right royally I doubt not, and I think it probable she received a few
presents. A few days before, she had gone in state to Parliament, to give
her assent to the New Civil List Act-not a hard duty for her to perform,
it would seem, as that act settled on her for life an annual income of
L385,000. Let Americans who begrudge our President his $50,000, and wail
over our taxation, just put that sum into dollars. The English people did
not grumble at this grant, as they had grumbled over the large sums
demanded by Her Majesty's immediate predecessors. They knew it would not
be recklessly and wickedly squandered, and they liked to have their
bonnie young Queen make a handsome appearance among crowned heads. She
had not then revealed those strong and admirable traits of character
which later won their respect and affection,--but they were fond of her,
and took a sort of amused delight in her, as though they, were all
children, and she a wonderful new doll, with new-fashioned talking and
walking arrangements. The friend from whom I have quoted--Mrs. Crosland--
writes me: "I consider that it would be impossible to exaggerate the
enthusiasm of the English people on the accession of Queen Victoria to
the throne. To be able at all to understand it, we must recollect the
sovereigns she succeeded--the Sailor-King, a most commonplace old man,
with 'a head like a pine-apple'; George IV., a most unkingly king,
extremely unpopular, except with a small party, of High Tories; and poor
George III., who by the generation Victoria followed, could only be
remembered as a frail, afflicted, blind old man--for a long period shut
up at Kew, and never seen by his people. It was not only that Victoria
was a really lovely girl, but that she had the _prestige_ of having
been brought up as a Liberal, and then she kept the hated Duke of
Cumberland from the throne. Possibly he was not guilty of half the
atrocious sins attributed to him, but I do not remember any royal
personage so universally hated."