Every American who visited London in those days felt a laudable curiosity to see the young Queen, who had been crowned but four years before. I went up to Windsor Castle, and after inspecting it, joined a little group of people who were standing at the gateway which leads out to the Long Drive and Virginia Water. They were waiting to get a look at the young Queen, who always drove out at four o'clock. Presently the gate opened and a low carriage, preceded by three horsemen, passed through. It contained a plump baby, nearly two years of age, wrapped in a buff cloak and held up in the arms of its nurse. That baby became the Empress Dowager of Germany, the mother of the present Kaiser and of Prince Henry, who has lately been our guest. In a few minutes afterwards a pony phaeton, with two horses, passed through the gate and we all doffed our hats. It was driven by handsome young Prince Albert, dressed in a gray overcoat and silk hat. To this day I think of him as about the most captivating young husband that I have ever seen. By his side sat his young wife, dressed in a small white bonnet with pink feather and wrapped in a white shawl. Her complexion was exceedingly fresh and fair. Her light brown hair was dressed in the "Grecian" style, and as she bowed gracefully I observed the peculiarity of her smile—that she showed her teeth very distinctly. This resulted from the shortness of her upper lip. "A pretty girl she is too" was the remark I heard from the visitors as the carriage went on down the drive. That was my first glimpse of royalty, and I little dreamed that she was to be the longest lived sovereign that ever sat on the British throne, and the most popular woman in all modern times.
Thirty years rolled away and I saw the good Queen again. The Albert Memorial, erected to the handsome Prince Consort, whom she idolized, had just been completed, and one morning the Queen came incognito to make her first private inspection of the memorial. Through the intimation of a friend I hurried at once to the Park, and found a small company of people gathered there. Her Majesty had just come, accompanied by Prince Arthur, the Princess Louise and the young Princess Beatrice; and they were examining the gorgeous new structure. The Queen wore a plain black silk dress and her children were very plainly attired, so that they looked like a group of good, honest republicans. The only evidence of royalty was that the company of gentlemen who were pointing out to the Queen the various beauties of the monument just completed were careful not to turn their backs upon Her Majesty. I observed that when her children bade her "good morning" they kneeled and kissed her hand. She remained sitting in her carriage for some time, chatting and laughing with her daughter Beatrice. Her countenance had become very florid and her figure very stout. The last time that I saw her driving in the Park her full, rubicund face made her look not only like the venerable grandmother of a host of descendants, but of the whole vast empire on which the sun never sets. Last year the most beloved sovereign that has ever occupied the British throne was laid in the gorgeous mausoleum at Frogmore beside the husband of her youth and the sharer of twenty-two years of happy and holy wedlock. All Christendom was a mourner beside that royal tomb.
From London I went on a very brief visit to Paris, at the time when Louis Phillipe was at the height of his power and apparently securely seated on his throne. Within a half a dozen years from that time he was a refugee in disguise, and the kingdom of France was followed by the Republic of Lamartine. My brief visit to Paris was made more agreeable by the fact that my kinsman, the Hon. Henry Ledyard, was then in charge of the American Embassy, in the absence of his father-in-law, General Lewis Cass, our Ambassador, who had returned to America for a visit. The one memorable incident of that brief sojourn in Paris that I shall recall was a visit to the tomb of Napoleon, whose remains had been brought home the year before from the Island of St. Helena. Passing through the Place de la Concord and crossing the Seine, a ten minutes' walk brought me to the Hospital des Invalides. I reached it in the morning when the court in front was filled with about three hundred veterans on an early parade. Many of them were the shattered relics of Napoleon's Grand Army—glorious old fellows in cocked hats and long blue coats, and weather-beaten as the walls around them. After a few moments I hurried into the Rotunda, which is nearly one hundred feet in height, surrounded by six small recesses, or alcoves. "Where is Napoleon?" said I to one of the sentinels. "There," said he, pointing to a recess, or small chapel, hung with dark purple velvet and lighted by one glimmering lamp. I approached the iron railing and, there before me, almost within arm's length, in the marble coffin covered by his gray riding coat of Marengo, lay all that was mortal of the great Emperor. At his feet was a small urn containing his heart, and upon it lay his sword and the military cap worn at the battle of Eylau. Beside the coffin was gathered a group of tattered banners captured by him in many a victorious fight. Three gray-haired veterans, whose breasts were covered with medals, were pacing slowly on guard in front of the alcove. I said to them in French: "Were you at Austerlitz?" "Oui, oui," they said. "Were you at Jena?" "Oui, oui." "At Wagram?" "Oui, oui," they replied. I lingered long at the spot, listening to the inspiring strains of the soldiery without, and recalling to my mind the stirring days when the lifeless clay beside me was dashing forward at the head of those very troops through the passes of the Alps and over the bridge at Lodi. It seemed to me as a dream, and I could scarcely realize that I stood within a few feet of the actual body of that colossal wonder-worker whose extraordinary combination of military and civil genius surpassed that of any other man in modern history. And yet, when all shall be summoned at last before the Great Tribunal, a Wilberforce, a Shaftesbury, or an Abraham Lincoln will never desire to change places with him.
CHAPTER IV
HYMN-WRITERS I HAVE KNOWN
Montgomery—Bonar—Bowring—Palmer and Others
Hymnology has always been a favorite study with me, and it has been my privilege to be acquainted with several of the most eminent hymn-writers within the last sixty or seventy years. It is a remarkable fact that among the distinguished English-speaking poets, Cowper and Montgomery are the only ones who have been successful in producing many popular hymns; while the greatest hymns have been the compositions either of ministers of the Gospel, like Watts, Wesley, Toplady, Doddridge, Newman, Lyte, Bonar and Ray Palmer, or by godly women, like Charlotte Elliott, Mrs. Sarah F. Adams, Miss Havergal and Mrs. Prentiss. During my visit to Great Britain in the summer of 1842, I spent a few weeks at Sheffield as the guest of Mr. Edward Vickers, the ex-Mayor of the city. His near neighbor was the venerable James Montgomery, whose pupil he had been during the short time that the poet conducted a school. Mr. Vickers took me to visit the poet at his residence at The Mount. A short, brisk, cheery old man, then seventy-one, came into the room with a spry step. He wore a suit of black, with old-fashioned dress ruffles, and a high cravat that looked as if it choked him. His complexion was fresh, and snowy hair crowned a noble forehead. He had never married, but resided with a relative. We chatted about America, and I told him that in all our churches his hymns were great favorites. I unfortunately happened to mention that when lately in Glasgow I had gone to hear the Rev. Robert Montgomery, the author of "Satan," and other poems. It was this "Satan Montgomery" whom Macaulay had scalped with merciless criticism in the Edinburgh Review. The mention of his name aroused the old poet's ire. "Would you believe it?" he exclaimed, indignantly, "they attribute some of that fellow's performances to me, and lately a lady wrote to me in reference to one of his most pompous poems, and said "it was the best that I had ever written!" I do not wonder at my venerable friend's vexation, for there was a world-wide contrast between his own chaste simplicity and the stilted pomposity of his Glasgow namesake. Montgomery, though born a Moravian and educated at a Moravian school, was a constant worshipper at St. George's Episcopal Church, in Sheffield. The people of the town were very proud of their celebrated townsman, and after his death gave him a public funeral, and erected a bronze statue to his memory. While he was the author of several volumes of poetry, his enduring fame rests on his hymns, some of which will be sung in all lands through coming generations. Four hundred own his parentage and one hundred at least are in common use throughout Christendom. He produced a single verse that has hardly been surpassed in all hymnology:
"Here in the body pent
Absent from Him I roam.
Yet nightly pitch my moving-tent,
A day's march nearer home."
Hymnology has known no denominational barriers. While Toplady was an
Episcopalian, Wesley a Methodist. Newman and Faber Roman Catholics,
Montgomery a Moravian, and Bonar a Presbyterian, the magnificent hymn,
"In the cross of Christ I glory,"