WHAT ENGLAND OWES TO PRINCE ALBERT.
The Prince's Study of our Laws and Constitution--Two Misconceptions
Outlived--His Versatility--First Speech an Anti-Slavery One--His
Appreciation and Judicious Criticism of Art--Scientific Side of his
Mind--As an Agriculturist.
It will not be undesirable at this stage of our narrative to interpose a
summary compendium of some indications of the manner in which Prince
Albert, or the "Prince Consort," as he was designated by Royal Letters
Patent, after 1857, discharged the high, onerous, and important duties to
which his position called him. If the conduct and career of a husband be
an integral and large part of a woman's life, it is tenfold more so in the
case of a woman who is also a queen, and especially a queen-regnant in and
by her own right. The large and enlarging breadth of mind which the Prince
soon began to display; the abundant tenderness of heart, which found at
once indication and exercise in the admirable and diverse modes in which
he advanced all agencies of public utility and associated benevolence; the
excellent mode in which, equally as a father and a husband, he evinced the
warm glow of domestic virtue which animated his bosom, and the absolute
and much-wanted scientific and artistic lessons which he taught more than
any other man, during his life in England, to the somewhat uncouth people
of whom he became a part--all these, and other elements of character and
conduct, indirectly increased the growing esteem in which the Queen was
held, on her own merits, by her people; for we might have had to look
forward to a different national future, so far as a national future can be
moulded in the sense of either making or marring, had the "father of our
future kings" been other and lesser than what he was. Such a man as the
Prince Consort must necessarily have wielded a very large and weighty
influence upon the character of the royal lady whom he married. The
history of her life, therefore, even if it were traced within narrower
limits than those within whose compression our task must be discharged,
would be insufficiently delineated without the introduction of such
episodical but most relevant matter as that to which this chapter is
briefly dedicated.
Almost the first task which the Prince Consort undertook when he came
amongst us was to set himself to an assiduous study of our laws and
institutions. He secured the services of a most competent instructor in
themes so important to one who stood so near the throne, in the person of
the late Mr. William Selwyn, Q.C. Mr. Selwyn was a sound jurist, and under
his guidance the Prince read such works as Blackstone, De Lolme, Hallam,
Bentham, and Mill. He proved himself an apt student, for he had the
capacity for study eminently developed; and, besides, his position was one
of singular difficulty and delicacy. He stood so near to the throne,
amongst a people, too, traditionally jealous of aliens, and especially of
aliens in high places, that any utterance he might be called upon to make
would be considered as almost, if not quite, emanating from the throne
itself. Although a certain cabinet intrigue, and one rare expression of
his own--not so much unguarded in itself, as wanting in explicitness, and
capable of a certain misconstruction--did, on two several occasions,
provoke in certain quarters something approaching to national disfavour,
he soon outlived the misconception; and the universal sentiment of the
people came round to the conviction that the Prince was faithful and loyal
to the constitution to which he had sworn fidelity; nay more, that he had
fairly caught, apprehended, and absorbed into his being the very genius
and spirit of the English race.
[Sidenote: PRINCE ALBERT S FIRST SPEECH.]
The first speech the Prince made in England was at an anti-slavery
meeting; the last at the opening of an international statistical congress.
The former was delivered during the first summer of his married life. It
is so brief, and it gives, as it were, so thoroughly the key-note of his
character, that our readers will thank us for giving it entire:--
I have been induced to preside at the meeting of this society from a
conviction of its paramount importance to the great interests of
humanity and justice. I deeply regret that the benevolent and
persevering exertions of England to abolish that atrocious traffic in
human beings (at once the desolation of Africa and the blackest stain
upon civilised Europe) have not as yet led to any satisfactory
conclusion. But I sincerely trust that this great country will not
relax in its efforts until it has finally, and for ever, put an end to
a state of things so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity and the
best feelings of our nature. Let us, therefore, trust that Providence
will prosper our exertions in so holy a cause, and that (under the
auspices of our Queen and her Government) we may, at no distant
period, be rewarded by the accomplishment of the great and humane
object for the promotion of which we have this day met.
We have already remarked the wide range of Prince Albert's endeavours,
study, devotion, and consequent usefulness. He presided at dinners of the
Literary Fund, and of the Royal Academy; at the Trinity House most
frequently, and at many agricultural meetings. Two of the best and most
pregnant with good of his addresses, were delivered at the meetings of
associations designed respectively for the better housing of labourers,
and in behalf of the large and sorely tempted class of domestic servants.
Now he presided at the Bicentenary of the Corporation of the Sons of the
Clergy; again at the two hundredth anniversary of one of our most
illustrious regiments of Foot Guards. On art, as all were prepared to
expect, he delivered ripe words of wisdom at the Royal Academy in
Trafalgar Square, and in laying the foundation in the capital of his
wife's Stuart ancestors of a new National Gallery for her Scottish
subjects. Against the expectation, and to the loudly expressed surprise of
all, save those who knew him thoroughly, he made a most admirable survey
of the sciences and their uses, at one of the last meetings held ere his
death, of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Of art
he was a judicious critic, as well as a munificent patron. It was at his
special wish and option that the _savant_ Lyon Playfair was made one of
his Equerries; and that a residence in Hampton Court Palace was put at the
disposal of Michael Faraday.
How much of mingled love for art and artists, and at the same time of
criticism most kindly and sagacious, is to be found in these brief
sentences, extracted from his great speech at the Royal Academy dinner:--
An unkind word of criticism passes like a cold blast over their tender
shoots, and shrivels them up, checking the flow of the sap, which was
rising to produce, perhaps, multitudes of flowers and fruits. But
still criticism is absolutely necessary to the development of art,
and the injudicious praise of an inferior work becomes an insult to
superior genius. In this respect, our times are peculiarly favourable
when compared with those when Madonnas were painted in the seclusion
of convents; for we have now on the one hand the eager competition of
a vast array of artists of every degree of talent and skill, and on
the other, as judge, a great public, for the greater part wholly
uneducated in art, and thus led by professional writers who often
strive to impress the public with a great idea of their own artistic
knowledge, by the merciless manner in which they treat works which
cost those who produced them the highest efforts of mind or feeling.
And again, as a companion and worthy picture--which is none the less, but
all the more, worthy of hanging along with that we have just presented,
that the great truth it teaches is presented with such lucid
simplicity--take these sentences explanatory of the scope and end of such
institutions as the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
delivered by him as its President, at the 1859 Congress at Aberdeen:--
[Sidenote: THE PRINCE'S EULOGY ON HUMBOLDT.]
If the activity of this Association ever found, or could find its
personification in one individual--its incarnation as it were--this
had been found in that distinguished and revered philosopher who has
been removed from amongst us in his ninetieth year, within the last
few months. Alexander Von Humboldt ever strove after dominion over
that universality of human knowledge which stands in need of
thoughtful government and direction to preserve its integrity. He
strove to tie up the fasces of scientific knowledge, to give them
strength in unity. He treated all scientific men as members of one
family, enthusiastically directing, fostering, and encouraging
inquiry, where he saw either the want of or the willingness for it.
His protection of the young and ardent student led many to success in
their pursuits. His personal influence with the courts and governments
of most countries in Europe, enabled him to plead the cause of science
in a manner which made it more difficult to refuse than to grant what
he requested. All lovers of Science deeply mourn for the loss of such
a man. Gentlemen, it is a singular coincidence, that this very day on
which we are here assembled, and are thus giving expression to our
admiration of him, should be the anniversary of his birth.
The Queen, who was staying at Balmoral, was very anxious about the manner
in which her husband should pass the very severe ordeal of delivering an
address to the assembled men of science. She recorded her high
gratification at learning by telegram that "Albert's reception was
admirable, and that all was going off as well as possible. Thank God!" She
invited the _savans_, to a fete at her Highland home; they accepted the
invitation in great numbers; and "the philosophers," of whom Her Majesty
was not a little, and rather comically, afraid, were not only entertained
with creature comforts, but the somewhat novel combination was presented
of Owen, Brewster, Sabine, and Murchison, with their brethren of lesser
renown, standing as spectators of contests of strength between athletes of
the Grant, Farquharson, Duff, and other clans. Some of the more
distinguished guests remained over night, and at dinner they rejoiced the
Queen's heart by "speaking in very high terms of my beloved Albert's
speech, the good it had done, and the general satisfaction it had caused."
[Sidenote: THE PRINCE AS AN AGRICULTURIST.]
Probably the capacity of all others in which the Prince became most
generally familiar to the nation, was that of a practical, improving,
scientific agriculturist; and we use this word in its twofold sense, as
embracing the growing of crops and the rearing of live stock. Almost from
the outset of his career amongst us he commenced a series of scientific
agricultural experiments on the farms in Windsor Park. He renovated the
agriculture of the Park, as much as he confessedly did its landscape
gardening. He became a constant and most successful exhibitor of live
domestic edible animals at the great agricultural shows; his example in
this field having been followed since his death, to the great
gratification of the agricultural interest, both by his widow and his
eldest son; and, especially in the case of Her Majesty, with marked
success. As a high and eminent authority on the subject has admirably put
it--
His was no merely idle, passing patronage or casual aid, but it was
rather a pursuit he delighted in, and one he followed out with equal
energy and advantage. The most practical man could not go that
pleasant round from the Flemish farm to the Norfolk, and so back again
by the Home and the Dairy, without learning something wherever he
went.
We must deny ourselves the pleasure of aught but passing reference to the
admirable manner in which he discharged his academic duties as Chancellor
of the University of Cambridge, which post he held from 1845 till his
death, and about which we say enough when we remind or inform the reader
that it was such men as Professor Sedgwick, the Vice-chancellor, who spoke
of the exercise of his duties in this capacity in terms of the highest
honour and estimation. Similar were his services to such noble
institutions as Eton and Wellington Colleges, in both of which he offered
prizes expressly calculated to encourage the pursuit of those studies
which had been, or were most likely to be, ignored in their several cases.
Horticulture, art exhibitions, the National Portrait Gallery, the Society
of Arts, societies for improving the general condition and the housing of
the labouring classes, mechanics' institutions--each of these constitutes
a theme most pregnant and suggestive in connection with the Prince's name
and memory. But we can do no more than recite and dismiss the bald
catalogue of topics. Reserving for the appropriate chronological occasion
some brief remarks upon the character of the Prince as a private man, as
contrasted with his aspects of character as a citizen and public
benefactor, to which we have at present confined ourselves, we feel that
we cannot better conclude than by condensing his opinions delivered in an
address to the annual meeting of the Servants' Provident Benevolent
Society, in 1849, in which the whole plan and doctrine by which he
believed all really useful associated benevolence ought to be regulated
was summed up. His view was that no such organisation was founded upon a
right principle which did not require every man, by personal exertion, and
by his own choice, to work out his own happiness. Benevolence he held to
be not really such unless it stimulated providence, self-denial, and
perseverance. He used special words of warning against those so frequent
lotteries of uncertain and precarious advantages--"really a species of
gambling"--expensive convivial meetings, balloting for prizes, and
electioneering contests on a small scale. "Let them always bear in mind,"
he proceeded to say, "that their savings are capital, that capital will
only return a certain interest, and that any advantage offered beyond that
interest has to be purchased at a commensurate risk of the capital
itself."
Such is a view, but all too summary and inadequate, of some of the
obligations which the English, as his fellow-citizens, owed to that Prince
whose life was so intertwined with and influential on that of their
Sovereign.