| Victoria, Queen of England |
| by James Parton, 1868 |
|
Related topics: • About Queen Victoria |
And so her childhood passed away. She had, of course, the usual retinue of instructors, and went the usual round of lessons and recreation. The mighty Lablache gave her instruction in singing; and the queen says of him that he was not only one of the best actors and singers ever seen in England, "but a remarkably clever, gentleman-like man, full of anecdotes and knowledge, and most kind and warm-hearted. The prince and queen had a sincere regard for him." That she should acquire a familiarity with the three languages, English, German, and French, was scarcely to be avoided, since German was the native language of her mother, English the language of her country, and French the language of courts. In the volumes which she has recently given us, there are several specimens of the queen's drawing, from which we may infer that she acquired enough of this art for the occasional illustration of a private diary.
The most interesting event, perhaps, of her minority, at least, the most interesting to herself, -- was her first interview with her cousin of Coburg, Prince Albert. From the very birth of these children, their marriage by and by was distinctly contemplated; and, as time went on, it became the favorite project of the grandmother of the cousins, the Duchess of Saxe-Gotha, whose affectionate letters have been quoted above. William the Fourth, it appears, had other views for his niece, and did his best to prevent the meeting of the cousins. But a grandmother and a mother, in affairs of this kind, are more than a match for an uncle, even though that uncle wears a crown. So when Prince Albert and the Princess Victoria were seventeen years of age, the prince came to England, accompanied by his father and brother. Both the young people were aware of the benevolent intentions of all the German members of their family, and each had been in the habit of dreaming of the future in accordance with those intentions. They were well pleased with one another on this occasion. Prince Albert, accustomed to the quiet routine of a German duke's younger son, was equally amazed and fatigued by the gorgeous life of the English court. The late hours were particularly disagreeable to him, as well they might be.
"My first appearance," he wrote, "was at a levee of the king's, which was long and fatiguing,, but very interesting. The same evening we dined at court, and at night there was a beautiful concert, at which we had to stand till two o'clock. The next day the king's birthday was kept. We went, in the middle of the day, to a drawing-room at St. James' Palace, at which about three thousand eight hundred people passed before the king and queen and the other high dignitaries to offer their congratulations. There was again a great dinner in the evening, and then a concert which lasted till one o'clock. You can well imagine I had many hard battles to fight against sleepiness during these late entertainments.
"The day before yesterday, Monday, our aunt gave a brilliant ball here at Kensington Palace, at which the gentlemen appeared in uniform, and the ladies in so-called fancy dresses. We remained till four o'clock. Duke William of Brunswick, the Prince of Orange and his two sons, and the Duke of Wellington were the only guests that you will care to hear about.
"Yesterday we spent with the Duke of Northumberland, at Sion, and now we are going to Claremont. From this account you will see how constantly engaged we are, and that we must make the most of our time to see at least some of the sights in London. Dear aunt is very kind to us, and does everything she can to please us; and our cousin also is very amiable. We have not a great deal of room in our apartments, but are nevertheless very comfortably lodged."
The queen has since recorded her recollections of the prince at the time of this visit:
"The prince was at that time much shorter than his brother, already very handsome, but very stout, which he entirely grew out of afterward. He was most amiable, natural, unaffected, and merry; full of interest in everything; playing on the piano with the princess, his cousin; drawing; in short, constantly occupied. He always paid the greatest attention to all he saw, and the queen remembers well how intently he listened to the sermon preached in St. Paul's, when he and his father and brother accompanied the Duchess of Kent and the princess there, on the occasion of the service attended by the children of the different charity schools. It is indeed rare to see a prince, not yet seventeen years of age, bestowing such earnest attention on a sermon."
After a stay in England of some weeks, Prince Albert returned home, and resumed his studies. Each of the cousins was highly prepossessed in favor of the other. Indeed, the princess seems to have made up her mind on this occasions that, if public policy forbade her marrying her cousin Albert, she would never marry at all.
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