Queen Victoria

'Her court was pure, her life serene; God gave her peace; her land reposed; A thousand claims to reverence closed In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen.'

TENNYSON.

'God bless the Queen for all her unwearied goodness! I admire her as a woman, love her as a friend, and reverence her as a Queen. Her courage, patience, and endurance are marvellous to me.'

NORMAN MACLEOD.

'A Prince indeed, Beyond all titles, and a household name, Hereafter, through all time, Albert the Good.'

TENNYSON.

PREFACE.

This brief life of Queen Victoria gives the salient features of her reign, including the domestic and public life, with a glance at the wonderful history and progress of our country during the past half-century. In the space at command it has been impossible to give extended treatment. The history is necessarily very brief, as also the account of the public and private life, yet it is believed no really important feature of her life and reign has been omitted.

It is a duty, incumbent on old and young alike, as well as a pleasing privilege, to mark how freedom has slowly 'broadened down, from precedent to precedent,' and how knowledge, wealth, and well-being are more widely distributed to-day than at any former period of our history. And this knowledge can only increase the gratitude of the reader for the golden reign of Queen Victoria, of whom it has been truly written:

A thousand claims to reverence closed In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.--Reign of Queen Victoria--Outlook of Royalty in 1819--Duke and Duchess of Kent--Birth of Victoria--Anecdotes.

CHAPTER II.--First Meeting with Prince Albert--Death of William IV.--Accession of Queen Victoria--First Speech from the Throne--Coronation--Life at Windsor--Personal Appearance--Betrothal to Prince Albert--Income from the Country.

CHAPTER III.--Marriage--Family Habits--Birth of Princess Royal--Queen's Views of Religious Training--Osborne and Balmoral--Death of the Duke of Wellington.

CHAPTER IV.--Chief Public Events, 1837-49--Rebellion in Canada--Opium War with China--Wars in North-west India--Penny Postage--Repeal of the Corn-laws--Potato Famine--Free Trade-Chartism.

CHAPTER V.--The Crimean War, 1854-55--Interest of the Queen and Prince Consort in the suffering Soldiers--Florence Nightingale--Distribution of Victoria Crosses by the Queen.

CHAPTER VI.--The Indian Mutiny, 1857-58--The Queen's Letter to Lord Canning.

CHAPTER VII.--Marriage of the Princess Royal--Twenty-first Anniversary of Wedding-day--Death of the Prince-Consort.

CHAPTER VIII.--Death of Princess Alice--Illness of Prince of Wales--The Family of the Queen--Opening of Indian Exhibition and Imperial Institute--Jubilee--Death of Duke of Clarence--Marriage of Princess May.

CHAPTER IX.--The Queen as an Artist and Author--In her Holiday Haunts--Norman Macleod--Letter to Mr Peabody--The Queen's Drawing-room--Her pet Animals--A Model Mistress--Diamond Jubilee--Death of the Queen.

CHAPTER X.--Summary of Public Events and Progress of the Nation.

CHAPTER I.

Reign of Queen Victoria--Outlook of Royalty in 1819--Duke and Duchess of Kent--Birth of Victoria--Wisely trained by Duchess of Kent--Taught by Fräulein Lehzen--Anecdotes of this Period--Discovers that she is next to the Throne.

The reign of Queen Victoria may be aptly described as a period of progress in all that related to the well-being of the subjects of her vast empire. In every department of science, literature, politics, and the practical life of the nation, there has been steady improvement and progress. Our ships circumnavigate the globe and do the chief carrying trade of the world. The locomotive binds industrial centres, and abridges time and space as it speeds along its iron pathway; whilst steam-power does the work of thousands of hands in our large factories. The telegraph links us to our colonies, and to the various nationalities of the world, in commerce and in closer sympathy; and never was the hand and heart of Benevolence busier than in this later period of the nineteenth century. Our colonial empire has shared also in the welfare and progress of the mother-country.