Do not expect in this volume a Life of Queen Victoria. You have her public life in the events of her reign: of her private life I will speak in the next chapter. But I can offer you no special, otherwise unattainable, information; there will be here no scandal of the Court; I have climbed no backstairs; I have peeped through no key-hole; I have perused no secret correspondence; I have, on this subject, nothing to tell you but what you know already.
Do not again look in these pages for a résumé of public events. You may find them in any Annual or Encyclopædia. What I propose to show you is the transformation of the people by the continual pressure and influence of legislation and of events of which no one suspected the far-reaching action. The greatest importance of public events is often seen, after the lapse of years, in their effect upon the character of the people: this view of the case, this transforming force of any new measure, seldom considered by statesman or by philosopher, because neither one nor the other has the prophetic gift—if it could be adequately considered while that measure is under discussion—would be stronger than any possible persuasion or any arguments of expediency, logic, or abstract justice.
I propose, therefore, to present a picture of the various social strata in 1837, and to show how the remarkable acts of British Legislation, such as Free Trade, cheap newspapers, improved communications, together with such accidents as the discovery of gold in Australia, and of diamonds at the Cape, have altogether, one with the other, so completely changed the mind and the habits of the ordinary Englishman that he would not, could he see him, recognise his own grandfather. And I hope that this sketch may prove not only useful in the manner already indicated, but also interesting and fresh to the general readers.
W. B.
Easter Sunday, 18th April 1897.
CHAPTER I
QUEEN AND CONSTITUTION
“The wise woman buildeth her house.”—Book of Proverbs.