On every Christmas morning the Queen sent greetings and good wishes to my wife with an inscribed Christmas card, and to myself, with some framed work of art, or valuable book. In 1897, when all the world was alive with congratulations on the memorable celebration of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee, the words which appeared in two of her perfect Addresses to her people inspired me to express, as before, what I conceived was in her heart in writing these Addresses. I give them here, because they were stamped with Her Majesty's approval. "The Queen," she wrote, "thanks Sir Theodore Martin very much for his most kind letter, and the Sonnets enclosed, which it has touched her much that he should write. Of course they may be published in the Times;" and they were published there accordingly.

THE QUEEN AT ST PAUL'S.

June 22, 1897.

["From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them!">[

Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me
The praise be given, that my beloved land
This day in all men's eyes from strand to strand
Shines first in honour and in majesty;
That borne from every clime, o'er every sea,
Around me clustering close on every hand,
Liegemen from far I see, a noble band,
Type of a nobler Empire yet to be!
Oh, my beloved people, yours the praise,
Yours, who have kept the faith, that made your sires
Free, fearless, faithful, through the nights and days,
True to the zeal for right, that never tires;
May God's best blessing rest on you always,
And keep you blameless in your heart's desires!

THE QUEEN AT KENSINGTON.

June 28, 1897.

["I gladly renew my association with a place which, as the scene of my birth and my summons to the Throne, has had, and ever will have with me, tender and solemn recollections.">[

Again the dear old home, the towering trees,
The lawns, the garden-plots, the lake, that were
My childhood's fairyland,—the dear ones there,
Who tended me so lovingly,—the ease
Of heart when, sporting at my mother's knees,
I dreamed not of a crown, nor knew a care,
The call at early morn that crown to wear!
Ah me, the host of tender memories,
Tender and solemn, that around me throng,
Of all that then I was, and since have been,
The many loved and lost, the One so long
Missed from my side, and I, a lonely Queen!
Yet in the love my people bear me, strong
To front an Empire's cares with brow serene.