people, who, in the days of dear corn, had learnt more and more to
depend upon the cultivation of potatoes, to whom their failure meant
ruin and starvation.

This was especially the case in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland,
where the year closed in gloom and apprehension; famine stalked
abroad, and doles of Indian corn administered by Government in
addition to the alms of the charitable, alone kept body and soul
together in fever-stricken multitudes.

About this time also, like another feature of the spirit of adventure
which sent Franklin to the North Pole, and operated to a certain
extent in the flush of railway enterprise, England was talking half
chivalrously, half commercially, and alas! more than half sceptically,
of Brook and Borneo, and the new attempt to establish civilization and
herald Christianity under English influence in the far seas. All these
conflicting elements of new history were felt in the palace as in
other dwellings, and made part of Queen Victoria's life in those days.

A great statesman closed his eyes on this changing world. Earl Grey,
who had been in the front in advocating change in his time, died.

A brave soldier fell in the last of his battles. Sir Robert Sale, who
had been the guest of his Queen a year before, having returned to
India and rejoined the army of the Sutlej on fresh disturbances
breaking out in the Punjab, was killed at the battle of Moodkee.

Something of the wit and humour of the country was quenched or
undergoing a transformation and passing into other hands. Two famous
English humorists, Sydney Smith and Tom Hood the elder, went over to