Towards them steps with joy;
Says the brave old Duke, 'Come tell to us.
Is it a gal or boy?'
"Says Mrs. L. to the Duke,
'Your Grace, it is a Prince'
And at that nurse's bold rebuke
He did both laugh and wince."
Such was the etiquette of the Royal nursery in 1850; but little Princes, even though ushered into the world under such very impressive circumstances, grow up into something not very unlike other little boys when once they go to school. Of course, in former days young Princes were educated at home by private tutors. This was the education of the Queen's uncles and of her sons. A very different experience has been permitted to her grandsons. The Prince of Wales's boys, as we all remember, were middies; Princess Christian's sons were at Wellington; Prince Arthur of Connaught is at Eton. There he is to be joined next year by the little Duke of Albany, who is now at a private school in the New Forest. He has among his schoolfellows his cousin Prince Alexander of Battenberg, of whom a delightful story is current just now.[[27]] Like many other little boys, he ran short of pocket money, and wrote an ingenious letter to his august Grandmother asking for some slight pecuniary assistance. He received in return a just rebuke, telling him that little boys should keep within their limits, and that he must wait till his allowance next became due. Shortly afterwards the undefeated little Prince resumed the correspondence in something like the following form: "My dear Grandmamma,—I am sure you will be glad to know that I need not trouble you for any money just now, for I sold your last letter to another boy here for 30s."
As Royalty emerges from infancy and boyhood into the vulgar and artificial atmosphere of the grown-up world, it is daily and hourly exposed to such sycophancy that Royal persons acquire, quite unconsciously, a habit of regarding every subject in heaven and earth in its relation to themselves. An amusing instance of this occurred a few years ago on an occasion when one of our most popular Princesses expressed a gracious wish to present a very smart young gentleman to the Queen. This young man had a remarkably good opinion of himself; was the eldest son of a peer, and a Member of Parliament; and it happened that he was also related to a lady who belonged to one of the Royal Households. So the Princess led the young exquisite to the august presence, and then sweetly said, "I present Mr.----, who is"—not Lord Blank's eldest son or Member for Loamshire, but—"nephew to dear Aunt Cambridge's lady." My young friend told me that he had never till that moment realized how completely he lacked a position of his own in the universe of created being.
NOTES: