QUEEN CHRISTINA IN ENGLAND.
Queen Dowager Christina—who has brightened our darkened land with the lustre of her presence—is sedulously studying all our London institutions, in order to do her best to take back and naturalise copies thereof in Spain. She has already visited the Bank of England, and exhibited the most interesting astonishment on learning that the dividends were regularly paid to the public creditor. At first she received the intelligence laughingly, as a bit of heavy badinage, the best joke that the dull English could get up for her. However, the Governor of the Bank of England, having gravely assured Her Majesty that the Bank regularly paid the public creditor—he moreover produced the books in testimony of the pleasing fact—Christina, as an ex-queen and a lady, with a frank smile and a graceful curtsey, avowed her belief in the singular custom.
Christina, though still handsome and by no means old, is nevertheless addicted to serious meditation. It is said that, in token of her contempt of all worldly fopperies, she has worked more than one flag for fast-sailing vessels, trading to the coast of Africa, and landing—(Lucifer willing and able)—their black merchandise at the Havannah. The flag has at once been typical of the profits of trade, and the final nothingness of all commercial things; i. e.—a Death's Head and Cross-Bones embroidered in white silk upon black satin; and duly blessed by Her Majesty's confessor. It is said that Her Majesty, in admiration of Uncle Tom, offered a very handsome testimonial to Mrs. Beecher Stowe; namely, a little black boy, wonderfully accomplished, as page. This story, however, wants confirmation.
We keep the most interesting intelligence for the last. Her Majesty has paid a visit to the cemeteries of Norwood, Kensal Green, and Highgate; and—she is an excellent artist—was so much pleased with the last, that she made a sketch of the burial-grounds with her own royal hand, and sent it off by express to Madrid, accompanied by an autograph letter to her queenly daughter, recommending the sketch to be followed (with all allowance for limited space) in the new cemetery (when granted) to the Protestant English.