tender solicitude--perhaps feeling herself more than ever necessary to
her daughter. Mothers are so conceited. It is small wonder if after her
life of studious and modest seclusion and filial subordination, the
gaiety, the splendor, and the supremacy of the new existence intoxicated
the young sovereign somewhat. The pleasures of her capital and the homage
of the world captivated her imagination, while the consciousness of power
and wealth and personal loveliness inclined her to be self-indulgent and
self-willed. In spite of the good counsel of the family Mentor, Baron
Stockmar, and of her sagacious uncle, Leopold, she must have committed
some errors of judgment--fallen into some follies; she was so young and
impulsive--so very human. Her first independent political act seems to
have been a mistake, founded on a misunderstanding. It was at all events
an act more Georgian than Victorian. The Whig party, to which she was
attached, had by a series of blunders and by weak vacillation lost
strength and popularity, and Lord Melbourne's Ministry found itself so
hard-pressed that it struck colors and resigned. Then the Queen was
advised by the Duke of Wellington to invite the Conservative leader, Sir
Robert Peel, to form a new Ministry. She did so, but frankly told that
gentleman that she was very sorry to lose Lord Melbourne and his
colleagues, whom she liked and approved--which must have been pleasant
talk to Sir Robert. However, he went to work, but soon found that
objections were made by his colleagues to certain Whig ladies in personal
attendance on the Queen, and likely to influence her. So it was proposed
to Her Majesty to make an important change in her household. I believe
that the Duchess of Sutherland and Lady Normandy--the first the sister
and the second the wife of a prominent Liberal--were especially meant;
but the Queen took it that she was called on to dismiss all her ladies,
and flatly refused, saying that to do so would be "repugnant to her
feelings"--forgetting that feeling was no constitutional argument. She
had got used to those Ladies of the Bed-Chamber, and they to her. They