We are not foolish enough to expect impossibilities from the Queen's visit,—how splendid and gratifying soever its circumstances may have been. We know well how many and deep-rooted are the social evils which in both islands afflict society, and we are not so simple as to imagine that they will be removed by the sight of the Sovereign, as the innocent peasants believe that all physical diseases will be cured by the royal touch. We are well aware that the impression of even the most splendid pageants is often only transitory, and that sad realities sometimes return with accumulated force after they are over, from the contrast they present to imaginative vision. Still a step, and that, too, a most important one, has been taken in the right direction. If great, and, in some respects, lasting good has been done—if evils remain, as remain they ever will, in the present complicated condition of society, and the contending interests which agitate its bosom—one evil, and that the greatest of all, is lessened, and that is an estrangement between the People and their Sovereign. Crimes may return; but the recurrence of the greatest of all, because it is the parent of all others—high treason—is for a time, to any extent at least, rendered impossible. The most sacred and important of all bonds, that which unites the sovereign and her subjects, has been materially strengthened. The most noble of all feelings, the disinterested affection of a people to their Queen, has been called into generous and heart-stirring action. The "unbought loyalty of men, the cheap defence of nations," is not at an end. And if the effect of the Royal Visit were only that, in the greatest cities of her dominions, our gracious sovereign, in an age unusually devoted to material influences, has succeeded, by the sweetness and grace of her manners, in causing the hearts of some hundred thousands of her subjects to throb with loyal devotion, and, for a time at least, supplanted the selfish by the generous emotions—the effect is not lost to the cause of order and the moral elevation of her people.
Dies Boreales.
No. IV.
CHRISTOPHER UNDER CANVASS.
Scene—The Pavilion.
Time—One P.M.
Buller—Seward—Talboys—North.
TALBOYS.
Here he is—here he is! I traced him by Crutch-print to the Van—like an old Stag of Ten to his lair by the Slot.
SEWARD.
Thank heaven! But was this right, my dear sir?
BULLER.
Your Majesty ought not thus to have secreted yourself from your subjects.
SEWARD.