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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 18

Loyalty, Royalty: and the Prince's Visits

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Loyalty, Royalty: and the Prince's Visits.

The sixth lecture in aid of the Early Closing Association was delivered on Monday, July 12, at the Academy of Music (Princess's Theatre). The lecturer was the Hon. A. Michie, Q.C., who took for his subject "Loyalty, Royalty, and the Prince's Visits," and whose great popularity as a lecturer attracted an audience not only sufficiently numerous to crowd the theatre and its avenues, but also comprising a large number of gentlemen distinguished in politics and the learned professions. Among them were the Hon. J. M'Culloch (Chief Secretary), the Hon. Geo. Higinbotham, the Hon. C. Gavan Duffy, his Honour Judge Bindon, the Rev. Dr. Bromby, Professor M'Coy, the mayor of Melbourne (Mr. T. Moubray), Mr. F. Wilkinson (master in equity), and several members of the Legislative Assembly. The chair was occupied by the Hon. C. J. Jenner, M.L.C.

The Chairman having briefly introduced the hon and learned lecturer,

Mr. Michie (who was heartily cheered on his first appearance, and who came for ward amidst deafening applause) said:—Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen,—If we ask of Dr. Johnson the Question "What is loyalty ?" we find his answer to be rather bald, and meagre, and by no means dispensing with the necessity for further inquiry. He tells us that it is "firm and faithful adherence to a prince." He cites various instances of the application of the term by some of our leading writers. Besides Shakspeare and Clarendon, he quotes Milton and Butler, in two well-known passages—

"Abdiel, faithful found—
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified—
His loyalty he kept."

Butler is in another strain—

"For loyalty is still the same,
Whether it win or lose the game;
True as the dial to the sun,
Although it be not shone upon."

You remember that Butler, in his Hudibras, is the champion of the Royalists as opposed to the Parliamentarians, in the great civil war generated of Charles the First's efforts to make himself an absolute and irresponsible monarch. In the lines I have just quoted, loyalty is represented as playing a game against some other power which I must suppose Butler would have us to understand to be disloyalty, as represented in the persons of the Parliamentarians. His metaphor, howsoever ingenious it may be thought, is nevertheless equivocal. If he meant to tell us that sincere and genuine loyalty—as I understand the sentiment, and as I shall hereafter attempt to explain it—is, or ought to be, true and faithful in its expression, irrespective of any hope of favour or advantage to ourselves, I am quite ready to subscribe to the position he here lays down. But if, instead of the meaning I have suggested, he would have loyalty to be a mere blind, unquestioning sentiment, I at once demur; for what would this be but a man surrendering his reason, his dignity, his independence, nay, even his very existence as a human creature, at the feet of another human creature like himself; and all, probably, for naught? The best specimen, perhaps, of such a virtue as this is that afforded us by the Highland man's extremely loyal wife, who coaxingly requested her husband to come out and be hanged, to please the laird—an affectionate request which Donald, not seeing it exactly as she did under the particular circumstances, rather lingered about complying with. This Highland wife's school of loyalty, then, I reject, as absurd in itself, and out of harmony with the nineteenth century. (Cheers.) And yet, I think, as we proceed we shall see that even a devotion like this points to a kind of sentiment which has not only existed and flourished, but which will naturally grow out of any patriarchal system of government in any country. We need hardly, indeed, go farther than to the admirable pictures of society in the payes of Walter Scott to learn the character of that devotion of clansmen to their chief which, as a last surviving relic of the feudal state of society, was common in the Highlands of Scotland until a comparatively recent date. Before commerce had dethroned force, different portions of society were either at war with each other, or they only preserved peace by constant readiness for war. In such times peculiar strength, prowess, or talent, would page 4 necessarily make many individuals natural kings, chiefs, leaders of men. The mutual attachment, springing out of the mutual interests of protector and protected, must have been the first foundation of the sentiment of loyalty. But when all the conditions of society are changed, when justices of the peace and constables come to be invented, such a loyalty becomes rather a tradition and habit of thought than a strong, living, active principle. Modern civilisation and such loyalty as this could hardly get on well together. But civilisation which rested on industry would grow impatient with the loyalty which fed on rapine, and would put it down with any instrument that came to hand, as Baillie Nicol Jarvie met the claymores of Rob Roy's caterans—with the novel, but effective, and, may we not add, the highly civilised weapon of the red hot poker. (Laughter.) I believe then that this blind and unquestioning loyalty, which was based either on personal attachment or on superstitious veneration for absolute monarchs, passed away with the society which produced it, and which could alone give it nourishment and strength. If, however, this devoted and patriarchal species of loyalty exists only in history, or in states of society similar to that which once obtained in the Highlands of Scotland, it is, nevertheless, observable that a loyalty of some sort still exists, for is it not constantly referred to in public addresses and in after-dinner speeches? I would, then, respectfully ask you to accompany me whilst I endeavour to ascertain what is the apparent nature of much of this loyalty in our day, and what its apparent depth or strength. In our own recent case, the immediate object of the sentiment was a young man between three and four and twenty years old, the descendant, and to us, in some sort, the living representative of a line of princes, some of them illustrious, and some of them rather the opposite, in any respectable sense. (Loud cheers.) Of the talents or the endowments of this young Prince, even were it becoming to discuss them, we are not in a position to speak with any degree of confidence. If, however, we have no actual knowledge that his intellectual qualities are greatly above, neither have we any reason for concluding that they are below the average of those of other well-educated young men of the same age. Thus much, however, alone seems tolerably certain—that on the Duke of Edinburgh's first arrival here, we knew little more of him than that he was the second son of our Queen and the captain of the Galatea. And yet, to welcome and enthusiastically greet this young man, there assembled here in Melbourne, on that first day of his landing, something not far short, perhaps, of 50,000 souls. At the same time, throughout the length and breadth of the land the population were equally on the alert to hail his coming, when it should become his pleasure to appear among them. Now, I think, we thus see at the outset that loyalty may be felt, or the demeanour that passes for loyalty may, at any rate, be manifested in great measure independently of any moral or intellectual qualities in the object thus regarded. It is this consideration which makes the whole subject as perplexing as it is interesting to many minds, How comes it that a simple, gentlemanly, unaffected young man, possessing the one mysterious advantage of Royal birth, should drive a reflecting, sober people frantic with the desire to gaze on him? (Laughter.) What did we gaze at, and why did we gaze? (Renewed laughter.) I ask this question because I think we must all be distinctly conscious that we cannot explain the interest we take in a prince exactly as easily as we are able to account for the interest we feel in some eminent man, who has distinguished himself in any way in his generation. For this latter person, independent of and apart from any factitious considerations, we are conscious of entertaining a respect as rooted as it is involuntary and sincere. For instance, a Nelson gains a naval victory, or a Wellington a land action, which may change the balance of power in Europe; a Garibaldi, by the fascination of his individual enthusiasm and bravery, infuses a new national life into his countrymen; a first Napoleon annihilates thrones, and becomes a maker of kings—in all these cases we have exhibitions of power. These exhibitions deeply affect the interests of millions of people. The names of the principal actors are in everybody's mouth, and are mixed up in all political discussions. The minds of the millions become heated as they discuss the qualities or probable purposes of these conspicuous persons, and nothing is more natural than the desire to see those by whom such remarkable actions have been done, and of whom so much has been said and heard. So with other forms of power. A Gladstone or a Bright sways opinion in the greatest deliberative Assembly in the world. Their words may affect human interests throughout the globe. A Tennyson wells over with poetry which sounds the depths of all human hearts; a Dickens is the master of our laughter and our tears, as be passes before us a portrait gallery now as familiar to us as that of Shakspeare. In all these cases we delight to look on, and strive to know still more, and as far as our eyes and ears will help us—and no other knowledge ever seems equal to that we get through our eyes and ears—the remarkable persons who do these exceptional and extraordinary things. All this is very intelligible. But many people demand (some of our English critics among them)—" Is it equally intelligible that we should throng and crowd together, and almost choke each other with dust (laughter), and raise triumphal arches, and make gold trowels, and pawn our pianos, and go into general convulsions (prolonged laughter and cheers), on account of one whose pre-eminence consists of the accident of rank alone?" One is reminded, whilst urging such an inquiry, of the Barber's soliloquy on we nobleman,' in Beaumarchais's Marriage of Figaro, "What has your lordship done to page 5 earn all this?" "Vous, vous êtes donné la peine de naître." ("You took the trouble to be born.") (Continued laughter.) Are we provided with much more satisfactory explanations than that of the Barber? Now these and similar questions have been put by our English critics about ourselves, as if the conduct upon which they were commenting was something peculiar to colonists, and unknown in the mother-country. One able and caustic writer in the London Spectator went the length of saying some twelve months back, that we plainly had "Prince upon the brain." (Cheers and laughter.) I therefore propose to show you, before I proceed to inquire further into the nature of this moral phenomenon, that what some English journalists have called "the extravagance of our enthusiasm" in connexion with the Duke of Edinburgh's first visit to these shores, by no means exceeds English extravagance on like occasions. Who can forget the popular enthusiasm in England on the occasion of the marriage of the Prince of Wales? And if English journalists are at a loss for British parallels to some of the more emphatic of our loyal demonstrations, such parallels may easily be found scattered up and down in English memoirs and diaries. What can well be more ludicrous than the account Miss Burney—afterwards Madame D'Arblay, one of the ladies in waiting on Queen Charlotte—gives of the manner of George the Third's bathing at Weymouth. Whenever he went out to take his morning dip in the sea the people used to lie in wait for him, and a second bathing-machine, with a band in it (laughter), always pursued him into the water, the band vigorously playing. "God Save the King," until His Majesty bad finished his Royal headers, and returned to land. (Roars of laughter.) Again, no obsequiousness of ours seems to exceed that described by Miss Burney as occurring on another occasion during this Weymouth visit. A deputation, consisting of the mayor and town council, waited on Queen Charlotte to present an address, congratulating her on the recent restoration of His Majesty's health. The mayor, as he approached the Queen to present the address, was whispered by gold-stick, or silver-stick, or some other stick in waiting (laughter)—the name of whose office I forget—"that the presenters of the address must kneel on one knee whilst passing Her Majesty." To the horror and consternation of the whole Court party, "the right worshipful" merely stiffly bowed, and passed on. The official stick pursued the offender, tapped him on the shoulder, and angrily whispered. You should have knelt, sir." "I can't," cries the mayor, in an agony, "I've got a wooden leg." (Prolonged laughter and cheers.) To complete the catastrophe—it must have appeared to the people of the court as if the end of the world was at hand—the whole of the councillors, taking the mayor as their standard, filed along in the same fashion; but whether from ignorance of court etiquette, or delicate respect for their chief, Miss Burney does not say. Here, then, have we equal extravagance—if that must be the word—of loyal demonstration in the mother country as in her colony. Our own acts and the home instances may very well keep each other in countenance. They are curious facts in the natural history of the human animal, and are well worthy of further examination. To say that such manifestations are peculiar to those who live under kingly government, will not account for them. In the United States a few years back, as dense, and even denser, crowds congregated in streets and assembly-rooms to look at the Prince of Wales. The feeling which brought these American crowds together could not be loyalty. What, then, was it? Was it merely that universal, yet vague feeling of curiosity which is excited by anything of which we have heard much, and know little, and would learn more? Is it that we unconsciously estimate every one, from a king down to a policeman, according to the stamp of authority which society and law have put upon them? Has this public sanction in some vague way led us to conceive of a prince, that with all the advantages of education and training any mortal can command, he will naturally have something in his own person to show for all this, and that there must surely be some congruity and proportion between the individual himself and his most exalted station? Or is it that we throng together in thousands to look at a prince, in obedience to that infinite susceptibility to excitement within us which draws us out in thousands to welcome the arrival of a new governor, to meet an "All England Eleven," to witness an execution or a review, or even to gaze at the outside of a house said to be haunted? (Laughter.) So omnivorous is the human imagination, that there is scarcely anything lying outside its daily experience upon which it cannot be whipped up into temporary excitement: an excitement, too, frequently as superficial and fleeting as it is noisy and demonstrative. I well remember revolving this subject in my own mind on the occasion on which the Governor and the Royal Commission were at the Heads awaiting the first arrival of the Galatea. The commissioners were curiously stowed away for the night, throughout the numerous bedrooms of Mr. Adman's Queenscliff Hotel, men of all shades of politics, Loyal Liberals and Constitutionalists together, within easy hail of each other. For once—

"Opposing factions nearly wore allied,
And thin partitions did their bounds divide."

Ostensibly we were all here to await the coming of the Royal visitor, in order to escort him to Melbourne. What depth or earnestness of sentiment, thought I, is there at the bottom of this proceeding? In how many and in which of the commissioners' minds may the feeling most operate? Whose loyalty will keep him awake to-night? Here, like Don Quixote watching his armour, are we supposed to be watching the arrival of the Prince. How many people under this roof are seriously thinking about this business, or page 6 speculating as to what it may indicate or portend? Now that the Australias are assuming almost the proportions of independent states, a Royal personage condescends to come, or is judiciously shipped, to look at us. We are regarded at home as a somewhat democratic community; is Royalty commissioned to fascinate us by its superior morals and manners? Now that the supply of princes in Europe is so rapidly exceeding the demand—(great laughter)—may it not be that home Governments are on the look-out for "pleasant fields and pastures new" for Royal supernumeraries? (Renewed laughter.) In the midst of my reflections, which Kept me awake some time—for, like Brindley, I can think most comfortably in bed—a familiar voice struck on my ear. It was that of a high legislative functionary, the rotundity and comeliness of whose figure proved that devotion to our Constitution by no means necessitated any foolish and uncalled for neglect of his own. As the energy and impatience of this high legislative voice showed me that, for the nonce, its owner was in some way, and for some moving reason or other, at present among the non-contents, curiosity drew my head out of the bed-clothes to listen. (Laughter.) What ailed him at this dead hour of the night? He soon made his case clear. "Waiter! waiter! where is my night shirt? (Great laughter.) What has become of my nightshirt?" exclaimed he. "I can't sleep without my night-shirt." (Continued laughter.) Now, I am free to admit—as they say in Parliament—that I strongly sympathised with the caller, for I labour under the same sort of infirmity myself. "Has he," thought I, "forgotten to bring a night-shirt with him, or has some fellow commissioner furtively appropriated that indispensable garment." (Fresh laughter.) In the intensity of my sympathy I was on the point of getting up and offering him my own, but prudently reflecting that it would be a tight and uncomfortable fit for him—(much laughter)—I kept it myself, and sank to sleep vaguely wondering about this mission we were all upon. Here was one of the most loyal of us, an important legislative functionary to boot, and yet his loyalty had never in my hearing imparted such moving tones to his voice as those which the loss of his bed gown extracted from him that night. (Laughter). Do I condemn or complain of this (at first sight) small querulousness on a great occasion? By no means. Which of us can say with perfect sincerity that our common creature wants have never kept fine sentiments waiting until a more convenient time? On the following day occurred other events, which showed us how we are apt to consider ourselves first and loyalty afterwards. With fear and trembling I noted this as we came up the bay. You remember that bay programme, and the now historical escorting flotilla of steamers. Perhaps some of you were on board a portion of that flotilla. If so, you will not easily forget the scene; for, on the whole, it was certainly one of the most animating and interesting the eye could rest on. The day, opening sullenly in clouds had cleared itself up; and our blue sky, and the almost equally blue waters of our bay seemed to join in the general joy. The hour had come, and the man; and as within a few minutes to one o'clock the noble [unclear: frige] rolled and plunged through the rip, reverently and loyally mustered our flotilla to take the Royal visitor into affectionate custody. Salutes blazed away from the Queenscliff battery, from the Victoria, and the Pharos; and the Galatea herself thundered a salute as Her Majesty's representative approached her tall side. But here, unfortunately for Captain Norman's beautifully arranged programme, the Galatea seemed to become altogether unconscious of our existence. Instead of waiting to be escorted—according to our pre-arranged plans—the frigate took to her Royal heels, and went straight ahead for Melbourne, leaving us all in the lurch. Thus this long-meditated and elaborately prepared escort was not only knocked into "a cocked hat" at the very outset (as one figurative gentleman called it), but at the shortest notice it was converted into a hopeless chase—a chase, too, as ludicrous as that of the wooden legged man pursuing the hare, where the longer he ran the further he fell behind. (Laughter.) Never did I behold longer faces than on that occasion. I trembled for the cause of colonial loyalty. I had been for many days pasta member of a commission of thirteen, consisting of judges, of Ministers (past and present), of the President of the Legislative Council, of the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, of the mayor, and ex-mayor of Melbourne. Most of us had given many meetings for the exclusive purpose of making the best arrangements we could devise for receiving and entertaining with becoming respect our illustrious visitor. A very prominent portion of these arrangements consisted of this flotilla, most liberally contributed by the owners of the different steamers. Commodore Norman having previously unfolded to us on paper his impressive plans for the port and star-board lines of vessels, the time had now arrived to see how it all looked on blue water, and now the blue water knew it not. Each and every steamer seemed to come driving on, smoking away on her own particular and private account—the little Pharos nearly last, and apparently in the highest state of asthma, but struggling along with a "never say die" look about her intermittent paroxysms of smoke which was absolutely touching. (Laughter.) Nobody said much, so I suppose everybody thought the more. One dejected and almost spirit-crushed commissioner did, with suppressed emotion, say to me that "Such behaviour was not nice in the Prince at all." (Laughter.) I could think of no more original rejoinder than—

"I'd excuse you, my dear, for disguising your love;
But why do you kick us down stairs?"

Royalty, decidedly, was not now shining on us, and we were, as it seemed to me, doing, page 7 or endeavouring to do, Butler's sun-dial under difficulties. I am disposed to think that many even moderate and unexacting people thought on this occasion that the Galatea authorities might, and even ought to have reflected that both the Government and the owners of these steamers had put themselves to much trouble and expense in the spirited exhibition of these reception courtesies, and that a loyalty to be warranted proof against any amount of contempt and indifference from its object would, possibly, in our age and generation, require a larger amount of nursing and weather-fending than it was likely to receive. Other and subsequent incidents connected with the Royal visit were calculated to excite similar reflections. On the Western tour the Prince and his suite and attendants rushed through Colac towards that day's haven of refuge, Mr. Robertson's house. Divers Colacians were known to be cruising in the neighbourhood with "a loyal address." The Prince, however, ran the blockade—the only blockade, I believe, he contrived to run throughout his country trips. (Laughter.) Did he exult? If so, I cannot but think he did not know all. Colac loyalty apparently never before received so rude a shock. A day or two after, the Colac Observer came out in the following startling terms—(laughter):—"The well-known loyalty of this journal—(renewed laughter)—forbids its attempting to give publicity to the bitterness of feeling openly expressed, and replied to only by an ominous silence on the part of the more guarded, who felt that an opportunity had been lost of cementing more closely the union which exists between this loyal colony and the glorious empire from which the majority of its inhabitants are privileged to hail." Now here we see what great events may from simple causes spring. (Laughter.) To save himself four or five minutes of a hot and dusty interview in Colac, the Prince had alienated a large number of persons. He is told that his few minutes' stay would have furnished an opportunity of cementing more closely this colony to the mother country. But he would not stay, and therefore, although the Colac cement may be undiminished in quantity, the "ominous silence" shows that some of the adhesive quality of the article is gone. (Laughter.) Now, we smile at this little extract from the Colac. Observer, and I confess I laughed at it very heartily when I first read it. But let us make the Colac case our own. Suppose that, on the day of the levée, the Prince, at the end of the presentations, had rushed down the middle of the Exhibition-building to luncheon, and said he would not be bored with addresses at all, how would all our be-gowned and gorgeously got up presenters of addresses have looked under such portentous circumstances? Would they have felt their own cement affected? Had they, like the Colac Observer, done "the ominous" towards the British Empire, that self-complacent British Empire might e'en have laughed at us, as we laugh at the ominous silence of Colac. Everything is comparative. Is there any more incongruity in Colac than in Melbourne, or in Melbourne than in London, fearing for the integrity of the British Empire by reason of a Prince s impatience in one place or in another? Taking with us, then, the little indications of indifference or impatience to which I have referred as furnished from Adman's Hotel, from the bay, and from Colac, is, it too much to say that loyalty of this kind is in large measure formal and mechanical? that it more unpleasantly resembles the mere instinctive bustling and busszing of bees round their queen, than an operation of man's reason; and that withal, it is at the same time so complicated with our own self-love that it is very apt to turn absolutely sour, unless the vessel that contains it has been previously well cleaned out from small vanities and foolish desires for personal notice? I will not, however, venture to say that I do not greatly admire or respect this noisy and demonstrative loyalty, without also giving you specific, and I trust not altogether unsatisfactory reasons, for the want of faith within me. I shall attempt, then, first to show by evidence that this bee loyalty not only almost necessarily corrupts and deforms the moral character both of the receiver and of the offerer of it, but that it is a sentiment—if sentiment we can call it—so superficial, so easily disturbed and displaced, that it affords no reliable guarantee to any sovereign that he may count upon it in any hour of need, And first for the manner in which it corrupts the character of the man who offers it. The word courtier is synonymous with everything that is hollow, insincere, and tricky in man. Exeat aulâ qui vult esse pius (he must go from court who would be honest). Histories, biographies, and diaries of statesmen and high officials, abound with the best authenticated anecdotes touching the absurd and contemptible situations people about courts have allowed themselves to be placed in, rather than run any, the slightest, risk of falling out of the Royal favour. I will, as my memory serves me, give you one or two of these anecdotes, to illustrate more distinctly what I here desire to convey to you. A good story is told of a king who was once curious to know which was the taller, himself or a certain courtier. "Let us measure," suggested the king. The king stood up to be measured first; but when the person who was selected to take their height came to measure the nobleman, he found it quite impossible, as he first rose on tip-toe, then crouched down, now shrugged up his shoulders to the right, then twisted himself to the left. Upon his friend afterwards asking him the reason of these unaccountable gesticulations, he replied, "I could not tell whether the King wished me to be taller or shorter than himself; and all the time I was making those odd movements I was watching his countenance to see what I ought to do." Here is another instance, not much less absurd, although it also shows that a man of a really independent spirit page 8 can sometimes show it even at court, In the memoirs of Count Grammont, it is related of Louis XIV. that, on the occasion of a dispute with one of his courtiers over a game of chess, no one of the bystanders would give an opinion. "Oh," cried the King, "here comes Count Hamilton; be shall decide which of us is in the right." "Your Majesty is in the wrong," the count replied, without looking at the board; on which the King, remonstrating with him on the impossibility of his judging till he saw the state of the game, he added, "Does your Majesty suppose that if you were in the right all these noblemen would stand by and say nothing?" If you desire, you may find plenty more such indications of the courtier character in the classes of works I have mentioned. And now, on the other hand, for the general effect on the recipient of this Kind of flattery. It evidently fosters an egotism of so peculiar, and frequently of so morbid a character, that it very often assumes even the appearance of insanity. It puts kings and princes above and beyond those conditions and sanctions of social life which surround and wholesomely limit and control the pride and vanity of ordinary men. Upon the Emperor Alexander of Russia once being offered, when in England, a glass of wine by a servant in livery, be started, it is said, as if he had trodden on a snake. The mischievous idiot King of Denmark, who married the unfortunate Caroline Matilda, the sister of our George III., among other Royal recreations, used to amuse himself by ordering people to box with him. If they refused, he punished them for disobeying the Royal commands; and if they complied and hit him too hard, he punished them for assaulting the Royal person. (Laughter.) It is an almost gross rudeness in Court etiquette to say anything to a Royal person which can possibly imply that his health is liable to disturbance like that of ordinary flesh and blood. In the Table Talk of Rogers, the Banker poet, he describes the following amusing incident:—"Once when in company with William the Fourth." says Rogers, "I quite forgot that it is against all etiquette to ask a sovereign about his health; and on his saying to me, 'Mr. Rogers, I hope you are well,' I replied, 'Very well, I thank your Majesty; I trust that your Majesty is quite well also.' Never was a king in greater confusion; he didn't know where to look, and stammered out, 'Yes, yes,—only a little rheumatism.'" Again, in Raikes's Diary, where he comments on the curious delusions of vanity under which the Fourth George at times laboured, we find the following remarkable testimony—"There is no doubt that for several years before his death, whether from early indulgence in luxury, or from a malady inherent in his family, his mind would occasionally warder, and many anecdotes have been current of the unfortunate impressions under which he laboured. After the glorious termination in 1815, of the long continental war, by the battle of Waterloo, it would not, perhaps, be unpardonable vanity in him to have thought that the English nation had mainly contributed to this great event; but he certainly at times, in conversation, arrogated to himself personally the glory of subduing Napoleon's power and giving peace to the world. It was upon one of these assumptions being reported to the sarcastic Sheridan, that he archly remarked "That is all well enough, but what he particularly, piques himself upon is the last abundant harvest." (Laughter.) We may add to Raikes by saying that this form of delusion George the Fourth inherited from his father. The latter once, on the receipt of a despatch announcing some advantage over the American colonists, then in arms against the mother country, rushed into the Queen's room excitedly, exclaiming, "Charlotte, Charlotte, I've beaten all the Americans." And when I speak of the morbid and ungovernable self-will generated in the minds of princes by the flattery of subjects, I know not where you may obtain clearer proofs of the strength and the manner of working of this feeling than from the career of this very King. I apprehend that few men possessed the domestic virtues in larger measure than George the Third. They were the basis of his great popularity. He was a good husband, an indulgent father, a kind friend, and, moreover, a man of the simplest tastes and habits. His oft-quoted talent for making an excellent dinner off a boiled leg of mutton and turnips delighted his subjects, affording such clear proof, as it did, that a Royal stomach is human after all. One such touch of nature—even through the digestive organs—made him and all his subjects kin. Such, then, being the original personal qualities of George III., one would naturally think that he was about the least likely subject to be spoiled by the regal attributes and liabilities. And yet no man was more enslaved to a perfectly ungovernable wilfulness of character where his claim to rule was actively opposed, or even questioned. Witness his obstinate, persistent, dogged determination to continue the American war long after Lord North, his Prime Minister, would have abandoned the contest as at once unreasonable, hopeless, and condemned by all the enlightened statesmen of the day. In the mind of a man naturally kind had grown up a passionate sense of jealous authority, which could not brook the merest snow of opposition; and the destruction of thousands upon thousands of human lives on both sides was as nothing compared with the intolerable abomination of a subject having notions of taxation different from those of his king. Again, look at the manner in which this idol-worship of, princes commonly relaxes in, and sometime even obliterates from, their, minds, not only a proper regard for the opinions of others, but even the ordinary virtues of gratitude, honesty truth, and friendship. A prince too frequently comes to regard the world at large as a huge bank of pleasure, on which he may overdraw to any extent without his page 9 cheques ever being dishonoured. Why is a prince to have such a vulgar virtue as gratitude, when the mere fact of his accepting a service or benefit is, in the ethics of most courts, a quite sufficient acknowledgement and return of the service rendered? Look at the whole line of the Stuarts. Did ever a more hopelessly selfish, ungrateful set of men affront the moral sense of a nation? Even in the eyes of his apologist, Clarendon, Charles the First was a man who knew no touch of real friendship for any human creature; he was truthful only when he could gain nothing by falsehood. The using of Strafford for the ends of his own Royal will, or the signing of the death-warrant of Strafford when those ends miscarried, was equally justifiable and expedient for a king's convenience. Charles the Second has been by superficial popular opinion—ignorant of Pepys's account of him—considered rather better than his father, because among other good-natured sayings reported of him, is his death-bed speech, "Don't let poor Nelly starve." Now, if he had really-thought much more about poor Nelly than be thought of one of his spaniels, he might as well before the time arrived for making this speech, have settled a trifle on Nelly, and so have put her above the possible neglect or caprice of survivors. Follow the fortunes or this family as you may, in their exile on the Continent, in their heavy drafts on the blind and stupid loyalty of the Scotch Highlanders, from the flight of James the Second until the last attempt of Charles Stuart in 1745, and you see only a coarse, steadfast, undisguised egotism—as if on an assumed inherent privilege of the Lord's anointed—manifested throughout and in all things, These were the undeniable things openly and commonly uttered about the Stuarts by all men in the days of the Regency. Had it been decent, or courtly, or loyal to do so, even worse tilings might with perfect truth have been openly, as they were privately, said and known, of the Regent himself. That a prince should cast off old loves of which he is tired, is not much thought of, and some allowance is, perhaps, not unjustly made for the fact that he is not generally able, as are men of more humble rank, to choose a partner in life for himself. But a prince is never under the necessity of leaving an old lover to want and misery, and this did George the Fourth by Mary Robinson. He was equally heartless by a still more serious connexion; for although he authorised his companion, Mr. Fox, to go down to the House of Commons, and deny, "on authority," Mr. Pitt's assertion of the Prince's marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert; yet it soon afterwards clearly appeared that Mr. Fox had been duped, and the lady's feelings and reputation outraged, inasmuch as the marriage had really taken place. Again, mark this Prince's conduct among associates of his own sex. The case must be a had one, indeed, which can call for the expulsion of the Heir Apparent from the Jockey Club and yet George Prince of Wales was so expelled. He mixed freely with the Foxes, Sheridans, and Fitzpatricks of his day, principally with the pious desire to vex his father, for his subsequent conduct showed that he was never a Whig at heart, assuming that be had a heart. He let his old companion Sheridan—his advocate and creature in the House of Commons, and the panderer to some of the least creditable of bis Royal pleasures—die almost wanting the necessaries of life; and his manner of leaving Beau Brummell to a like fate is so characteristic as to be worth more than a passing glance. When Brummell (presuming on an intimacy which to the poor beau had all the appearance of that ease and mutuality of licence common among equals) said, "Wales, ring the bell," and Wales did ring the bell, but only to order Brummell's carriage, the latter realised for life the danger of presuming too much on Royal condescension, however familiarly that condescension may be manifested. Too effectually; poor cast-off Brummell learned that a prince never forgets the distance in rank between himself and an ordinary subject, any more than a cat forgets when you are romping with her that she has sharp claws within those velvet paws of hers. Banished at once, and for good, from the sunshine of the Royal countenance, and being unfit for any other sort of company, he drifts into a sort of small consular employment somewhere on the Continent, and finally dies in obscurity and want—George IV. thinking no more of him than of a cast-off old shoe. Whilst unable to pity the poor fallen parasite, we are compelled into despising the miserable smallness of "the first gentleman in Europe," as he was called by the Court journalists of the day. (Applause.) With such precedents of princely bearing, then, as these before our eyes, why should a people, with any pretensions to knowledge of human nature, be so much put out, as many of our citizens were the other day, on reading that £3,500—(laughter)—had been put on the Imperial Estimates to defray the expense of the presents made by the Duke of Edinburgh when in Australia? When Captain Cook took out his stock of glass beads, and looking-glasses, and red cloth, with which to win the affections of the artless savages of the South Sea Islands, whoever expected he was to bear the cost of, as well as distribute, these harmless trifles? "But the destruction of the sentiment of the thing!" some one may, perhaps, object. Well, there is something in that. (Cheers.) I must admit this £3,500 looks too much as if Romeo had kept a pocket-ledger, and had therein duly entered to the debit of Juliet the cost of any little presents—(laughter)—he might have made her during his moonlight courtship, with the object afterwards of putting the values on old Capulet's "estimates" if the business should ever come to marriage settlements. (Renewed cheers and laughter.) But to proceed. I think it can hardly have (escaped you a moment back, when I was reporting Sheridan's facetious sarcasm at the expense of George IV., how the satellites of kings are page 10 accustomed to relieve their sense of humiliation by ridiculing those idols behind their backs, in the presence of which the irreverent scoffers can hardly stand upright. A king, therefore, and more especially an absolute king, must live, move, and have his very being in an atmosphere of falsehood, and if he happen to fall on evil times he may perhaps have many courtiers, but assuredly he will have but few friends. Cast back your minds to a period which can be easily covered by the memories of many now present. How many thrones have fallen within our own generation! Where are now the family of Louis Philippe of France? Where the ex-Royal family of Naples? With what apparent unconcern did all Europe, a few years back, behold the late King of Hanover, the first cousin of our Queen, driven forth from his little kingdom! How coolly is Count Bismark, even now, proceeding to appropriate this ex-king's immense private property, on the plea that he and other refugees—"reptiles" as the count calls them—are using the income from this wealth in the subsidising of journals to vilify and undermine the power of Prussia. With what cold-blooded indifference did those half savages, the Mexicans, shoot the poor ill-starred Emperor, who had been exported to them by his patron, Louis Napoleon! How summarily was King Otho deposed by his restless subjects, and another prince placed on the little throne of Greece; and last, but not least, look at the most recent Royal ruin of all—the expulsion and flight of Isabella of Spain, "the last of the Bourbons," as she is called. Disreputable as this woman was in her life, and altogether contemptible in intellect, yet you have to consider how hard it is to change a nation's habits; and Spain has been for so many centuries a monarchy that it is even yet problematical whether she will, or rather can, settle down to any other form of government. Enough, however, has already been achieved to show that courtiers melt away before revolutions like morning mists before the mounting sun; and it is certain that Europe, even in her darkest recesses, has lost the old, simple, confiding, uninquiring sentiment with which men once regarded the position and character of a crowned head. And yet the fine expression of Shakspeare, "There is a divinity doth hedge a king," is, with some qualification, as true now as ever it was. (Applause.) But he must be a king who lives and rules according to the age into which he is born. (Cheers.) He must not be a solecism in government, running counter to the best intellect and the noblest purposes of the society over which Providence has called upon him to preside. (Renewed cheers.) In one word, he must be what we call a constitutional sovereign—such a sovereign as, I think, all here present will admit our Queen Victoria to be. (Continued applause.) With no spirit of adulation would I profane this part of my subject. But think for an instant of the contrast between the two contemporaneous queens—the Queen of England and the Queen of Spain—the one an outcast from her kingdom, seeking an asylum in a foreign land; the other, reigning secure in the hearts of her people, and with a nation for her body-guard. (Prolonged cheers.) Have we tar to seek to understand the difference? Speaking from this side of the world about our Queen, we may, perhaps, without indelicacy, use almost the freedom of history I shall do so with all respect, and I am sure with all truth. In her early youth it was the peculiar good fortune of the Princess Victoria to be surrounded by wise and constitutional teachers, and their counsels fell on a kindly soil. Her uncle, the Duke of Sussex, of all the then Royal family the most liberal in his views, and the most commonly coming in contact with the people at public dinners and at other popular gatherings, was one of her most trusted advisers. She was carefully trained, therefore, with special reference to the future high destiny that awaited her. We cannot read the graphic account which has been published of the ease, the dignity, and the thorough self-possession with which the girl Queen presided at her first Cabinet Council, without perceiving distinctly the care with which she had been trained to her exalted station. It was her singularly happy fortune, too to be wedded when young to a partner whose remarkable abilities and sound judgment were equalled, if not exceeded, by a kindly disposition and an elevated and conscientious character, ever mindful of the critical and most important position he occupied. All their subsequent history, apart from such revelations as come down from Court circles to society at large, has been made familiar to us all in a narrative which affords an almost perfect picture of thoroughly happy wedded life. And throughout this life, so beneficially influential as it must have been on society, Queen Victoria held, and has conscientiously discharged, the duties of a British sovereign, holding her high estate under the law. The will of the people, as expressed through their Parliament, has ever been to her the object of her peculiar solicitude, of which truth many illustrations have been afforded during her prosperous and memorable reign. The most interesting evidence of this has been afforded us within the last few months. I do not know how it struck my hearers, but, speaking for myself, I must say that I never read anything with greater interest, or anything which ever yet excited in myself so lively a feeling of admiration for the character of the Queen, as me account we recently received through the English newspapers, detailing the particulars of her interview with Mr. Bright on the occasion of his becoming a Cabinet Minister. (Applause.) Does history afford quite such another case of extremes meeting? Is such another proof to be found of the elasticity of the British Constitution? Thirty years back politicians, either in or out of Parliament would as soon have thought of William Cobbett, or of Orator Hunt, as of Mr. Bright being tendered office under the Crown, much less an office which, if accepted, page 11 must necessarily bring the holder of it into habitual communication with Majesty itself. And in the present case, in estimating the conduct of the Queen, we are not to lose sight of the fact that her previous habits and associations, and those of her new Ministry, must necessarily have caused Queen and subject to form very different opinions from each other on many most important questions. The Queen's whole life and conversation have been among the very élite of Eng land's wealthy, powerful, and (in favour of their own order) naturally prejudiced aristocracy. On the other hand, Mr. Bright, born and bred in the middle class, has, from his earliest manhood, steadily held most liberal, not to say extreme, opinions; has sometimes stood almost alone in his resolute opposition to the war policy of successive Ministries; has frequently denounced the large army and navy establishments as being maintained merely as a mode of supporting the younger and poorer scions of the governing classes out of the public purse; has habitually praised the economy and efficiency of various Transatlantic institutions, and has dealt so many and such vigorous blows at the aristocracy that they could not possibly have grieved had he broken a blood-vessel, and dropped down dead in the midst of one of his ablest philippics. No wonder, therefore, that Mr. Gladstone felt some very natural embarrassment, when the thought first entered his head of offering Mr. Bright a post in the Cabinet. On the one hand he saw a man who by talent, by influence, and by character—for character still counts for something in England, in a public man, and more especially in a Minister (applause)—was already indicated by the public mind for high office; on the other hand was Her Majesty, who might not unreasonably—if swayed merely by personal considerations—object to Mr. Bright's appointment. But what course did she take? With a frankness and a candour, and a subordination of every other feeling to her sense of public duty, she at once expressed her willingness to receive Mr. Bright as one of her advisers. Attended by one of her daughters, she gave him a personal and special interview, and as we read of Mr. Bright's happy compliments to the amiable young princess, we almost see Milton's genial and sagacious elephant "wreathing his proboscis lithe, to make them sport." Such an historical picture as this is to me, at the least, as delightful as that big piece of work of Mr. Haydon's hanging on our walls, called the banishment of Aristides. (Laughter.) The loyalty, then, of which I spoke at the outset of these observations as the loyalty I should seek to explain and defend, as distinguished from the bee-loyalty of which I have spoken, is that sentiment which any, the wisest man, may reasonably feel and heartily express, viz., the fidelity of a citizen to a sovereign like this. For it is the loyalty which at once respects itself and its object, as expressly symbolising the morality and dignity of the state, and whilst not exacting too much, with a "proud submission" gives homage where homage is felt to be due. It is a loyalty which is alone consistent with the stability of empires. For does not that philosophy which teaches by example show us that most of the revolutions and changes of dynasties we read of in history were the inevitable results of princes and peoples losing sight of or disregarding the duties owing by each to the other—subjects too often forgetting that princes were only men, and princes as often appearing to think that subjects were not men at all? (Applause.) "The misfortunes of princes," said that poor Isabella the other day, writing from her place of exile, "fall heavily on their subjects." Poor royal refugee. She would have been nearer the mark had she said, "The misfortunes of princes too frequently arise from their mistaking themselves for the state." Committing this fatal error, their power is Hobbes's leviathan turned upside down—a pyramid trying to stand on its apex instead of on its base. (Laughter.) Now, in the remarks which I have thus far made on this subject, I have considered it merely in connexion with monarchical government. And but that I should not in the length of this lecture be properly respecting the "Early Closing Movement," I could say much—but I will say very little—on loyalty under other forms of government, and more especially under a republic. It has been my good fortune at different times in my life to be thrown into the company of cultivated and well informed Americans, moving in political circles in England. It is, of course, quite natural and becoming, that, born and nurtured under a republic, they should prefer her institutions before all others. Accordingly they would sometimes, in a quite polite and good-humoured spirit, in the course of political discussions, quietly quiz our English loyalty, even of the more rational kind, as a something scarcely comprehensible—a sort of mild and harmless madness, perplexing to political philosophers. (Laughter.) At the-same time they would delicately insinuate that in America there were no subjects, that every citizen was a sovereign, and, therefore, entirely master of himself, which is the very essence of true liberty. I confess there was a time when such representations as these made some impression on me. And even now, perhaps, some of us may be prepared to grant, conditionally, that a republican form of government is theoretically the best form of government that human ingenuity has ever invented. (Hear, hear). But the condition I would contend for as accompanying such an admission, is an important one, and it is this—that the community to live under such a government should be at once thoroughly wise, thoroughly honest, thoroughly unselfish, and thoroughly free from all disturbing passions in the administration of that government. (Cheers and laughter). In the exact proportion in which any people fall short of this description must, as I think, republican government fail to answer the page 12 expectations of its friends. The theory of republican government necessarily presupposes that unfettered play of political forces which shall bring the wisest and the best of the citizens to the management of the state. But that same play of the political forces which amongst good and unselfish politicians would yield the best and wisest men for rulers, will and must, among selfish politicians, give us inferior men even in the highest places. (Cheers.) Thus all the most respectable American writers are agreed, that for many years past, no man of line talents or of large and statesmanlike qualifications, has been elected to the presidential chair of the United States. At the same time, this "effect defective" is attributed by the same authorities to the patent fact, that the self-regarding jealousies of the ablest men have led to compromises which put mediocrity at the head because higher ability would not yield to his fellow from any regard to the state. Now, a temporary monarch of a republic, attaining to his elevation under these circumstances, is certainly not an object to evoke any very enthusiastic sentiment of loyalty; and accordingly we do not find that American citizens either write or speak of their Presidents in a spirit either of reverence or respect. What, then, is the proper object of American loyalty? They are consistent in answering, "It is the sovereign people themselves." It is a thirty-million-headed sovereign, instead of a sovereign of one head. Let us look at this loyalty a little closer, and see what the article is like. We are told by American travellers, and it is not denied by American statesmen, that every citizen—being, of course, a thirty-millionth part of a sovereign—conceives that he has the right (and a very inconvenient number of thirty-millionth parts exercises this right) of calling on the President at the White-house, and having an interview with him, although these visitors may not, in fact, have any business whatever to transact. (Laughter.) Only a few months back I was reading in an English newspaper an utterance of our old friend and fellow-colonist George Francis Train—(loud laughter)—whilst protesting against the imprisonment to which he was recently subjected in England, and I was amused by the form of a threat which he used, to the effect "that he should write to his servant, Mr. Johnson"—(laughter)—the Mr. Johnson referred to being no other than the then President of the United States. Now, our loyalty may be slavery, according to the George Francia Train frame of mind; but does not his expression very strongly savour of absolute tyranny—and is that much better? From what can this monstrous feeling arise except from pride or vanity, or both? From what but a rooted notion that the individual citizen has a sort of undivided interest or proprietorship in the person of the President, who is assumed to be always liable to be inspected and spoken to and to have his hand shaken by any of his owners-(laughter)—whenever they have leisure or inclination to drop in upon him to do so. (Laughter.) It will not do to say in defence of this practice that it is intended as complimentary to the officer. He has other and higher business than to receive mere time-consuming calls. No, I believe the true motive of such calls to be what I have stated, an "I'm as good as you" sort of feeling, the indulgence of which degrades a great officer down to some mere show thing in a public museum. (Laughter.) Rather vividly recurred to my mind this mode of dealing with Presidents, when I saw all persons whatsoever, the most delicate and weakly women as well as the strongest men, on various occasions and in almost every company always standing in the presence of the Duke of Edinburgh. Can there be no golden mean, thought I, which will enable loyal subjects to express all becoming respect for the highest rank and position, without a superfluous self-abasement which is not altogether free from the ludicrous? May we not show all reasonable reverence to the Pope without kissing his toe? (Laughter and cheers.) Must we always either stand in the presence of Princes and Presidents, or for ever see their right arms wrung out of their shoulder-joints by an endless succession of hand-shakers, who claim to exercise their sovereignty by this pump-handle process? (Laughter.) If there can be no mean between these extremes in manners, the choice is unquestionably a narrow and unpleasant one. In the one case, we seem to raise a mere human creature—perhaps altogether irrespective of merit—into what Lord Bacon calls "a God upon earth;" in the other case, we tolerate a democratic tyrant who only worships himself, whilst affecting a civility to the Constitutional head of the state. After a little reflection, however, I decided for myself—I do not say I am right; it is much a matter of taste—that were I compelled to choose between the two, I would rather stand before a stupid king until I was ready to drop, than I would see a possibly very wise President bored to death by an impudent intruder, calling himself the public. In the one case we abate our pretensions out of a regard for what we deem necessary and convenient restraints in human intercourse; in the other case, we defy all such restraints in the contemplation of our beautiful and all-powerful selves. And as ceremony is a portion of the necessary machinery of society, I would prefer even the pliant demeanour of a courtier of the old sort to the insolent and ignorant self-assertion which assumes to be always carrying sovereignty about in its own private and particular stomach. (Laughter.) I have dwelt more particularly on this phase of Republicanism, because our American cousins are sometimes rather prone to flout us poor creatures of monarchy as down-trodden, and as yet unacquainted, in our besotted loyalty, with the true principles of civil liberty. In this, I confess, their manner of going to work too unpleasantly reminds me of the mode in which Diogenes page 13 lectured Plato. "Thus I trample on your splendour and pride," cried the snarling and self-complacent old cynic." "With still greater pride, oh Diogenes," returned Plato to the celebrated tenant of the tub. Royalists and Republicans then, respectively, may just as well agree to mind their own business, and learn and correct, as best they may, the defects in the morals and manners of their own, governing men. There may, perhaps, be in the one country too coarse a sense of what is required in the rulers of a great state. There is I humbly venture to think, too much obsequiousness to, and a too lax toleration of, the vices of Royal persons in the other country. The latter important consideration is our business, and the business of every thoughtful Englishman, to endeavour to understand, and, if possible, to correct. But you may say how is it possible to understand the ways of Royal persons? and are not the causes of their modes of feeling and action too subtle and inscrutable to admit of any remedy from art? Now, in answering such a question, I must further respect fully submit that evils which have been either produced or aggravated by art, ought to be corrigible by art: and that you may not think I am disposed to talk in enigmas, I come at once to the point, by saying that I do thoroughly believe that a disastrous effect has been for many years produced on the orale of English princes by the Royal Marriage Act, which, in the year 1772, and at the suggestion of the proud, short-sighted, leg-of-mutton-loving king already referred to, was passed under very discreditable circumstances, and with shamelessly indecent haste, by one of the most contemptible and slavish Parliaments that ever sat within the ancient chapel of St. Stephen. As Mr. Timbs would say, it is among the things not generally known, that George III. got conceded to him by this act an additional point of prerogative (involving a co-extensive derogation of private liberty) to which no preceding English monarch had ever made any pretensions. It was this. He obtained the law—as it now stands in the statute book—enacting "That no descend ant of the body of George II., other than the issue of princesses married into foreign families, shall be capable of contracting marriage without the previous consent of the sovereign, signified under the great seal; and any such marriage without such consent is declared void. But such descendants, if above the age of twenty-five, may, after twelve months' notice given to the Privy Council, contract and solemnise marriage without consent of the Crown unless both Houses of Parliament shall, before the expiration of the year, expressly declare their disapproval of such intended marriage. The penalties of prœmunire are visitable upon all persons who shall solemnise, assist, or be present at such marriage. The Royal message which was the precursor to the introduction of this extraordinary hill is unique and interesting, and may, without any great prejudice to "our early-closing movement," he quoted in its very terms. It sets forth—"That His Majesty, being desirous, from paternal affection to his own family, and anxious concern for the future welfare of his people [carry these exquisite words carefully in your memory, as they must be looked at again presently] and the honour and dignity of his crown, that the right of approving all marriages in the Royal Family (which ever has belonged to the kings of this realm as a matter of public concern) may be made effectual, recommends to both Houses to take into their serious consideration whether it may not be wise and exdient to supply the defects of the law now in being, and by some new provision more effectually to guard the descendants of his late majesty [meaning, of course, all George the Third's brothers and sisters, and their descendants, direct and collateral] other than the issue of princesses who have married, or may hereafter marry, into foreign families, from marrying without the approbation of his majesty, his heirs, or successors first had and obtained." The bill introduced in pursuance of this message was vigorously opposed in the House of Lords, where it was first launched, and it was still more resolutely fought in the House of Commons, the most consummate genius of that day, Edmund Burke, being there the foremost of its uncompromising assailants. All opposition was vain against obsequious majorities of "King's friends," the name given to the legislative tools who had been bought and paid for by the King's money. During the progress of the measure, the opinions of the judges were taken on the contested point of prerogative, and nine out of twelve of these learned persons plainly said that the King's "care and approbation" of Royal marriages extended only to "the children of the King, and the presumptive heir to the Crown (other than the issue of foreign families); but to what other branch of the Royal family such care and approbation do extend, the judges did not find determined." Despite this judicial condemnation of the King's pretensions, the bill passed the House of Lords in a very few days, having been introduced late in the month of February, 1772, and read the third time on the 3rd of March. Its passage through the Commons was equally triumphant; and thus his most sacred Majesty became not only King of Great Britain and Ireland, and their then pendant nuisance, Hanover, but he also became the legalised tyrant over the natural affections of every other member of his own family, with the trilling exceptions mentioned in the bill, The merely personal considerations on which George III. moved in this matter were patent enough. Only a few years before, to his great disgust, his brother the Duke of Gloucester had married the Countess Dowager of Waldegrave, but the duke had not publicly acknowledged her as his wife, nor had she assumed his title. At Court she was neither received as his wife nor regarded as his mistress, but she held in that august region— page 14 where the rigour even of female virtue was at times tempered by fashion—a sort of suspended position, like Mahomet's coffin, between these two characters. This alliance of itself was enough to vex the pride of the King and outrage his German wife's passion for Royal quarterings. But soon came another, and still stronger outrage of the same kind. In the latter end of 1771, another brother of the King, the Duke of Cumberland, announced his marriage with Mrs. Horton, whom he at once recognised as Duchess of Cumberland. As an aggravation of the bitterness of this last dose, Mrs. Horton, a daughter of Lord Irwin, was the sister of the Colonel Luttrell, who had been assisted by all the Court party in ousting Wilkes from his seat for Middlesex. Walpole remarks on this odd conjunction, "Could punishment be more severe than to be thus scourged by their own instrument! And how singular the fate of Wilkes, that new revenge always presented itself to him when he was sunk to the lowest ebb." The public acknowledgement by the Duke of Cumberland of his marriage was followed by a similar avowal by the Duke of Gloucester in favour of his wife, who was, of course, not now disposed to remain any longer, coffin-wise, socially suspended as aforesaid, while her sister-in-law of Cumberland trod the earth as a real, live, acknowledged Royal duchess. And now, of course, George the Third's cup of bitterness was full. He made one effort to annul these marriages as illegal under the existing Marriage Act, but failed, inasmuch as his father had ingeniously contrived that that act should not extend to the Royal family. The best consolation, therefore, was to devise this new Marriage Act, to the terms of which I have just called your attention. Never, perhaps, did a law more absurdly fall short of its ostensible purpose. George III lived to verify in all its bitterness the truth that even powerful kings must fight a losing battle with Nature. It was from paternal affection for his family, and anxious concern for the future welfare of his people forsooth, that his son the Prince of Wales should have a goodly succession of English concubines, but not one English wife; that his second son, the Duke of York, should be under the thraldom of a Mrs. Clarke, and that he should disgrace the office of commander-in-chief as never before nor since has it been disgraced, by allowing his clever and commercially-minded mistress to sell commissions in his father's army, which thus became the fruitful exchequer of a shameless and extravagant wanton; it was for "the welfare of the people" that his son, the Duke of Clarence, should be prevented from marrying any daughter of England, and that in the fulness of time he should confer on that country the honour of supporting a family of Fitzclarences, of whom Mrs. Jordan, the actress, was the mother; it was for the honour of the Crown that the Duke of Cumberland, another son, should become the most detested man in England for Profligate treacheries which made his very name and title by-words of hatred and contempt; it was "paternal affection for his family," and a regard for the dignity of his Crown, that his brothers and sons should not degrade themselves by honest and honourable marriages of affection with the daughters of English noblemen and gentlemen, but that England might enjoy the distinguished honour of supplying his sons with mistresses, whilst their wives should be supplied by a foreign country; a country, too, consisting of a congeries of petty electorates and shabby-genteel principalities—of one of which the not very bad story has been told (I am afraid it is an old one) of a countryman of ours once being stopped for his passport by a soldier at the gate of a German town, and being asked who he was, made answer that he was "An elector of Middlesex." (Laughter.) The whole guard were at once turned out to present arms to him as to a Royal person. (Loud laughter and cheers.) Now, these immediate results of the Royal Marriage Act are by no means all, nor even the most important, moraland social consequences of that measure. It has produced in the public mind a sort of settled and contented conviction that there must be one sort of morality for Royal personages, and another sort of morality for their inferiors in rank; and this kind of conviction naturally tends to the conclusion, in too many minds, that all morality whatsoever is merely conventional, and may be outraged at will, according to the rank, or influence, or power, of the offender. That such feelings as these must inevitably tend to the demoralisation of a people, there can be no doubt; and therefore, if there were no more than this to be said against the Royal Marriage Act, it must be condemned. But when, in addition to such weighty considerations, we find that it necessarily fosters the notion in princes themselves that they are not ordinary flesh and blood; that they are an insulated and sacred "caste," exempt from the judgments visitable upon common men; that the wages of sin to them need not be death, but will probably be a handsome Parliamentary grant—(cheers and laughter)—we are presented with matter for very serious thought indeed. Nor are the evils merely of a moral character. Royal marriages, exclusively Continental, begetdynastic entanglements which in time become embarrassing to British Governments and British interests, as statesmen have too frequently discovered in these latter days. Such, then, being the natural and the bitter fruits of the Royal Marriage Act, it is not unreasonable to think that in these reforming times the supporters of this act, if there be any, are very likely to be soon called upon to snow cause why it should not be repealed. (Great applause.) When we are giving liberty to all lower men, why are we not to give an honourable liberty to the natural affections of English princes? (Cheers.) Why should not they, especially those of them who are never likely to come to the throne—pass page 15 gracefully into general society, and thus by marriage not only consult their own inclinations but perhaps make themselves independent of the British taxpayer? Such alliances were common enough in our earlier history, and are certainly not less reasonable now. If it shall be objected that we should be unduly derogating from the dignity of the Royal rank, we have two answers. What was no derogation among our feudal forefathers can be no derogation in this our more liberal age, when wealth and more extended culture are so rapidly softening away the hard edges of exclusiveness. But, secondly, reason this matter as we may, there is a spirit of progress abroad which will not be scared from any question. Everything old and new is being weighed in utilitarian scales; and even highest rank, in divers places, begins to see that to be respected it must work. (Great applause.) This weak notion of coming down from position—where the coming down involves nothing dishonourable—appals only the maudlin and the sickly sentimental. Almost daily we see noblemen more enlightened than, and with moral purpose in advance of, their fellows, beginning to discover that if they cannot maintain all their children, they must put them to some form of honest industry in this hard-working world. The Duke of Argyle recently placed—as we are told in the newspapers—one of his younger sons in a wine merchant's firm in Edinburgh. What sensible man will think the worse of him, if he only sells a good article—(great laughter)—and distinguishes himself in the trade by introducing our best Australian vintages to the home markets? (Renewed laughter and cheers.) The other day another nobleman, Lord Claud Hamilton, was a successful defendant in our Supreme Court, sued as a late owner of one of the now defunct Panama line of steamers. Let us wish his lordship more success in his next enterprise. Even the Duke of Edinburgh himself, according to the latest information, is a shareholder in a gold mine in New Zealand. If he be destined to know the delights of dividends, it will add, I am sure, to his pleasant recollections of the southern hemisphere, and if his fate shall be "calls"—(laughter)—it will still be that valuable chastening of the spirit—provided the calls be not put on the estimates—(great applause and laughter)—which has made so many of us wiser and soberer men. Here, then, have we a few only of the many indications significant enough of coming changes in the modes of thought and in the habits of society. Upon the whole, surely—the latest news notwithstanding—human affairs look wholesome enough throughout the world, everywhere we see the loyalty to mere persons rising into a loyalty to principles and to truth. (Loud cheers.) A noble race seems to be going on almost all over the world between material progress on the one hand and moral progress on the other. (Cheers.) What a budget did that last mail bring us! What were the conquests of Alexanders and of Cæsars compared with the peaceful conquests now being made over this globe itself. Suez canals, railroads from Atlantic to Pacific, the rush of the locomotive soon to be heard hundreds of fathoms down in those old Alps which were mightier than armies to a Hannibal and a Napoleon. And the same papers that tell us of these wondrous things have side by side in their columns not less noble conquests over prejudice and ignorance and greed and oppression. We see that old and crying injustice the Irish Established Church tottering to its fall. (Cheers.) We see a House of Commons apparently in earnest, and we see a debilitated House of Lords taking homœopathic doses of life members—(laughter)—two pills a year to keep it on its noble legs—(laughter)—and oh, wonder of wonders, we see Mr. Childers commanding in person the Channel fleet! (Cheers and laughter.) True, as a set-off to these amazing facts, we are told that war between perhaps the two greatest powers in the world, Great Britain and America, is possible, if not imminent. Let us hope that wisdom and moderation, a Christian consideration for human life, a regard for their commerce and industry, and a due prescience of the ruinous expense and the enormous future taxation attendant on hundreds of millions shot away in war, will avert from them and from us this direst of calamities to the advancing civilisation of the times. (Cheers.) But should wisdom and moderation not prevail, we are yet not without hope and a strong confidence in the future. Let Mr. Sumner talk his tallest—(laughter)—let Louis Napoleon plot his deepest—Childers commands the Channel fleet! (Much laughter.) You may read all about it for yourselves in The Times of the 20th of May last. "I believe," writes the special historian of this cruise, which seems to have been off the Scilly Islands—(laughter)—"I believe that this cruise is the only instance in which a first lord has commanded a British fleet at sea in person, and also attended Divine service on Sunday on board his own flagship." (Laughter and cheers.) We read that the thunders of Pericles's eloquence were only heard, even as their sacred Salaminian galley was only brought out by the Athenians on the most important crises of the state; and in like manner, the Lord High Admiral Childers takes to the sea when war lowers on the western horizon. In sober earnest, let us express our gratification that England has apparently found a very efficient First Lord of the Admiralty in one who received his political and administrative education in this our own colony of Victoria. And now, in saying good night, let me apologise by anticipation, if, in the course of handling a somewhat ticklish subject, I have given pain to any one here. We are not all equally endowed with the organ of veneration; and I may not have brought to the treatment of my subject—regardedas a very serious one by many—as much seriousness as it demands. A Roman poet, however, of some authority on these points, page 16 tells us that it is pleasant, and not unbecoming, to relax our gravity, in the proper place, and I can most honestly assure you I have only laughed when I could not help it. But what is of more account to the young men of the early-closing movement, I have sought to show, and I hope not entirely without success, how all rank, even the highest, is worthless, if not mischievous, without personal character; that amidst all the degrees and titles into which kings and heralds can split the human race, intellect and integrity must, in the long run, rule the world; that every individual man has his personal dignity in his own keeping, independent of any dignity any other finite creature like himself can confer upon him, and that, in short, prince and peasant alike, must bow to the inevitable judgment that—

"Honour and shame from no condition rise,
Act well your part, there all the honour lies,
Fortune in men hath some small difference made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade,
The cobbler apron'd, and the parson gown'd,
The friar hooded, and the monarch crown'd:
'What differ more,' you cry, 'than crown and cowl?'
I'll tell you friend, a wise man and a fool.
You'll find if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk,
Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow,
The rest is all but leather and prunella.

(Loud and continued cheering.)

Professor M'Coy proposed a vote of thanks to the lecturer for 'the brilliant discourse he had delivered. (Loud and continued cheering.)

Mr. T. Moubray (mayor of Melbourne) seconded the motion, which was carried by acclamation.

Mr. Michie briefly 'replied, apologising for having infringed the principles of the Early Closing Association by detaining his auditors until such a late hour—(cheers)—and concluded by proposing a vote of thanks to the chairman, who, though he had had not a very arduous task to perform that evening, had exhibited that dignified repose and perfect neutrality which were always happily attractive and becoming a member of the Upper House.

Captain Amsinck, R.N., seconded the motion, which was carried unanimously.

The Chairman briefly acknowledged the compliment, and expressed his entire sympathy with the objects of the Early Closing Association.

The proceedings then terminated, and the meeting dispersed.

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