LONDON.
London.--Westminster Abbey.--Westminster Hall and Parliament
Houses.--The Tower.--Sir Henry Wyat and His Cat.--Madame
Tussaud's Wax Works.--Tommy Accosts a Stranger.--Hampton Court
Palace.--Stories of Charles I. and Cromwell.--The Duchess's
Wonderful Pie.--The Boys' Day.--Tommy goes Punch and Judy
Hunting.--Street Amusements.--Tommy's Misadventure.--George
Howe's Cheap Tour.--Windsor Castle.--Story of Prince Albert and
his Queen.--Antwerp.
The train, from its sinuous windings among old English landscapes and
thickly populated towns, seemed at last to be gliding into a new world
of vanishing houses and streets. It suddenly stopped under the glass
roof of an immense station, where a regiment of porters in uniform
were awaiting it, and where all outside seemed a world of cabmen.
LONDON!--the world's great city, the nations' bazaar,--where humanity
runs in no fixed channels, but ceaselessly ebbs and flows like the
sea. Cabs, cabs! then a swift rattle through rattling vehicles, going
in every direction, on, on, on! Names of places read in histories and
story-books pass before the eye. The tides of travel everywhere seem
to overflow; all is bewildering, confusing. What a map a man's mind
must be to thread the innumerable streets of London!
The Class stopped at a popular hotel in a fine part of the city,
called the West End. It is pleasanter and more economical to take
furnished lodgings in London, if one is to remain in the city for a
week or more, but as Master Lewis was to allow the boys but a few
days' visit, he took them to a hotel in a quarter where the best
London life could be seen.
The London cabs meet the impatient stranger's wants at once, and the
boys were soon rattling in them about the city, out of the quarter of
stately houses into the gay streets of trade, which seemed to them
indeed like a great world's fair.
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
"This is Pall Mall [Pell Mell]," said Frank to Tommy, as their cab
rounded a corner.
"It seems to be all _pell mell_ here," said Tommy. "Had the poet been
to London when he wrote,--
"'Oh, then and there was hurrying to and fro'?
But this street has a more quiet look. What splendid houses!"
"Those," said Frank, "are the houses of the famous London Clubs."
The first visit that the boys made was to that time-honored pile of
magnificence into which kings and queens for centuries have gone to be
crowned and been carried to be buried,--Westminster Abbey.
The party entered at the western entrance, which commands an awesome,
almost oppressive, view of the interior. In the softened light of the
stained windows rose a forest of columns, rich with art and grandly
gloomy with the associations of antiquity. Far, far away it stretched
to the chapel of Edward the Confessor, a name that led the mind
through the faded pomps of the past almost a thousand years.
Monuments of kings and queens, benefactors and poets, beginning with
old Edward the Confessor and coming down to the Stuarts; of Eleanor,
who sucked the poison from her husband's wounds, and Philippa, who
saved the heroes of Calais. Here Bloody Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and
Mary, Queen of Scots, sleep in peace in the same chapel; and here the
merry monarch, Charles II., lies among the kingly tombs without a slab
to mark the place.
The new Houses of Parliament which stand between the Abbey and the
Thames are the finest works of architecture that have been erected in
England for centuries. They form a parallelogram nine hundred feet
long and three hundred feet wide. The House of Lords and House of
Commons occupy the centre of the building. Between these two halls of
State rises a tower three hundred feet high. At each end of the
building are lofty towers; the Victorian Tower, three hundred
forty-six feet high, and a clock tower, in which the hours are struck
on a bell called Big Ben, which weighs nine tons.
The entrance to the Houses of Parliament is through old Westminster
Hall, ninety feet high and two hundred and ninety long, whose gothic
roof of wood is the finest specimen of its kind in English art, and is
regarded as one of the wonders of human achievement.
It was in this hall that Charles I. was tried for treason, and
condemned; and it was here, at the trial, that the words of a
mysterious lady smote Oliver Cromwell to the heart.
"The Prisoner at the bar has been brought here in the name of the
People of England," said the solicitor.
"Not half the people!" exclaimed a mysterious voice in the gallery.
"Oliver Cromwell is a _traitor_!"
The assembly shuddered.
"Fire upon her!" said an officer.
They did not fire. It was Lady Fairfax.
Westminster Bridge, one thousand one hundred and sixty feet long, is
near the clock tower, and here the Class took its best view of the
Parliament Houses.
The next day the Class visited London Tower and the relics that recall
the long list of tragedies of ambitious courts and kings.
"This," said the guide, as the Class was taken into an apartment in
the White Tower, an old prison whose walls are twelve feet thick, "is
the beheading block that was used on Tower Hill. The Earl of Essex was
beheaded on it: see the _dints_!"
An axe stood beside the block, which is kept on exhibition in one of
the rooms in which Sir Walter Raleigh was confined.
"Where were the children of Edward murdered?" asked Frank Gray, after
being shown the place of the execution of Anne Boleyn.
"In the Bloody Tower," said the guide. "I am not hallowed to admit
visitors into that."
"We are a class in an American school. Could you not make some
arrangement to admit us?" asked Wyllys.
[Illustration: TRIAL OF CHARLES I.]
The guide left the party a few minutes, and then returned with a
bunch of keys.
He led the way to a small room in which the little sons of Edward had
been lodged, to be accessible to the murderers. Here the unhappy
children were smothered in bed. The room, apart from its dreadful
associations, was a pleasant one looking out on the Thames.
The party was next shown the stairs at the foot of which the remains
of the princes were discovered.
"I can imagine," said Ernest Wynn, "the life of the boys in the Tower.
How they went from window to window and looked out on the Thames, the
sunlight, and the sky as we do now; how they saw the bright, happy
faces pass, and children in the distance at play; how they watched, it
may be, the lights in their dead father's palace at night, and how
they wondered why the freedom of the gay world beyond the prison was
denied them. It is said that an old man who loved them used to play on
some instrument in the evening under the walls of the Tower, and thus
express to them his sympathy which he could not do in words."
"The burial of Richard III., who caused the death of the royal
children," said Master Lewis, "was almost as pitiful as that of the
princes themselves. After the fatal battle, his naked body was thrown
upon a sorry steed and carried over the bridge to Leicester amid
derision and scorn. For two hot summer days it was exposed to the
jeers of the mob, and then was laid in a tomb costing £10 1_s._, to
rest fifty years. The tomb was dashed in pieces during the
Reformation, the bones thrown into the river and the stone coffin,
according to tradition, used as a horse-trough."
The collection of armor in an apartment of the Tower called the Horse
Armory, a building over one hundred and fifty feet long, presented a
spectacle that filled our visitors with wonder. It seemed like a
sudden reproduction of the faded days of chivalry. On each side of the
room was a row of knights in armor, in different attitudes, looking
as though they were real knights under some spell of enchantment,
waiting for the magic word to start them into life again.
[Illustration: BURIAL OF RICHARD.]
The Jewel Tower did not so much excite the boys' astonishment. It was
like a costumer's shop; and even the royal crown of England wore an
almost ridiculous look, civilization and republican progress have so
far outgrown these theatrical playthings. The Queen's diadem, as it is
called, was indeed a glitter of diamonds, and the royal sceptres of
various devices carried one back to the days of Queen Esther.
[Illustration: THE TOWER OF LONDON.]
"Among the stories told of the prisoners in the Tower," said Master
Lewis, "there is one that is pleasant to remember. Sir Henry Wyat was
confined here in a dark low cell, where he suffered from cold and
hunger. A cat came to visit him at times, and used to lie in his bosom
and warm him. One day the cat caught a pigeon and brought it to him to
eat. The keeper heard of pussy's devotion to the prisoner, and treated
him more kindly. When Wyat was released, he became noted for his
fondness for cats."
Leaving the Tower, the boys stopped to look at the Traitor's Gate,
which had clanged behind so many illustrious prisoners brought to the
prison in the fatal barge; Cranmer, More, Anne Boleyn, bad men and
good men, how it swung behind them all, and ended even hope! With
sober faces the boys turned away.
The Zoölogical Gardens in Regent's Park presented the boys, on the day
after their visit to the Tower, a more cheerful scene. Who that has
read of the London "Zoo" has not wished to visit it? Here specimens of
the whole animal kingdom may be seen, and one wanders among the
immense cages, artificial ponds, bear-pits, enclosures of tropical
animals, reptile dens, feeling as free and secure as Adam appears in
the picture of Naming the Creation.
Here, unlike a menagerie, the animals all have room for the comforts
of existence. The rhinoceroses have a pond in which to stand in the
mud, and the hippopotami may sport as in their native rivers.
The British Museum, with its Roman sculptures, Elgin marbles, and
almost innumerable classic antiquities, and St. Paul's with its fifty
monuments of England's heroes and benefactors, presented to the Class
an extended view of the world's history. Sight-seeing became almost
bewildering, and when it was asked what place they next should visit,
Tommy Toby replied,--
"I feel as though I had seen almost enough."
"Let us visit Madame Tussaud's wax works," said Master Lewis.
"Are they like Mrs. Jarley's 'wax figgers?'" said Tommy; "if so I
would like to go. Who was Madame Tussaud?"
"She was a little French lady who took casts of faces of great men,
sometimes after their death or execution, and who died herself some
twenty or more years ago, at the age of ninety years."
The price of the exhibition was a shilling, and--
"For the Chamber of Horrors a sixpence hextra," said the man admitting
the party. Each one paid the "hextra" sixpence.
There were three hundred figures in all, supposed to be exact
representations of the persons when living. In a room called the Hall
of Kings were fifty figures of kings and queens, reproducing to the
life these generally condemned players on the stage of English
history.
A clever, winsome old man sat on one of the benches in the place,
holding a programme in his hand, and now and then raising his head, as
from studying the paper, to scrutinize one or another of the
astonishing works of art.
Tommy sat down beside the much interested, benevolent-looking old
gentleman, and said,--
"It was not _George_ Wilkes Booth who killed President Lincoln, it
was--
"Well, if this don't cap the whole! Why, _you_ are a 'figger,' too."
And so the mild, attentive-looking old gentleman proved to be.
The Chamber of Horrors revived the feeling the visitors had felt in
the Tower. It was a collection of representations of criminals. Among
the relics is the blade of the guillotine used during the Reign of
Terror in France, which is said to have cut off two thousand heads.
[Illustration: WOLSEY SERVED BY NOBLES.]
Hampton Court Palace, the gift of Cardinal Wolsey to Henry VIII., and
probably the most magnificent present that a prelate ever gave a king,
next received our tourists' attention. The palace originally consisted
of five courts, only a part of which now remain, but which assist the
fancy in stereoscoping the old manorial splendor. Here Wolsey lived in
vice-regal pomp, and had nearly one thousand persons to do his
house-keeping, and noble lords, on state occasions, waited upon him
upon bended knees.
The establishment at this time contained fifteen hundred rooms.
[Illustration: WHITEHALL.]
Edward VI., the last of the boy-kings of England, a youth noted for
his piety and love of learning, was born here, and here spent in
scholarly occupations a part of his short life. Catharine Howard, who
for a long time held the affections of Henry VIII., and who in his
best years greatly influenced his conduct by her wisdom and
accomplishments, was first acknowledged as queen here; and here also
Henry married another Catharine,--Catharine Parr, his sixth and last
wife. Bloody Mary kept Christmas here in 1557, when the great hall was
lighted with one thousand lamps.
Our visitors found Hampton Court open to the public,--a place of rare
freedom where people go out from London and enjoy the grounds much as
though it were their own. It is in fact a grand picture gallery and a
public garden.
[Illustration: WOLSEY'S PALACE.]
"Wolsey gave this palace to the king," said Master Lewis; "and the
king was sporting in the palace when he received the news of the death
of the Cardinal, who was stricken with a mortal sickness near
Leicester Abbey, soon after having been arrested for high treason. The
sad event did not seem to give the king the slightest pain. Such is
the value of the presents of a corrupt friendship.
"Charles I. resided here at times. Here he brought his young bride
when all London was reeking with the pestilence.
"Charles had three beautiful children, and was fond of their company.
Once, it is said, when he was with them at a window of Hampton Court
Palace, a gypsy appeared before him and asked for charity. He and the
children laughed at her grotesque appearance, which angered her, when
she took from her basket a glass and held it up to the king. He looked
into it and saw his head severed from his shoulders.
"The king gave her money.
"'A dog shall die in this room,' she said, 'and then the kingdom which
you will lose shall be restored to your family.'
[Illustration: DEATH OF CARDINAL WOLSEY.]
"Many years passed; and Oliver Cromwell, attended by his faithful dog,
came to Hampton Court Palace and slept in this room. When he awoke in
the morning, the dog was dead.
"'The kingdom has departed from me,' he said, recalling the gypsy's
prophecy; and so it proved.
"Of course the story of the gypsy's mirror is untrue, but the legend
is a part of the old romance of the palace; and such poetic incidents,
though false colored lights, serve to impress the facts of history
more vividly on the mind.
[Illustration: CHILDREN OF CHARLES I.]
"This legend of Charles I.," continued Master Lewis, "reminds me of a
more pleasant story, which I will tell you, now that you are at the
palace where the king brought his bride when life looked so fair and
promising. I will call the story--
THE DUCHESS'S WONDERFUL PIE.
"There were gala days at Paris,--wedding days. Then the new Queen of
England, Henrietta Maria, who had been married amid music and
rejoicings and strewings of flowers, made a journey to the sea, that
she might embark for England and see her new husband to whom she had
been married by proxy. There were more rejoicings when she landed at
Dover.
[Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL.]
"It was the plague time in London, so the gala days were omitted
there; but the new queen had some magnificent receptions at
Burleigh-on-the-hill, the residence of the king's favorite, the Duke
of Buckingham.
[Illustration: QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA.]
"There was one reception which the duke gave to the royal bride and
bridegroom that was a surprise and delight. It was a banquet; the
tables were sumptuous and splendid, and on one of them was a very
large pie,--as large as that is supposed to be in which the
four-and-twenty blackbirds of nursery-rhyme fame are said to have been
concealed. The pie excited wonder, but the guests all knew that it was
some
"'Dainty dish
To set before the king.'
"The banquet passed gayly, and the time came to serve the wonderful
pie. The crust was being removed, when instead of four-and-twenty
blackbirds flying out, up popped a little man. He was a chipper little
fellow, yet very polite, and was armed _cap-à-pie_.
"This was the first introduction of Jeffrey Hudson to the English king
and queen. The pie had been purposely constructed to hold the little
fellow, who, when the duchess made an incision in his castle of paste,
shifted his situation until sufficient room was made for his
appearance.
"The queen expressing herself greatly pleased with his person and
manners, the duchess presented him to her.
"This dwarf became very famous in the court of the queen."
* * * * *
The third day in London was given to the boys as their own. They were
allowed by Master Lewis to go to such places as best suited their
tastes. The prudent teacher had adopted this plan before, believing
that the boys needed it to teach them self-reliance.
"Where will you go to-day?" asked Frank Gray of Tommy.
"Punch-and-Judy hunting," said Tommy. "The streets of London are full
of exhibitions; the queerest performances you ever saw. I have been
wishing some time for a chance to see sights for myself. Will you go
with me?"
"Punch-and-Judy hunting?" said Frank, contemptuously. "No; I am going
to make an excursion to Cambridge."
"Remember," said Master Lewis, who had heard Tommy's remark, "that
London is a wilderness of streets. You must not wander far from any
principal street. Never lose sight of the cabs and omnibuses."
"I feel perfectly sure that I shall need no other help than the
cabman's in finding my way back. I have taken ten shillings in my
purse in case of an emergency."
"Keep your purse in your pocket wherever you find yourself," said
Master Lewis. "Punch-and-Judy crowds have not the credit of being the
most honest people."
Tommy found the hunting for street performances indeed alluring. Every
court and alley seemed alive with the most remarkable entertainments a
boy could witness.
[Illustration: STREET AMUSEMENTS.]
He first met three grotesque musicians who had gathered around them an
audience of admiring house-maids, dilatory market-people, and unkempt
children. But the hat for contributions was passed so soon after he
joined himself to the music-loving company that he at once left for
another performance where the call for money might not be so pressing.
A fiddler with three performing dogs, that were bedecked with hats and
ruffles, quite exceeded in dramatic interest the former exhibition.
But the fiddler, too, had immediate need of money, and Tommy
remembered Master Lewis's caution about the purse, and passed on to a
public place that seemed quite alive with groups of people gathered
around curious sights and entertainments.
The pastimes here took a scientific turn. Chief among these street
showmen rose the tall head of a middle-aged gentleman--"the
professor"--who administered the "galvanic grip."
"Has fast has yer cured, gentlemen, pass right along, pass right
along, and give others a chance. 'Ave you han hache or a pain? I say,
'ave you han hache or a pain? Cure ye right hup, right hup hin a
minute. I'll tell you what, it is astonishing, gentlemen, what cures
science will perform."
[Illustration: STREET AMUSEMENTS.]
At this point some one not schooled in the mysteries of science
received a very liberal dose of the "magnetic grip," and doubled his
body with an "O!" that seemed to be shot out of him, when the crowd
laughed and moved on.
You pay your five or ten pence and are presented with the handles
forming the terminations of the electric wire: you grasp these as
tight as you can, one in either hand, while the galvanist grinds away
at the machine.
When a hundred or more eyes are levelled upon you he suddenly
increases the motion in a manner that leaves no doubt in your mind
that that man has magnetism about him, whether he be a "professor" or
not. Of course your rheumatism at once disappears: it would do the
same had you fallen from the roof of a house.
Tommy had a strong inclination to be "cured" by the "professor of
galvanism," but he conscientiously recalled Master Lewis's advice
about the purse.
A man with a wonderfully bedecked performing monkey was leaving the
square, and, as a sort of testimony to the attraction of his
exhibition, a crowd of boys and girls were following him. Tommy wished
to see a performance that had evidently excited so much interest, and
he allowed himself to be borne along after the man in the juvenile
tide. After passing through several streets, the performer stopped in
an open court, but for some reason was ordered away. Tommy found
himself left almost alone in an antique-looking place, where there
were in sight neither omnibuses nor cabs.
"Which is the way to Regent Street?" asked Tommy of a sad-looking
little girl.
"Dunno," said Sad Eyes; "'ave ye got a penny?"
"What for?"
"For tellin' ye."
Tommy made other inquiries, but received about as definite information
as at first, and each person followed the unsatisfactory answer with,
"'Ave ye a penny?" as though it was worth that trifling amount to open
one's mouth.
An honest-looking house-wife, without bonnet or shawl, came marching
along the street with an air of friendly interest.
"Will you direct me to a street where I can find a hack?" asked Tommy.
"A what?"
"A cab."
"I guess yer lost, ar'n't ye?"
"If you will be so kind as to direct me to Regent Street or Oxford
Street, or Pall Mall, I will pay you."
[Illustration: "'AVE YOU GOT A PENNY?"]
Tommy felt in his pocket for his purse. It was _not_ there.
"Give me yer hand, little boy," said the benevolent-looking dame.
The two walked on through several streets, when the woman said,--
"This street will take you to Oxford Street. 'Ave you got a penny?"
"No," said Tommy; "I have lost it."
"Oh, you blackguard--"
Tommy did not stop to hear any figurative language, but found his way
to Oxford Street as quickly as possible, and took with him to the
hotel so deep a sense of humiliation that he did not relate the
misadventure and loss to his companions.
In the evening of the boys' "own" day, George Howe and Leander Towle
arrived unexpectedly at the hotel.
"We have come," said George, "to bid you good-by."
"Why good-by?" asked Master Lewis.
"We have been abroad a fortnight," said George; "have seen the
capitals of Scotland, England, and France; have rode through the heart
of England and the most interesting part of Normandy, and, as our
money is more than half gone, we must return. The steamer leaves
to-morrow."
"How much will the whole trip cost you?" asked Wyllys.
"It will cost us each $56.00 for the ocean passage both ways, and our
travelling expenses and board for the two weeks have averaged to each
$2.00 per day, or $28.00. The trip will cost me, well--when I have
made some purchases--say $95.00, though I have not yet spent as much
as this."
"Have you obtained your return tickets?" asked Master Lewis.
"No, not yet."
"Let me advise you not to take steerage passage in returning. The
steerage will be crowded, and you will in that case find it no holiday
experience. Take a second-cabin ticket for $40.00."
"My expenses then will not greatly exceed $100."
"Another steamer sails in a few days," said Master Lewis; "accept my
invitation to remain with us over to-morrow, and visit Windsor Castle
with us. It shall add nothing to your expenses."
The boys were delighted to accept Master Lewis's generous proposal. It
was arranged that the next morning the whole party should go to
Windsor.
"Before we go to Windsor Castle," said Frank Gray to Master Lewis,
"will you not tell us something about the place?"
"Windsor Castle," said Master Lewis, "is the finest of English
palaces, and is one of the residences of the royal family. In its
park, Prince Albert lies buried in the mausoleum erected by the queen.
Perhaps I cannot better instruct you for the visit than by telling you
the story of
PRINCE ALBERT AND HIS QUEEN.
"For seventeen years Queen Victoria has mourned for one of the best
husbands and one of the wisest advisers that ever a female sovereign
had.
"The marriage of Victoria and Albert was a love-match; not a very
common thing in unions of princes and princesses. They were first
cousins, Albert's father and Victoria's mother having been brother and
sister, the children of the Duke of Coburg; but, when they became
engaged, their situations were very different. Victoria was the young
queen of one of the mightiest and proudest empires on earth; Albert
was only the younger son of a poor and petty German prince, 'across
whose dominion one might walk in half a day.'
"But their relationship and the plans of their family served to bring
them together at a very early age, and they were very young when their
union was first thought of. Old King Leopold of Belgium was the uncle
of both of them; and it was he who first conceived the idea of their
marriage. But not a word was said to either of them about it until an
affection had grown up between them, and it was time for the young
queen to choose a partner for her heart and throne.
[Illustration: VICTORIA AT THE AGE OF EIGHT.]
"Albert and Victoria met for the first time when they were both
seventeen years old. The young prince and his brother went to England
to pay a visit to their aunt and cousin, and the young couple were
brought together. Albert at that time was rather short and thick-set,
but fine-looking, rosy-cheeked, natural and simple in his manners, and
of a cheerful disposition. He took a great deal of interest in every
thing about him, and while on his visit to England spent much time in
playing on the piano with his cousin Victoria, who was then a slight,
graceful, and interesting girl.
"She fell in love with him at once; but he, though he liked her, was
not so quickly impressed. He wrote to his Uncle Leopold that 'our
cousin is very amiable,' but had no stronger praise for her. Albert
then returned to the continent, and spent some years in travel and
study, writing occasionally to Victoria and she to him. Meanwhile,
King William IV. died, and Victoria, in her eighteenth year, ascended
the British throne.
"The young prince's next visit took place in the year after this
event, and now his object was to plead for the hand and heart of the
young queen. Victoria could scarcely believe her eyes when she saw
him. The short, thick-set boy had grown into a tall, comely youth,
with elegant manners and a strikingly handsome face. Soon after, she
wrote to her Uncle Leopold, 'Albert's beauty is most striking, and he
is most amiable and unaffected,--in short, very fascinating.'
"A few days after his arrival, Victoria had made up her mind; and,
sending for Lord Melbourne, the prime minister, told him that she was
going to marry Prince Albert. The next day she sent for the prince;
and 'in a genuine outburst of heartiness and love' she declared to him
that he had gained her whole heart, and would make her very happy if
he would share his life with her. He responded with warm affection,
and thus they became betrothed.
"The queen not only thus 'popped the question,' but insisted that the
marriage should take place at an early day. This was in the summer of
1839; and, in the early winter of 1840, the young couple were married
in the royal chapel of St. James, in the midst of general rejoicing,
and with great pomp and ceremony.
"Such was the beginning of a happy wedded life, which lasted for over
twenty years, and during which the love of each for the other seemed
to increase constantly. A little circle of children was soon formed
around the royal hearthstone, and the domestic life of the palace was
full of contentment and good order; and, as Victoria grew older, she
learned more and more of the excellent character that Providence had
given her for a husband.
"While Prince Albert assumed the direction of the family, and was the
unquestioned master of it in its private life, he was wise enough to
be very careful how he interfered with the queen in the performance of
her public duties. He knew that, as a foreigner, the English would be
very jealous of him if he took part in politics, or tried to influence
Victoria in her conduct as a ruler.
"At the same time, the young queen, scarcely more than a girl, needed
a guiding hand, and one that she could trust. No one could be so much
trusted as her husband; and Albert gradually became her adviser on
public affairs, as well as the head of her household. At first, there
were many grumblings and complaints about this in England; but as the
purity and good sense of the prince became better known, as it became
evident that his ambition was to serve the queen and the country,
these complaints for the most part ceased.
"Prince Albert devoted himself, with all his heart and mind, to the
duties which he found weighing upon him as a husband and father, and
as the most intimate counsellor of the monarch of a great country. He
denied himself many of the innocent pleasures which lay within his
reach, went but little into society, and spent his days and evenings
in serious occupations and in the midst of his happy family circle.
"Among other things, he took a very deep interest in the progress of
art, science, and education. 'His horses,' says a writer, 'might be
seen waiting for him before the studios of artists, the museums of art
and science, the institutions for benevolence or culture, but never
before the doors of dissipation or mere fashion.'
"It was Prince Albert who proposed and planned the great London
Exhibition of 1851, the first of the series of 'World's Fairs,' which
have since been so frequently held, the latest being our own
Centennial; and when it had been resolved upon, it was Prince Albert's
labor and energy, more than that of any other, which made it a
success.
"In his own family circle Prince Albert was always kind, gentle, and
indulgent, but firm and resolute in his treatment of his children. He
took a great interest in their studies, and directed their education,
sometimes teaching them himself; and he bestowed an anxious and
fatherly care upon the formation of their manners and habits, and a
right training of their hearts and minds.
"From first to last, he was as tenderly devoted to the queen as a
lover. He went with her everywhere, and his tastes and hers were
entirely congenial. Of a quiet and domestic disposition, he was amply
content to find his pleasures in the family circle; and Victoria took
a perpetual delight in his kind and cultivated companionship.
"When Prince Albert died, in December, 1861, the queen was overwhelmed
with grief; and it was many years before she so far recovered from it
that she could bear to show herself in public, or to take part in any
social gathering or State ceremony.
"He was placed in a tomb in the beautiful park of Windsor, where she
had so often roamed with him in their early wedded life; and every
year, on the sad anniversary of his death, Victoria repairs to his
grave, and prays, and scatters flowers on the tomb."
Windsor Castle had its rise in early Saxon times, and was made a
fortress by William the Conqueror. Froissart says that King Arthur
instituted his Order of the Knights of the Round Table here. King John
dwelt here during the conferences at Runnymede, when the barons drove
him almost to madness by compelling him to sign away his royal claims
by the acceptance of the Magna Charta.
The situation of the castle is most beautiful; it overlooks the
Thames, and from its tower twelve counties may be seen. The home park
of the palace contains five hundred acres, and this is connected with
Windsor Great Park, which has an area of one thousand eight hundred
acres.
[Illustration: ANGER OF KING JOHN.]
The beauty of St. George's Chapel greatly excited the wonder of our
tourists. Here are the tombs of Henry VIII., Charles I., Georges III.
and IV., and William IV.
"Here," said Wyllys Wynn, "is the finest monument I have yet seen in
England. How beautifully the light is made to fall upon it!"
The monument represented a dead princess, with a sheet thrown over the
body and couch, as though she had just expired. Above it the spirit of
the maiden is shown in the form of an angel ascending to heaven.
"It is the tomb of the Princess Charlotte," said Master Lewis. "She
was one of the most amiable princesses that ever won the affections of
the English people. Her death came like a private sorrow to every
family in the kingdom, and was the occasion of the most tender public
expressions of grief.
"I must tell you a story," continued Master Lewis, after standing at
the tomb of George III., "that will soften your feelings, perhaps,
towards one whom, for political reasons, our own history has taught us
to regard as little worthy of respect; but who had great private
virtues, whatever may have been his political mistakes."
In the bright avenue of elms, called the Long Walk, which connects the
home park with the Great Park of Windsor, Master Lewis told the boys
the story of the lamented Princess Amelia and her unhappy father, who
became insane from his loss, when she died. The pathetic story made a
great impression on the minds of the party, and it was several hours
before they resumed their accustomed air of gayety and enjoyment. They
returned to London in the late evening twilight, and the next day the
party separated. George Howe and Leander Towle remained in London
until the sailing of the next steamer for America; and Master Lewis
and the boys under his own care took a steamer for Antwerp.