how they could exercise their influence to soothe the people. The Queen,
on my arrival, expressed this sentiment very warmly, and added at dinner,
"The prince will talk to you to-morrow. We have sent for you to have your
opinion on what we should do in view of the state of affairs to show our
interest in the working-classes, and you are the only man who can advise
us in the matter."'

On the following morning, during a long walk of an hour and a half in the
garden, Lord Shaftesbury counselled the prince to put himself at the head
of all social movements in art and science, and especially of those
movements as they bore upon the poor, and thus would he show the interest
felt by royalty in the happiness of the kingdom. The prince did so with
marked success; and after he had presided at a Labourers' Friend Society,
a noted Socialist remarked, 'If the prince goes on like this, why, he'll
upset our apple-cart.'

The poet-laureate is an official attached to the household of royalty, and
it was long his duty to write an ode on the king's birthday. Towards the
end of the reign of George III. this was dropped. On the death of the poet
Wordsworth on 23d April 1850, the next poet-laureate was Alfred Tennyson.
The Queen, it is said, had picked up one of his earlier volumes, and had
been charmed with his 'Miller's Daughter;' her procuring a copy of the
volume for the Princess Alice gave a great impetus to his popularity. No
poet has ever written more truly and finely about royalty, as witness the
dedication to the _Idylls of the King_, which enshrines the memory of
the Prince-Consort; or the beautiful dedication to the Queen, dated March
1851, which closes thus:

Her court was pure, her life serene;
God gave her peace; her land reposed;