Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II

s, produced by the potato disease, which, commencing in 1845, had reappeared even more disastrously in 1846. In the

y the Government for the relief of the perishing people, fed on doles of Ind

a little before eight, we were shown into the picture gallery, where the company assembled. Bowles, who acted as master of the ceremonies, arranged what gentlemen should take what lady. He said, 'Dinner is ordered to be on the table at ten minutes past eight, but I bet you the Queen will not be here till twenty or twenty-five minutes after. She always thinks she can dress in ten minutes, but she takes about double the time.' True enough, it was nearly twenty-five minutes past eight before 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 oat-cake. There was a Highland piper standing behind her Majest

e Butler) reappeared on the stage, and was warmly welcomed back. Jenny Lind sang for the first time in London at the Italian

death was received in Ireland as only one drop more in the full cup of national misery. In the same month of May another and a very different orator, Dr. Chalmers, the grea

h afforded much gratification both to the Queen and the Prince. They went down to Cambridge in Jul

Oxford, the Bishop of Oxford, the Vice- Chancellor of Cambridge, and the Heads of the Houses entered, and the Chancellor read an address to her Majesty congratulatory on her arrival. Her Majesty made a gracious reply and the Prin

some such pretty interludes when he presented the address, and she beamed upon him and once half smiled, and then covered the smile with a gentle dignity, and then she said in her clear musical voice, 'The choice which the University has made of its Chancellor has my most entire approbation.'" The Queen records in her Diary, "I cannot say how it agitated and embarrassed me to have to receive t

t covered in his Chancellor's chair. There was a perfect roar of applause," which we are told was only tamed down within the bounds of sanity by the dulness of the Latin oration, delivered by the public or

date a select party. After dinner her Majesty attended a concert in the Senate House-an entertainment got up in order to afford the Cambridge public another opportunity of

the Prince. Then came the time for the "Installation Ode," written at the Prince's request by Wordsworth, the poet laureate, set to music, and sung in Trinity Hall in the presence of the Queen and Prince Albert with great effect. Poetry, of all created things, can least be made to

ope in the poet's youth-the evil of unrighteous and the good of righteous war,

bion's fam

Europe tel

e changes to a

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s with a f

England su

drooped, the

d bud tog

e crushed in Clare

eer return

quered man

es from wi

tree a blo

tannia, ce

als on this br

t your future

ter is the

mantle's s

n his arms

e fearless i

y destin

by wisd

ealth and ar

pleasure

lore of l

d, in pu

her line

myrtle i

lustre al

reasure wor

all the wo

e her choice

yal heart

t tables lengthways. At the Queen's table the names were put on the places, and anxious was the moment before one could find one's place." Then the Queen gave a reception in Henry VIII.'s drawing-room, when the masters, professors and doctors, with their wives, were presented. When the reception was over, at ten o'clock, in the soft dim dusk, a little party again stole out, to see with greater leisure and privacy those noble trees and hoary buildings. Her Majesty tells us the pedestrians were in curious costumes: "Albert in his dress-coat with a mackintosh over it, I in my evening dress and diadem, and with a veil over my head, and the two princes in their uniforms, and

f good Queen Bess herself, Bluff King Hal, Margaret Countess of Richmond, and that other unhappy Margaret of Anjou, what would you have said of this simple ramble? In truth it was a scene from the world of romance, even without the music and the lady at t

ion by a temporary bridge over the river, with those of St. John's." Madame Bunsen and her companions followed her Majesty, and had the best opportunity of seeing everything, and in particular "the joyous crowd that grouped among the noble trees." The Queen ate her déjeuner in one of the tents, and on her return to Trinity L