matters that this fatal signing business could be done by royal commission, ostensibly to "relieve Her Majesty of a painful duty," but really because they could not trust her soft heart. She might have sudden caprices of commiseration which would interfere with stern military discipline, and the honest trade of Mr. Marwood.

The other incident was told by Lord Melbourne. Soon after her accession, in all the dizzy whirl of the new life of splendor and excitement, the young Queen, in an interview with her Prime Minister, said: "I want to pay all that remain of my father's debts. I must do it. I consider it a sacred duty." This was, of course, done—the Queen also sending valuable pieces of plate to the largest creditors, as a token of her gratitude. Lord Melbourne said that the childlike directness and earnestness of that good daughter's manner when she thus expressed her royal will and pleasure, brought the tears to his eyes. It seems to me it was almost mission enough for any young woman, to move the hearts of hard old soldiers like Wellington, and blasÉ statesmen like Melbourne— mighty dealers in death and diplomacy, and to bring something like a second youth of romance and chivalrous feeling into worn and worldly hearts everywhere.

I suppose it is impossible for young people of this day, especially Americans, to realize the intense, enthusiastic interest felt forty-six years ago by all classes, and in nearly all countries, in the young English Queen. The old wondered and shook their heads over the mighty responsibility imposed upon her—the young dreamed of her. She almost made real to young girls the wildest romances of fairy lore. She called out such chivalrous feelings in young men that they longed to champion her on some field of battle, or in some perilous knightly adventure. She stirred the hearts and inspired the imaginations of orators and poets.— The great O'Connell, when there was some wild talk of deposing "the all but infant Queen," and putting the Duke of Cumberland in her place, said in his trumpet-like tones, which gave dignity to brogue: "If necessary, I can get 500,000 brave Irishmen to defend the life, the honor, and the person of the beloved young lady by whom England's throne is now filled." Ah, the difference between then and now. "Brave Irishmen" of this day, men who know not O'Connell, are more disposed to blow up the English Queen's palaces, throne and all.

Charles Dickens, who was then full of romance and fancy, was, it is said, possessed by such unresting, wondering thoughts of the fair maiden sovereign, and her magnificent destiny, that for a time his more prosaic friends regarded his enthusiasm as a sort of monomania. Other imaginative young men with heads less "level" (to use an American expression) than that of the great novelist, actually went mad—"clean daft"—the noble passion of loving loyalty ending in an infatuation as absurd as it was unhappy. Before the Queen left Kensington Palace she was much annoyed by the persistent attentions of a provincial admirer, a respectable gentleman, who labored under the hallucination that it was his destiny and his duty to espouse the Queen. He may have felt a preference for private life and rural pleasures, but as a loyal patriot he was ready to make the sacrifice. He drove in a stylish phaeton every morning to the Palace to inquire after Her Majesty's health; and on several days he bribed the men who had charge of the gardens to allow him to assist them in weeding about the piece of water opposite her apartments, in the fond hope of seeing her at the windows, and of her seeing him. Every evening, however, he put on the gentleman of fortune and phaetons, and followed the Queen and the Duchess in their airings. Drove they fast or drove they slow, he was just behind them. On their last drive before removing from Kensington, they alighted in the Harrow Road for a little walk, and were dismayed at seeing this Mr. —— spring from his phaeton, and come eagerly forward. The Duchess sent a page to meet him and beg of him not to annoy Her Majesty by accosting her; but the page was "no let" to him— a whole volume of remonstrance would not have availed. He pressed on, and the august ladies were obliged to re-enter their carriage, and return to Kensington. When on the next morning they removed from the old home, Mr. —— was at the gate in his phaeton, and drove before them to Buckingham Palace, and was there to give them a gracious welcome. He haunted Pimlico for a time, but his friends finally got possession of him and suppressed him, and so ended his "love's young dream."

It is likely that the merry young Queen laughed at the absurd demonstrations and amatory effusions of her demented admirers; but when, after her marriage, and her appearing always in public with the handsomest Prince in Christendom at her side, such monomaniacs grew desperate and took to shooting, the matter became serious. Then no more gentlemen in phaetons menaced her peace; her demented followers were poor wretches—so poor that sometimes, after investing in pistols, they had not a six-pence left for ammunition. One, a distraught Fenian, pointed at her a broken, harmless weapon, charged with a scrap of red rag. Another, a humpbacked lad, named Bean, loaded his with paper and a few bits of an old clay pipe. Bean escaped for a time, and it is said that for several days there were "hard lines" for all the poor humpbacks of London. Scores of them were arrested. No unfortunate thus deformed, could appear in the streets without danger of a policeman smiting him on the shoulders, right in the tender spot, with a rough, "You are my prisoner." Life became a double burden to the poor fellows till Bean was caught. But to return to the young Queen, in her happy, untroubled days.

In August she took possession of Windsor Castle, amid great rejoicing.
The Duchess, her mother, came also; this time not to be reproached or
insulted. They soon had company—a lot of Kings and Queens, among them
"Uncle Leopold" and his second wife, a daughter of Louis Philippe of
France.

The royal young house-keeper seems keenly to have enjoyed showing to her visitors her new home, her little country place up the Thames. She conducted them everywhere,

"Up-stairs, down-stairs, and in my lady's chamber,"

peeping into china and silver closets, spicy store-rooms, and huge linen chests smelling of lavender.

Soon after came a triumphal progress to Brighton, during which the royal carriage passed under an endless succession of triumphal arches, and between ranks on ranks of schoolchildren, strewing roses and singing pÆans. At Brighton there was an immense sacrifice of the then fashionable and costly flower, the dahlia, no fewer than twenty thousand being used for decorative purposes. But a sadder because a vain sacrifice on this occasion, was of flowers of rhetoric. An address, the result of much classical research and throes of poetic labor, and marked by the most effusive loyalty, was to have been presented to Her Majesty at the gates of the Pavilion, but by some mistake she passed in without waiting for it.

About this time the Lunatic Asylums began to fill up. Within one week two mad men were arrested, proved insane, and shut up for threatening the life of the Queen and the Duchess of Kent. So Victoria's life was not all arched over with dahlia-garlands, and strewn with roses, nor were her subjects all Sunday-school scholars.