Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood by [pseud.] Grace Greenwood
page 63 of 239 (26%)
page 63 of 239 (26%)
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It was fear of this bogie of a Cumberland that made the English people
anxious for the early marriage of the Queen, and yet caused them to dread it, for the fate of poor Princess Charlotte had not been forgotten. But I do not think that political or dynastic questions had much to do with the popularity of the young Queen. It was the resurrection of the dead dignity of the Royal House of Brunswick, in her fair person--the resuscitation of the half-dead principle of loyalty in the hearts of her people. Of her Majesty's subjects of the better class, actors and quakers alone seem to have taken her accession with all its splendid accessions, coolly,--the former, perhaps, because much mock royalty had somehow cheapened the real thing, and the latter because trained from infancy to disregard the pomps and show of this world. Macready jots down among the little matters in his "Diary," the fact of Her Majesty coming to his theatre, and waiting awhile after the play to see him and congratulate him. He speaks of her as "a pretty little girl," and does not seem particularly "set up" by her compliments. Joseph Sturge, the eminent and most lovable philanthropist of Birmingham,--a "Friend indeed" to all "in need,"--waited on Her Majesty, soon after her accession, as one of a delegation of the Society of Friends. Some years after, he related the circumstance to me, and simply described her to me as "a nice, pleasant, modest young woman,--graceful, though a little shy, and on the whole, comely." "Did you kiss her hand?" I asked. "O yes, and found that act of homage no hardship, I assure thee. It was a fair, soft, delicate little hand." I afterwards regretted that I had not asked him what he did with his broad-brimmed hat when he was about to be presented, knowing that the principles of Fox and Penn forbade his removing that article in homage to any human creature; but I have just discovered in a volume of Court |
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