REVIEW.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 37, 12 February 1877, Page 2

REVIEW.

I The Life of H.R.H. the Prince Consort, by Theodore Martin. Vol.ll. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. . [Second Notice.] The extract with which we concluded our first notice 'shows what a prodigiously exaggerated estimate of his own powers and capacities the Prince must have entertained. He was not a vain man, nor a conceited man, nor a boasting man; but he was one of those men whose conv'ction of their own unerring wisdom is a religious faith which nothing can shake or diminish. When a man of this stamp thinks it his mission to take a leading part in amending or reforming all that he thinks requires amendment or reform, aud moreover happens to be placed ih a high position, it is easy to see how, with the best intentions in the world, he may make himself amazingly unpopular. Many of the Prince's ideas and schemes were very good, in many things he was in advance of public opinion, and if he had taken to any one thing and made it his hobby and stuck to it he would have been looked upon with that compassionate indulgence with which the English always regard a man with a hobby, he would probably bave been voted a bore, and in his position he would certainly at last have carried his point. But when a man talks and acts as if he were a Senatus Academicus and a Cabinet Council in one person, when he instructs a veteran statesman like Lord Derby about politics, and the Master of the Ordnance about shrapnel shells, and Garter King-at-Arms about the arrangements for a public funeral, he becomes' something more than a bore. The worst of it was that there was no possibility of. snubbing him, or getting rid of him, or telling him to mind his own business. His position as the Queen's husband was so high that all the measures by which society in general protects itself against a universal genius became unavailing. He had been brought up in a petty German Court where etiquette is most vigorous. This etiquette protected him in England, and he insisted on it to the very uttermost. * Tho Queen and Prince had few intimates, and outside their own family no friends except Baron Stockmar. Amongst themselves, as is evident from Mr Martin's book.there was a certain select circle, which formed a sort of Mutual Admiration Society, every one of them praising every one else with the most fulsome flattery. The consequence was that until public opinion was thoroughly roused and expressed itself in an unmistakable way, the Prince had no means of knowing how far he was opposing or disregarding the national sentiment.

His own position in Society, until her Majesty gave him the title of Prinoe Consort, was a very peculiar one, and .brought him into collision; with the other .members of the Royal family, and especially with " The Cambridges," as they are called in the first volume, tbat is, the old Duke of Cambridge (who it will be remembered was a son of George IH.), his son, the present Duke, the Princess Mary, and her sister, -the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg Strelite. These, of course, all ranked above him; Prince Albert waa ouly the second son of a small German Duke—a Serene Highness—they were the children or grandchildren of a King of England. But for the Queen's use of her prerogative, Prince Albert would have bad a rank far below tbat of his own chilreo. This awkward state of affairs gave .rise to unpleasantnesses which even now are believed to rankle. Tantane animtß ceelesiibus ira? But so it was. There was jealousy in high places on account of the personal popularity achieved by the Princess Mary, now Duchess of Teck, whose gracious win- . ning smile are well known to all Londoner. The present Duke of Cambridge was always popular, like his father, although he has a rather short temper, and expresses himself in a somewhat more forcible manner than the customs of the present day sanction. We have seen the Queen look very angry when, in consequence of the popular feeling being adverse to tbe Prince Consort, her carriage was greeted with few or no cheers, while for the Princess Mary or Prince George there was always a round of hearty cheers.

Probably it was not possible for aoy man to resist the flattery to which the Prince was exposed. In the first place the Queen' worshipped him, with a blind and absolute idolatry, which not only can ccc no fault in its object, but aces every virtue and every good quality which can adorn humanity, added to mental powers which seemed to the wife boundless. Then there waa Baron Stockmar, who occasionally differed. from the Prince only to make Ihe flattery more subtle and penetrating. Then the courtiers and the Ministers who came in contact with the Prince, who were never weary of singing hia praises. As a set-off against this chorus, there was the English Press, which pretty faithfully represented English public feeling, nnd maintained a position whioh was never mora favorable to the Prince than sulky neutrality, often diverted to cantankerous opposition. Tbe root of this illfeeling was the firm conviction amongst all classes of society, that the Prince was using his position as the Queen's husband, to control our politics, more especially those relating to foreign affairs. And the English people were perfectly right, as every chapter of Mr Martin's Memoirs shows convincingly. The Prince completely mistook and misunderstood both his own position as the Queen's husband, and ber Majesty's position as Queen of Great Britain. It is amu-iog to see how be and Baron Stockmar, two men brought up at petty German despotic Courts, talk learnedly about the position and the duties of a constitutional monarch. As if they could know anything' about Constitutional Government, or as if they or any other foreigners could understand the mechanism or the working of our Constitution ! Like their famous fellowcountryman with the camel, they evolved the idea of a constitutional monarch from the depths of their own consciousness. The Prince thought that ihe Queen had certain rights and duties witb regard to legislation , and that he as ber Private Secretary and Permanent . Minister had a right to discuss matters with the Cabinet Ministers, suggest alterations, and even propose plans in their various departments. This interference, he carried, as is shown in the Memoirs, to a moet outrageous extent. Lord Palmerston would not stand it, so there were two or three rows. At last Lord Palmerston had to resign, in consequence partly of the high-banded style in which he behaved to the Prince, and partly because his foreign policy was not approved of by Earl Russell, the then Prime Minister. The whole account of the rupture is given in -tbis volume, and is very interesting to thoee who remember the events of that day. Lord Russell read to tbe House the memorandum written iv the Queen's name, but evidently the composition .of the Prince, in ■ which her Majesty requires that alt despatches from abroad shall be communicated to her, and that all important despatches from the Foreign Office shall be submitted before they are sent off, and hot altered after ber Majesty's pleasure had been taken on tbem.

Nothing could be more fair or right, and if tbe monarch bad been a king, or even a queen like Elizabeth, there would not have been so much ac a murmur of objection. But as it was, people felt and knew that it was not to the Queen the despatches were to be submitted, and it was not by her Majesty that suggestions would be mv.de to change or modify the national policy. It was to a Prince who was born and educated a foreigner, and a foreigner of a nation that nas particularly disliked by tbe English people, who bad been ruled by tbem for upwards of a century. Tbe people felt that after having escaped Hanoverian entanglement in European politics hy tbe transmission of tbe crown of Hanover to the heir male 61 William the 4th they bad aright to expect that no

considerations except the honor, the glory, and the interests of England should govern or influence in any way her foreign policy. Of this they could not feel sure so long as that policy was liable to be affected by the dynastic and personal partialities from which a German Prince could never be wholly free.

As regards domestic questions, the Prince's efforts to lead public opinion were lamentable failures. It is all but certain that if the Department of Science and Art, which will be associated for ever with the Kensington Buildings, had not been known to be the' Prince's own offspring, it would never have met with the opposition which it had to encounter. It has already been of use in diffusing a tasie for art, and a knowledge of its elements amongst large numbers of the working classes, but it has never yet produced from all its schools one single artist who has made a name io tbe world, or shown a scintilla of original genius. Tbe fact is the Anglo-Saxon is not an artistic animal, and no amount of teaching or training will make him one. We can make engines and machines and we can work harder and steadier than any other race in the world, and we can fight passably well, but we oannot paint, we cannot oompose music, we cannot sing, we cannot produce sculpture, to be compared with the sculptura of modern Italy— much less of ancient Greece. How can any one develop a genius for sculpture in a country where he has to blow his fingers every five minutes to keep them from beiog benumbed with cold?

.That Prince Albert not only mistook his own position with respect to the Queen, but her Majesty's position as Queen of England, we have already stated. To enter into the argument on this point fully would occupy far more apace than we can devote to the question. Prince* Albert was, no doubt, misled by reading of the immense influence wielded by George 111 and George IV in opposing Catholic Emancipation, and the long delay which there is no doubt they personally caused in the passing of that measure. The Prince forgot tbe revolution which had been effected— -non sine pulvere— in the representation of the people by the first Reform Bill.

It has been said that the Russian form of Government is a despotism tempered by assassination; it may be truly said that the English form of Government from tbe death of William 111 to the accession of William IV was an oligarchy tempered by mobs. The great families and their eatelites ruled the country. One has only to read the copious correspondence of Horace Walpole and bis friends, of the Grenvills, and others preserved in the Duke of Buckingham's JVlemoirs of the* Court of the Georges, to ace tbat the will or 'tbe welfare of the people was never so much as alluded to by the governing families in their arrangements, and that their one sole object during all that dreary period waa to get places, pensions, peerages, and ribbone. The only exception was when a row or a riot took plaoe, and then they thought of the mob, as they contemptuously termed the great bulk of the population. When one reads these memoirs one wonders how the Engliah people could have been so patient.

By the first Reform Bill power was ; transferred from the oligarchy of the peerage to that of the miJdle class. The House of Commons did not represent the Engliah people, but it represented a section of them so wealthy, so powerful, and so clamorous, that it made its voice heard, and its will known, and obeyed too, by both King and Lords. The commons beoame almost omnipotent, and the other estates of the realm ihad little to do besides registering their decrees, and delaying some of their minor measures. The position of the monarch was totally changed. Under the old system when popular opinion had no recognised outlet except a riot, and iwaß very alow in ita formation, the King having to do with Ministers who only represented themselves, could generally, if he wished to oppose a ministerial measure, allege a certain amount of popular opinion or feeling on his side of the question. He might even be the popular representative of the ignorant and bigoted mass of the nation in opposition to the enlightened few. Such was George 111 when he refused to sanction Pitt's, plan for endowing the Irish Roman Catholic Priesthood and granting relief to the Catholics. If Pitt's plan had been adopted we should have saved three quarters ot a century of Irish discontent, and escaped the opprobrium of preaching freedom abroad and practising despotism at home. George the Third, by his personal influence and opposition, prevented the measure from being carried, although it was proposed by the most powerful and able Minister any English King ever had. But then George 111 was a King and not a Queen, and had at his back all the ignorance, tbe bigotry, and the prejudices of the uneducated mass of the people, together with the support of the Church of England and the disputing bodies.

Since the passing of the first Eeform Bill no English monarch could allege that the measures proposed by a Minister were in opposition to the opinions or even the prejudices of the great mass of the people, for these would certainly be expressed in the House of Commons and lead to the downfall of the Minister. There is therefore no excuse for the monarch interfering with legislation or with the measures of the Ministry. They are responsible and not tha Queen, and the Prince- might have saved himself the enormous labor he

undertook, and added much to his popularity and usefulness in other ways, if he had learnt the great lesson taught as the earliest lisping of a young Government official—" How not to do it." If he had heen less consc ; entious or better informed, if he had been a worse man or a much more clever one, he would never. have fallen into the lifelong errors which are apparent on every page of this biography. Had 'he been an idle or a dissipated man, fond of pleasure and hating work, he would never have attempted to guide the course of public business or to mix himself up with so many schemes for the improvement of the people. Had he entertained a truer and more modest opinion of his own abilities, he would bave shrunk from the task as one utterly beyond his powers. Had he been a man of really large intellect he would have had a deeper insight into those great social problems of which, as it was, he only took a superficial view, and have known that he— le mari de sa femme, was not the man to deal with them.

His life waa a laborious mistake, but he was a good man, a thoroughly conscientious man, who never spared himself. An excellent husband, faultless in all his domestic relations, he tho-r.-uglily deserved' all the devoted lova with which he inspired his wife. No one can read these memoirs without acknowledging these facts, but although we who have to deal with him only in his public capacity cannot share her Majesty's love or admiration, we rise from their perusal with the feeling that his very faults leaned to the side of virtue, and that morally he was as faultless as a man could be. Of the Queen herself, as she is unconsciously depicted in tha pages of Mr Martin, every Englishman must be proud. Nothing can surpass her tenderness, devotion, and love for her husband and her children, and as a wife, a mother, and a Queen, she shows herself in every way worthy of the most devoted and affectionate respect and loyalty of her subjects.

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