The last visit paid in Cornwall was by very narrow stony lanes to "Place," a curious house restored from old plans and drawings to a fac-simile of a Cornwall house of the past as it had been defended by one of the ancestresses of the present family, the Treffrys, against an attack made upon her, by the French during her husband's absence. The hall was lined with Cornwall marble and porphyry.
On the 15th of September the new part of Osborne House was occupied for the first time by its owners. Lady Lyttelton chronicled the pleasant event and some ceremonies which accompanied it. "After dinner we were to drink the Queen and Prince's health as a 'house-warming.' And after it the Prince said very naturally and simply, but seriously, 'We have a hymn' (he called it a psalm) 'in Germany for such occasions. It begins'—and then he repeated two lines in German, which I could not quote right, meaning a prayer to 'bless our going out and coming in.' It was long and quaint, being Luther's. We all perceived that he was feeling it. And truly entering a new house, a new palace, is a solemn thing to do, to those whose probable span of life in it is long, and spite of rank, and health, and youth, down- hill now."
Sir Theodore Martin, who quotes Lady Lyttelton's letters in the "Life of the Prince Consort," gives such a hymn, which is a paraphrase of the 121st Psalm, as it appears in the Coburg Gesang-Buch, and supplies a translation of the verse in question.
Unsern ausgang segne Gott,
Unsern erngang gleicher massen,
Segne unser taglich brod,
Segne unser thun und lassen.
Segne uns mit sel'gem sterben,
Und mach uns zu Himmel's Erben
* * * * *
By Tre, Con and Pen,
You may know the Cornish men
God bless our going out, nor less
Our coming in, and make them sure,
God bless our daily bread, and bless
Whate'er we do, whate'er endure,
In death unto his peace awake us,
And heirs of his salvation make us
"I forgot," writes Lady Lyttelton again, "much the best part of our breaking in, which was that Lucy Kerr (one of the maids of honour) insisted on throwing an old shoe into the house after the Queen, as she entered for the first night, being a Scotch superstition. It looked too strange and amusing. She wanted some melted lead and sundry other charms, but they were not forthcoming. I told her I would call her Luckie, and not Lucy."
During the autumn the Princess of Prussia, who was on a visit to her aunt, Queen Adelaide, went to Windsor Castle, where Madame Bunsen met her. "I arrived here at six," writes Madame Bunsen "and at eight went to dinner in the great hall, hung round with Waterloo pictures, the band playing exquisitely, so placed as to be invisible, so that what with the large proportions of the hall and the well-subdued lights, and the splendours of plate and decorations, the scene was such as fairy tales present; and Lady Canning, Miss Stanley, and Miss Dawson were beautiful enough to represent an ideal queen's ideal attendants.
"The Queen looked well and rayonnante, with the expression of countenance that she has when pleased with what surrounds her, and which you know I like to see. The old Duke of Cambridge failed not to ask after you.
"This morning at nine we were all assembled at prayers in the private chapel, then went to breakfast, headed by Lady Canning, after which Miss Stanley took the Countess Haach and me to see the collection of gold plate. Three works of Benvenuto Cellini, and a trophy from the Armada, an immense flagon or wine-fountain, like a gigantic old- fashioned smelling-bottle, and a modern Indian work—a box given to the Queen by an Indian potentate—were what interested me the most. Then I looked at many interesting pictures in the long corridor.