Queen Victoria has given her name to a period which has no parallel in
magnificence since the days of the great Elizabeth.
The galaxy of great poets, teachers, and philosophers that flourished in
the Victorian age cannot be matched in any similar series of years in all
the history of the modern world.
With her departure exhaustion seems to have come upon the world of
letters for a time, and to the classic glories of the nineteenth century
there has succeeded an usurpation of journalists without the splendour of
genius or even the distinction of scholarship.
And although we may perhaps recognise in Lord Beaconsfield's inclusive
use of the phrase to her of "we authors, Madam" something of the flattery
of the courtier, yet assuredly in all her public addresses to her people
there is displayed a fine and biblical simplicity, and a directness of
appeal indicative of a noble mind and a great heart.
The most penetrating criticism will fail to discover a fault either of
taste or diction or intent in any of these utterances. They combine the
dignity appropriate to the words of the greatest Sovereign of the World,
with the intimate friendliness that proceeds from the wellsprings of a
sweet woman's heart.
Worthily then did she reign over the most splendid times of our history.
That she should from the day she ascended the throne to the day of her
death forward and abet all the enlargements of the spirit of mercy and
pity towards the suffering, whether among man or animals, was inevitable
in a nature so benevolent. And it may very well be that in far distant
times the rise of humaneness to man and beast will be regarded as one of
the noblest characteristics of her reign.
Her position above controversies precluded her from participating in
them, and made it difficult if not impossible for her publicly to espouse
the cause of the miserable creatures subjected to nameless sufferings in
the laboratories of the scientific. But her sympathy with those who
strove and still strive to end those sufferings could not always be
concealed, and on a memorable occasion she expressed her concurrence in
the efforts of those who desired to see the laws sanctioning such
suffering totally abolished and repealed.
Very fitting therefore it is that among those who earnestly condemned
vivisection we should include the august name and fame of Queen Victoria.