"Osborne, January 27, 1880.
"The Queen thanks Mr Martin most warmly for his touching letter accompanying the last chapter of her beloved Husband's Life. She thanks him from her heart for the pains and trouble he has taken in the execution of this difficult and arduous undertaking, in which he has so admirably succeeded, and at the same time congratulates him on having completed it. She can well understand the tears that must have been shed in doing so, though Mr Martin did not know the dear Prince personally.
"In the meantime, before she can in a more public manner express her high sense of his services, the Queen asks Mr Martin to accept the accompanying bronze statuette reduced from Marochetti's monument in the Mausoleum.[21] The Queen would wish also to thank Mr Martin for the kind and feeling manner in which he has performed his difficult task."
The Queen's kindness did not stop here. I was ill, overtasked with very heavy professional work, at the same time that I was writing the last chapters of my book. For months I had been engaged along with the late Mr Edmund Smith in negotiating, and successfully negotiating, for Lord Beaconsfield's Government, the purchase of the undertakings of all the London Water Companies, and preparing the Bill for vesting them in a public trust. The measure was defeated on Mr Gladstone's return to office in April 1880, and for this defeat it may safely be said the community of London has ever since had to suffer severely. Rest and change were essential for my recovery, and I at once determined to seek them in Venice and the north of Italy. Two days before I started I was commanded to dine with Her Majesty at Windsor, and on my arrival I was knighted and invested by her own hands with the Collar and Star of a Knight Commander of the Bath, the act being accompanied by words of commendation far more precious to me than any title of honour. The Queen had chosen for the ceremony the Prince Consort's working room, where all my conferences with her on the subject of the Life had taken place. Her Majesty, I subsequently found, had some difficulty in getting the Star and Collar of the Bath ready in so short a time: I could not, therefore, but recognise in the promptitude of her action the kind thought, that the honour, which would come upon me by surprise, might help to cheer me in the search for health on which I was going abroad.
Some years before this time I had occasion to see how keenly the Queen suffered on the death of a friend. On the 7th of March 1875 Sir Arthur Helps, who held a very warm place in her regard, died, after a few days' illness, from a cold caught at the Prince of Wales' levee. I was summoned to Buckingham Palace and found the Queen in tears, and moved to a degree that was distressing to witness. She had lost in him not only a valuable official, but a friend to whom she had for years trusted for counsel in times of personal distress or difficulty. Her first thought was for his family, and what could be done to lighten the embarrassment of the position in which his sudden death had placed them, and arrangements with this view were at once resolved upon and carried into effect. But, seeing what on this occasion I saw Her Majesty suffer, I could not but think how much sorrows of this kind, coming as they did with unusual frequency, and leaving impressions which in her case were far from transitory, must have added to the exhausting effects of the Queen's busy life.
It must have been about this time that the Queen one day, in speaking of her portraits, asked me which of them all I thought the best. "Your Majesty," I answered, "will smile at what I am going to say. None of them speak to me so strongly as well as pleasingly, or bring your Majesty so vividly to my mind, as the bust by Behnes, when you were between eight and nine years old." I then told her that I had studied it for years, being so fortunate as to possess the original cast in clay from which the marble bust in the Windsor great corridor was modelled by the sculptor. "Not only," I added, "is the bust beautiful as a work of art, but in it, if I might be so bold as say so, I saw not only the lineaments, but the latent character which years had developed." The Queen, I could see, while somewhat surprised, was also pleased. My criticism must have produced a favourable impression, for the next time I was at Windsor Castle I found that the bust had been removed from a comparatively dark corner to a most conspicuous position near the main entrance to the corridor, where it was shown to the best advantage, and continued thenceforth to remain. Passing along the corridor one evening I called Lord Beaconsfield's attention to it, and he quite concurred in my opinion as to its suggestiveness and peculiar charm.[22]
I recall another conversation about this period that led to the grant, which gave great public satisfaction at the time, of a pension of £50 a-year to Edward, the Banff shoemaker and Naturalist. I had thrown into my despatch-box a copy of Dr Smiles's Life of Edward, just published, which reached me as I was leaving home to wait upon Her Majesty at Windsor. The box contained papers as to which I had to consult the Queen. On opening it in her presence, her quick eye took notice of the volume, and she asked me what it was. It contained a fine etched portrait of Edward by Rajon, and this, I knew, would interest the Queen. She admired it greatly, and asked, "Who is this Edward?" I told her briefly his story. "Is this not a case," she said, "for a pension from the Bounty Fund?" Some of the most eminent naturalists, I was able to answer, were anxious that he should have one, and a Memorial to Her Majesty praying for it was being extensively signed. "Go on with the Memorial," Her Majesty said. "That is essential; but leave the book with me. I will write to-day to Lord Beaconsfield, and I have no doubt the pension will be at once granted." The next day (20th December 1876), in a letter from the Queen, she wrote: "Lord Beaconsfield had already heard of the book, which with this letter the Queen return, and is most ready to recommend Edward for a pension of £50. He was most amiable about it." Thus some days before the formal Memorial was presented to the Queen its prayer had been granted, and the remarkable old man was made comfortable for life.[23]
The following letter, while it shows on what friendly relations the Queen stood with Lord Beaconsfield, also shows with how gracious a welcome Her Majesty received a gift from one of her subjects:—
"Dec. 25, 1876, Christmas Day.
"The Queen returns Mr Martin her sincerest thanks for his two kind letters, and for the splendid copy of his translation of Faust.[24] She had seen it, and sent it as a Christmas offering to Lord Beaconsfield; but she did not possess one, and therefore is much pleased to receive it at his hands. The Queen hopes Mr Martin will accept the book with photographs of the Albert Chapel, which will reach him to-morrow.[25] Most sincerely does she wish Mr and Mrs Martin every possible blessing for the season, which is unusually gloomy and dark....