At Temple Bar—poor, old Temple Bar, now a thing of the past!—the Queen was met by the Lord Mayor, who handed her the city keys and sword, which she returned to his keeping—a little further on, the scholars of Christ's Hospital—the "Blue-Coat Boys," offered her an address of congratulation, saying how glad they were to have a woman to rule over them, which was a good deal for boys to say, and also sung the National Anthem with a will.
The drawing-room of Guildhall was fitted up most gorgeously. Here the address of the city magnates was read and replied to,—and here in the midst of Princes and nobles, Her Majesty performed a brave and memorable act. She knighted Sheriff Montefiore, the first man of his race to receive such an honor from a British sovereign, and Sir Moses Montefiore, now nearly a centenarian, has ever since, by a noble life and good works, reflected only honor on his Queen. But ah, what would her uncle, the late King, have said, had he seen her profaning a Christian sword by laying it on the shoulders of a Jew! He would rather have used it on the unbeliever's ears, after Peter's fashion.
After this ceremony, they all passed into the Great Hall, which had been marvellously metamorphosed, by hangings and gildings, and all sorts of magnificent decorations, by mirrors and lusters, and the display of vast quantities of gold and silver plate—much of it lent for the occasion by noblemen and private gentlemen, but rivalled in splendor and value by the plate of the Corporation and the City Companies. From the roof hung two immense chandeliers of stained glass and prisms, which with the flashing of innumerable gas-jets, lighting up gorgeous Court-dresses, and the most superb old diamonds of the realm, made up a scene of dazzling splendor, of enchantment, which people who were there go wild over to this day. Poets say it was like a vision of fairyland, among the highest circles of that most poetic kingdom—and they know. I think a poet must have managed the musical portion of the entertainment, for when Victoria appeared sweet voices sang—
"At Oriana's presence all things smile!"
and presently—
"Oh happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue's sweet air,
More tunable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear."
There was a raised platform at the east end of the hall, and on it the throne, a beautiful state-chair, of dainty proportions, made expressly for that fairy Princess, who took her seat thereon amid the most joyous acclamations. On the platform before her, was placed the royal table, decorated with exquisite flowers, and covered with a costly, gold-fringed damask cloth, on which were served the most delicate viands and delicious fruits, in season and out of season. Ah, as the young Queen, seated up there, received the homage of the richly-robed Aldermen, and the resplendent Sheriffs, and that effulgent Lord Mayor, she must have fancied herself something more than a fairy Princess,—say, an Oriental goddess being adored and sacrificed to by gorgeous Oriental Princes, Sultans and Satraps, Pashas, Padishas, and the Grand-Panjandrum himself.
After the dinner, an imposing personage, called the Common Crier, strode into the middle of the hall, and solemnly cried out: "The Right Honorable the Lord Mayor gives the health of our Most Gracious Sovereign, Queen Victoria!" This, of course, was drunk with all the honors, and extra shouts that made the old hall ring. The Queen rose and bowed her thanks, and then the Common Crier announced—Her Majesty's toast: "The Lord Mayor, and prosperity to the City of London." The Queen, it is stated, honored this toast in sherry one hundred and twenty years old—liquid gold! Very gracious of her if she furnished the sherry. I hope, at all events, she drank it with reverence. Why, when that old wine was bottled, Her Majesty's grandfather lacked some twenty years of being born, and the American Colonies were as loyal as London;—then the trunk of the royal old Bourbon tree, whose last branch death lopped away but yesterday at Frohsdorf, seemed solid enough, though rotten at the core; and, the great French Revolution was undreamed of, except in the seething brain of some wild political theorist, or in some poor peasant's nightmare of starvation. When that old wine was bottled, Temple Bar, under the garlanded arch of which Her Majesty had just passed so smilingly, was often adorned with gory heads of traitors, and long after that old wine was bottled, men and women could be seen of a Friday, dangling from the front of Newgate prison, and swinging in the morning air, like so many ghastly pendulums.
This year 1837, Victoria spent her first Christmas as a Queen at Windsor, right royally I doubt not, and I think it probable she received a few presents. A few days before, she had gone in state to Parliament, to give her assent to the New Civil List Act-not a hard duty for her to perform, it would seem, as that act settled on her for life an annual income of £385,000. Let Americans who begrudge our President his $50,000, and wail over our taxation, just put that sum into dollars. The English people did not grumble at this grant, as they had grumbled over the large sums demanded by Her Majesty's immediate predecessors. They knew it would not be recklessly and wickedly squandered, and they liked to have their bonnie young Queen make a handsome appearance among crowned heads. She had not then revealed those strong and admirable traits of character which later won their respect and affection,—but they were fond of her, and took a sort of amused delight in her, as though they, were all children, and she a wonderful new doll, with new-fashioned talking and walking arrangements. The friend from whom I have quoted—Mrs. Crosland— writes me: "I consider that it would be impossible to exaggerate the enthusiasm of the English people on the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne. To be able at all to understand it, we must recollect the sovereigns she succeeded—the Sailor-King, a most commonplace old man, with 'a head like a pine-apple'; George IV., a most unkingly king, extremely unpopular, except with a small party, of High Tories; and poor George III., who by the generation Victoria followed, could only be remembered as a frail, afflicted, blind old man—for a long period shut up at Kew, and never seen by his people. It was not only that Victoria was a really lovely girl, but that she had the prestige of having been brought up as a Liberal, and then she kept the hated Duke of Cumberland from the throne. Possibly he was not guilty of half the atrocious sins attributed to him, but I do not remember any royal personage so universally hated."
It was fear of this bogie of a Cumberland that made the English people anxious for the early marriage of the Queen, and yet caused them to dread it, for the fate of poor Princess Charlotte had not been forgotten. But I do not think that political or dynastic questions had much to do with the popularity of the young Queen. It was the resurrection of the dead dignity of the Royal House of Brunswick, in her fair person—the resuscitation of the half-dead principle of loyalty in the hearts of her people. Of her Majesty's subjects of the better class, actors and quakers alone seem to have taken her accession with all its splendid accessions, coolly,—the former, perhaps, because much mock royalty had somehow cheapened the real thing, and the latter because trained from infancy to disregard the pomps and show of this world. Macready jots down among the little matters in his "Diary," the fact of Her Majesty coming to his theatre, and waiting awhile after the play to see him and congratulate him. He speaks of her as "a pretty little girl," and does not seem particularly "set up" by her compliments. Joseph Sturge, the eminent and most lovable philanthropist of Birmingham,—a "Friend indeed" to all "in need,"—waited on Her Majesty, soon after her accession, as one of a delegation of the Society of Friends. Some years after, he related the circumstance to me, and simply described her to me as "a nice, pleasant, modest young woman,—graceful, though a little shy, and on the whole, comely."