The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (Illustrated Edition). Robert Thomas Wilson

she appeared. She shook hands with the ladies, bowed to the gentlemen, and proceeded to the salle à manger. I had to take in Lady Emily de Burgh, and was third on her Majesty’s right—Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar and my partner being between us. The greatest delicacy we had was some very nice oatcake. There was a Highland piper standing behind her Majesty’s chair, but he did not play as at ‘State dinners.’ We had likewise some Edinburgh ale. The Queen and the ladies withdrawing, Prince Albert came over to her side of the table, and we remained behind about a quarter of an hour; but we rose within the hour from the time of our sitting down. A snuff-box was twice carried round and offered to all the gentlemen; Prince Albert, to my surprise, took a pinch. On returning to the gallery we had tea and coffee. The Queen then came up and talked to me.... She does the honours of her palace with infinite sweetness and grace—and considering what she is, both in public and domestic life, I do not think she is sufficiently loved and respected. Prince Albert took me to task for my impatience to get into the new House of Lords, but I think I pacified him complimenting his taste. A dance followed. The Queen chiefly delighted in a romping sort of country dance called the Tempête. She withdrew a little before twelve, and we went off to Lady Palmerston’s.”

      Again, writing on the eventful day when the Royal Household had been put on short rations, the Baroness Bunsen, in a letter to her mother, says:—“Last night we were asked to the Queen Dowager’s, who had invited a small party, at which the Queen was present and the Duchess of Gloucester. The object was to give a German named Löwe, who had come with prodigious recommendations from Coburg, opportunity of showing his musical talent, and it turned out that he had none to show”82—not by any means the first imported adventurer who has tried to take advantage of the Queen’s good nature, and her sympathy for Art.

      The great scientific event of the year was a discovery in which the Queen not only took a deep personal interest, but the application of which she subsequently used her influence to popularise. It was the substitution of the use of chloroform for ether as an anæsthetic agent in operative surgery. Chloroform was first introduced into Great Britain by Dr. James Young Simpson, Professor of Midwifery in the University of Edinburgh, and he claimed for it several advantages over ether. A smaller quantity produced unconsciousness. It acted more rapidly, and was less evanescent than ether. It was alleged to be safer, though this is still a matter of doubt. The old masters of surgery used to consider a surgical operation the opprobrium of their art. By rendering all operations painless, Simpson did not remove this opprobrium, though he reduced it to a minimum.

      Two great events in the domestic life of the Court in 1847 were the visit to Cambridge and the visit to Scotland, which took place after Parliament was dissolved. Baron Stockmar was not the only quiet observer who had noticed that Prince Albert had “made great strides lately.” Learned men in England had come to recognise in the thoughtful and scholarly young Prince a choice and kindred spirit. On the 12th of February, 1847, his Royal Highness was deeply gratified to receive from Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, a letter asking permission to nominate him for the vacant Chancellorship of the University. Acting quite independently of Dr. Whewell, Lord Lansdowne sent a similar request, and Mr. Anson, Prince Albert’s secretary, received a communication from the Bishop of London (Blomfield), assuring him that a great many of the leading members of the University were deeply interested in the election of his Royal Highness, and would consider his acceptance of office alike honourable and advantageous to Cambridge. The Queen was touched with these expressions of kindly feeling, for if there had ever been a shadow over her happiness, it had been due to a lurking suspicion that her husband was not fairly appreciated by the people, among whom for her sake he had elected to work out a career of self-effacement. Here, at last, it seemed to her Majesty, there was an indication that her husband’s high qualities were meeting with their just reward. The offer of the Chancellorship of Cambridge she regarded as an honour conferred on the Prince for his own sake rather than for hers—as the first mark of distinction won by him in England, outside the sphere and range of her influence.

      This feeling was strengthened when, on the 18th of February, there arrived at Buckingham Palace an address, signed by all the most distinguished resident members of the University, urging the Prince to accept nomination. But in Cambridge, as elsewhere, little local jealousies often rob great movements of some of their grace and sweetness. St. John’s, ever envious of Trinity, thought the University should have a Chancellor of its choosing, and had accordingly put Lord Powis in nomination. The Prince, not quite estimating these petty academic rivalries at their true value, shrank from the competition, and ordered his name to be withdrawn. Dr. Whewell and his supporters, however, disregarded this request, and insisted on going to the poll against the Prince’s wishes, which put them at a signal disadvantage. The contest was keen—perhaps one might even say a trifle acrimonious—but it ended in the triumph of the Prince, whose supporters defeated Lord Powis by a vote of 953 to 837. Nineteen out of thirty-seven wranglers, and sixteen out of twenty-four professors, voted for the Prince. The resident vote was three to one in his favour, so that, as is usual in

      ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

      University elections, the strength of the “Marplots” lay in the rural electorate. Still, the Prince had scruples about accepting the office. His candidature had been carried on against his express desire, and he harped on the idea that victory, without some approach to unanimity, could only give rise to discord in the University. His friends, however, urged him to take office, and they had a powerful ally in the Queen. As Sir R. Peel said at the time, “to decline the office would give a triumph to the partisans of Lord Powis—who would feel no gratitude for the concession—and would cause deep mortification and disappointment to all those who voted for the Prince, and of whom the greater number cannot be held responsible for the nomination of the Prince against his declared wishes.” The smallness of the majority was, of course,

      THE PRINCE-CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESENTING AN ADDRESS TO THE QUEEN. (See p. 311.)

      largely due to the fact that the Trinity party had pressed the Prince’s candidature after he had publicly withdrawn. They were, in fact, asking electors to vote for a candidate whose acceptance of office if elected was doubtful. On the other hand, the Prince could not force his partisans to stop proceedings, except by publicly declaring that in no circumstances would he accept, even if chosen, the Chancellorship of the University, which would have been justly construed into an insult to Cambridge. Ultimately the Prince agreed to take office, and on the 25th of March the ceremony of inauguration took place at Buckingham Palace, where the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Philpott, at the head of an imposing academic deputation, presented the Prince with the Letters Patent of his office. The venerable Laureate, Wordsworth, himself a Cambridge man, kindly responded to a suggestion that he should write the Installation Ode, and, as he observed in a letter to Colonel Phipps, “retouch a harp, which I will not say with Tasso, oppressed by misfortunes and years, has been hung up upon a cypress, but which has, however, been for some time laid aside.” That he excluded the Ode from his collected works indicates that he felt the ancient founts of inspiration had almost run dry, and yet there are many passages of stately beauty in the poem. It begins by referring to the rescue of Europe from the grasp of Napoleon, and to the wail of sorrow that resounded through England when the Princess Charlotte died:—

      “Flower and bud together fall—

       A nation’s hopes lie crushed in Claremont’s desolate hall.”

      Then a noble strophe announces the birth of the Princess Victoria, and celebrates her happy destiny:—

      Love, the treasure worth possessing

       More than all the world beside;

       This shall be her dearest blessing,

       Oft to Royal heads denied.”

      But the strength and resonance of the Ode chiefly lie in the passages addressed to the Prince in relation to his duties:—

      “Albert, in thy race we cherish

       A nation’s strength