In this mere sketch of the great life of the Queen of England, I can give little space to the political questions and events of her reign, important and momentous as some of them were, even for other lands and other people than the English. For a clear and concise account of those questions and events, I refer my readers to "A History of Our Own Times," by Justin McCarthy, M.P. I know nothing so admirable of its kind. But mine must be something less ambitious—a personal and domestic history— light, gossipy, superficial, as regards the profound mysteries of politics; in short, "pure womanly."

I shall not even treat of the great wars which stormed over the Continent, and upset and set up thrones, except as they affected the life of my illustrious subject. At first they seemed to form a lurid background to the bright pictures of peace and love presented by her happy marriage and maternity, and afterwards in the desolation and mourning they brought, seemed in keeping with the sorrow of her widowhood.

Happily all was quiet and peace in the United Kingdom, and in the world at large, when the honeymoon began for that august but simple-hearted pair of lovers, Victoria and Albert; or, as she would have preferred to write it, Albert and Victoria. The fiery little spurt of revolt in Canada, called rather ambitiously, "The Canadian Rebellion," had ended in smoke, and the outburst of Chartism, from the spontaneous combustion of sullen and long-smothered discontent among the working classes, had been extinguished, partly by a fog of misapprehension and misdirection, partly by a process of energetic stamping out. The shameful Chinese opium war, the Cabul disasters, and the fearful Sepoy rebellion were, as yet, only slow, simmering horrors in the black caldron of the Fates. Irish starvation had not set in, in its acute form, and Irish sedition was, as yet, taking only the form of words—the bold, eloquent, magnificent, but not malignant and scarcely menacing words of Daniel O'Connell In the Infernal Council Chamber below, the clock whose hours are epochs of crime, had not yet struck for the era of political assassination. France was resting and cooling from the throes and fires of revolution, and growing the vine over its old lava courses. The citizen-King and his family were setting an example of domestic affection and union, of morality, thrift, and forehandedness—diligently making hay while the fickle sun of French loyalty was shining. Italy was lying deathly quiet under the mailed foot of Austria, and under the paternal foot of the old Pope, shod with a velvet slipper, cross-embroidered, but leaden-soled; Garibaldi was fighting for liberty in "the golden South Americas"; Mazzini was yet dreaming of liberty—so was Kossuth. Russia was quietly gathering herself up for new leaps of conquest tinder her most imperial, inflexible autocrat—the inscrutable, unsmiling Nicholas.

In England and America it was, though a peaceful, a stirring and an eventful time. English manufacturers, not content with leveling mountains of American cotton bales, converting them into textile fabrics and clothing the world therewith, were reaching deep and deeper into the bowels of the earth, and pulling up sterner stuff to spin into gigantic threads with which to lace together all the provinces and cities of the realm. That captive monster, Steam, though in the early days of its servitude, was working well in harness, while in America Morse was after the lightning, lassoing it with his galvanic wires. In England the steam- dragon had begun by killing one of his keepers, and was distrusted by most English people, who still preferred post-horses and stage-coaches— all the good old ways beloved by hostel-keepers, Tony Welters, postilions and pot-boys. There was something fearful, supernatural, almost profane and Providence-defying in this new, swift, wild, and whizzing mode of conveyance. Churchmen and Tories were especially set against it; yet I have been told that later, that Prince of conservatives, F. M., the Duke of Wellington, did, on the occasion of one of Her Majesty's accouchements travel from London to Windsor, at the rate of seventy-five miles an hour, in order to be in at the birth! What were the perils of Waterloo to this daring, dizzying journey?

Just a month before the Queen's marriage there occurred in London a union yet more auspicious, not alone for England, but for all Christendom. It was the wedding, by act of Parliament, of Knowledge and Humanity in the cheap postage reform—carried through with wonderful ability, energy, persistence, and pluck by Rowland Hill; blessed be his memory. The Queen afterwards knighted him, but he did not need the honor, though I doubt not it was pleasant, coming from her hands. The simple name of the dear old man was full of dignity, and long before had been stamped—penny- stamped, on the heart of the world.

So it seemed that life smiled on and around the royal wedded pair on that winter afternoon, so unwintry to them, when they took leave of relations and wedding guests at Buckingham Palace, and set out for Windsor Castle. Even the heavens which had wept in the morning with those who wept, changed its mood, and smiled on bride and bridegroom, as they drove forth in an open carriage and four, followed by other open carriages containing a picked suite of friends and attendants—all with favor-decked postilions and footmen in the royal red liveries, and everything grand and gay. The Queen was dressed in a white satin pelisse, profusely trimmed with swan's-down. She seems, in those days, to have been very fond of nestling down under that soft, warm, dainty sort of a wrap. How like a white dove she must have looked that day, for her bonnet was white, trimmed with white, plumes. Prince Albert wore a fur-trimmed coat, with a high collar, and had a very high hat, which for the most part was in his hand, so much saluting was he obliged to do to the saluting multitude.

All the world was abroad that day—great was the flow of good feeling, and mighty was the flow of good ale, while the whole air of the Kingdom was vibrating with the peal of merry marriage-bells. All through the land free dinners were provided for the poor—good roast beef, plum-pudding— 'alf and 'alf fare—and I am afraid the Queen's pauper-subjects would have been unwilling to have the occasion indefinitely repeated, with such observances,—would not have objected to Her Majesty proving a female Henry VIII.

Victoria and Albert drove that afternoon more than twenty miles between ranks of frantically loyal, rejoicing people,—past countless festive decorations, and a world of "V"s and "A"s—under arches so gay that one wondered where and how at that season all the flowers and foliage were produced,—if nature had not hurried up her spring work, so as to be able to come to the wedding. The Queen turned now and then her happy face on her shouting subjects, in graceful acknowledgment of their sympathy with her happiness; but much of the time she was observed to be regarding her husband, intently or furtively. So she had betrayed her heart during She marriage ceremony, when, as an eye-witness records, she "was observed to look frequently at Prince Albert,—in fact, she scarcely ever took her eyes off him." I suppose she found him "goodly to look upon." It is certain that she worshiped him with her eyes, as well as with her heart and soul,—then and ever after. For the world, even for the Court, he grew, as the pitiless, pilfering years went by, a little too stout, and somewhat bald, while his complexion lost something of its fine coloring and smoothness, and his eyes their fulness,—but for her, he seems to have always kept the grace and glory of his youth. Even when he was dying-when the gray twilight of the fast-coming night was creeping over his face, clouding the light of his eyes, chilling the glow of his smile—his beauty was still undimmed for her. She says in her pathetic account of those sad moments—"his beautiful face, more beautiful than ever, is grown so thin."

But on this their wedding-day, death and death-bed partings were far enough from the thoughts of the royal lovers. Life was theirs,—young life, in all its fulness and richness of health, and hope, and joy, and that "perfect, love, which casteth out fear."

So essentially young and so light-hearted were they, that they laughingly welcomed the crowd of shouting, leaping, hat-waving, mad Eton boys, who as they neared Windsor, turned out to receive them. The Queen jotted down this jolly incident in her journal thus: "The boys in a body accompanied the carriage to the castle, cheering and shouting as only schoolboys can. They swarmed up the mound, as the carriage entered the quadrangle, and, as the Queen and the Prince descended at the grand entrance, they made the old castle ring again with their acclamations."