24. Your favourite motto—"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
Alfred.
Rome, February 16, 1873.
ONE PAGE OF A.L.S. OF QUEEN VICTORIA TO HER ELDER DAUGHTER, AGED SIX, OCTOBER 21, 1846.
(By permission of Harper Brothers.)
Some years ago, when I first took up autograph collecting as a serious occupation, I bought from Mr. James Tregaskis, of the "Caxton Head," a copy-book of George, Prince of Wales, filled up when he was in his thirteenth year. Few boys of that age could, in this twentieth century, emulate the copper-plate of the then industrious Heir Apparent. With the copybooks went his first cap and frock, both edged with the daintiest Valenciennes lace. The genuineness of these relics of Royalty was attested by the Dowager Countess of Effingham, Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Charlotte, and their subsequent possessor, Mr. F. Madan, of the Bodleian Library. A little later I purchased the Prince's "exercise-book" of three years later, which begins with an "Extract of the First Oration of Cicero against Catiline, spoken before their Majesties in the Picture Gallery at Windsor, August 12, 1778." At the same time I acquired the Duke of York's "Translations from Terence." On the first page, the student of fifteen writes: "Frederick. This volume begun January 9th, 1778. Dimidium facti, qui bene cœpit, habet." It is sad to think they were within measurable distance of the "Perdita" entanglement of 1780-81. I was already in a position to satisfy the curiosity of the expert of 1827 as to a page of the copy-book, "of the best king that ever lived," but some time later I became the owner of a whole collection of Royal letters relating to the early married life of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, and the up-bringing of their elder children. There was nothing of a confidential nature in these MSS. Everything tended to demonstrate the beauty and simplicity of the home-life of the Sovereign at Windsor and Buckingham Palace in the now far away "eighteen-forties," and the care bestowed on the up-bringing of his late Majesty King Edward VII. These documents formed the nucleus of a book, and by the permission of Messrs. Harper & Brothers several of them are now reproduced. The édition de luxe of this book[33] has been extra-illustrated by two ladies in New York. I have also treated a copy very elaborately in this way, and I venture to think it will make history some day. Many of the "unconsidered trifles" it contains are not likely to be soon met with again, and the ensemble reconstitutes the Court atmosphere of 1840-45. In the opening chapters of the "Boyhood of a Great King," I have given a brief account of the upbringing of five generations of the British Royal Family. Since then I have come across an interesting bundle of papers once in possession of the Earl of Holdernesse, for some years governor of the children of George III. In 1776 the King writes thus to Lord Holdernesse:—
Lord Holdernesse,—The opinion I have of your being the most fit Person in all respects to have the direction of the education of my Sons, which I should imagine the many interesting Conversations I have had with you this winter must have thoroughly convinced you, must have prepared you to expect that the contents of your letter would occasion equal sorrow and surprise. If you are determined in the plan you now propose, I have no consolation but in the knowledge of the rectitude of my intention fully to have supported you and that your retreat is not in the least owing to any step taken by me.
George R.