KINO EDWARD VII.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 871, 18 July 1910, Page 7

KINO EDWARD VII.

LORD ROSEBERY'S TRIBUTE. An impression of King Edward's character as it affected his own subjects and those with \vliom his late Majesty came in contact was given by Lord Rosebery when presiding over a meeting of. t'hp General Council of 'the Glasgow TMyersity,Yat which a loyal address to King , George was -voted. In the course of his address Lord Rosebery said:—"We may well ask ourselves how in so short a reign our late King succeeded in winning so universal an expression of sympathy and of bereavement 1 cannot help believing that it was due to a winning personality, to a genuine and devoted patriotism, and to the resolve that wherever he went he would make friends for his country, and try .to make others friends with each other. It is strange and wonderful that he should have been able to fill our great Queen Victoria's place. "If seemed impossible for the King to shine after her, and yet lie did succeed in leaving behind him a reign, short, bilt not less brilliant than the one which had preceded. How was that effected ? I think one reason for it was that it was so wholly different. ' Had his reign'taken the same shape as that of hia mother it migjit never have got out of the shadow left by 'her. But though it was entirely different, it was not less beneficial. The Queen, owing to her sex and to her bereavement, had lived a long period in seclusion. , . But the late King led a widely different life. He went everywhere, he saw everybody, he did everything. "We are apt, too, to forget the unequalled experience- of our late King. Princes begin life young, and so he was enabled to have converse in his youth with people like King Louis Philips and the great Duko of Wellington., ami onward to the moment of his death seeing everybody who was . worth eoeing, not merely in Great Britain, but in Europe. That experience, mellowing a rich nature, produced an nnrivalled sagacity, and experience. Even that experience would not have developed a poorer or more barren character, but it fell on fruitful soil, and it warmed what was naturally a. winning, a kindly, and a genial nature. I think if tfoe French had had him as their King they would have named him Le Rpi Charmeur—the King who charmed everybody. lam not sure that they may not have named him so already.. ~ "L hav ,° seen ver .V little said about the Jimg e personal tastes. They were eminently simple. They were the tastes of a King of England and a King of bootland. Out- of doors ho loved the VI} 3 t,f° fiokl > and a! 1 tlle s P ort s or the held, I take it; but his special passion, so far as I know, was in planting aiid in gardening, and it was in his innocent pleasures, in the diversions to which ho was addicted, that he came in contact with every form of humanity, and made everybody feel that they had a friend on tho throne. Well,, that is what it is to be human, that is the human touch, that is what has attracted humanity in our lato King, and that is what makes humanity moiirn for him. I wish to say orio word more of a more general land. This, universal sympathy for this King who was so warmly and deeply in touch with his poople—does it not mark tho transition through which our ancient 'monarchy has been and is,passing? It began as an absoluto monarchy, at the time 'of tho Norman Conquest—l will not g0 farther back—the rule of the mailed tyrant with tho mailed fist. Then it became a limited monarchy, and now it has become n constitutional and a nomi lar monarchy, till at last wo have come to regard • our nation as one great family, of whom the father and the King sits upon the throne." (Loud cheers.)