failure in worldly success--especially by the ill-success of his
cartoons at the exhibition in Westminster Hall.

On the 25th of May a third princess was born, and on the 20th of June
Sir Robert Peel's old allies, the Tories, who had but bided their time
for revenge, while his new Whig associates looked coldly on him,
conspired to defeat him in a Government measure to check assassination
in Ireland, so that he had no choice save to resign. He had sacrificed
himself as well as his party for what he conceived to be the good of
the nation. His reign of power was at an end; but for the moment, at
least, he was thankful.

To Lord John Russell, who was more successful than on an earlier
occasion, the task of forming a new Ministry was intrusted. The
parting from her late ministers, on the 6th of July, was a trial to
the Queen, as the same experience had been previously. "Yesterday,"
her Majesty wrote to King Leopold, "was a very hard day for me. I had
to part from Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen, who are irreparable
losses to us and to the country. They were both so much overcome that
it quite upset me. We have in them two devoted friends. We felt so
safe with them. Never during the five years that they were with me did
they ever recommend a person or a thing that was not for my or the
country's best, and never for the party's advantage _only_.... I
cannot tell you how sad I am to lose Aberdeen; you cannot think what a
delightful companion he was. The breaking up of all this intercourse
during our journeys is deplorable."

In the separation the Queen turned naturally to a nearer and dearer
friend, whom only death could remove from her. "Albert's use to me,
and I may say to the country, by his firmness and sagacity in these