industriously inculcated into the public mind, of
advantages to be derived from change and confusion; Lord Melbourne
anxiously hopes that the painful impressions which such events
are calculated to produce upon your Majesty's mind, and which they
necessarily must produce, will pass away and that nothing will happen
to renew and revive them.

Lord Melbourne is happy to hear from Normanby that everything passed
off well and successfully at Windsor and at Ascot. The last is always
rather a doubtful and disagreeable ordeal to pass through.

We should have got through the debate upon the Income Tax this evening
in the House of Lords, if Lansdowne had not unfortunately this morning
had an access of gout in the hand, which prevented him from attending,
and obliged the debate to be deferred. Lord Melbourne hopes that the
resolution which Lansdowne is to move[38] is put in such a shape as to
vindicate our course, and at the same time not to condemn that which
has been adopted overmuch, nor to pledge us for the future....

Lord Melbourne earnestly hopes that your Majesty is well and not too
much affected by the heat of this weather, which does not suit Lord
Melbourne very well. In conjunction with a large dinner which we had
at the Reform Club in honour of the Duke of Sussex, it has given Lord
Melbourne a good deal of headache and indisposition. The Duke was in
very good humour, and much pleased with the dinner, but he was by no
means well or strong.

[Footnote 38: This Resolution was in favour of altering the
Corn, Sugar, and Timber Duties, in preference to imposing an
Income Tax. It was negatived by 112 to 52.]

[Pageheading: QUEEN'S FIRST RAILWAY JOURNEY]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _14th June 1842._

MY DEAREST UNCLE,--Though I shall have the inexpressible happiness
of seeing you and dearest Louise so soon, I write these few lines
to thank you for your very kind letter of the 9th. We arrived here
yesterday morning, having come by the railroad, from Windsor, in half
an hour, free from dust and crowd and heat, and I am quite charmed
with it.[39] We spent a delightful time at Windsor, which would have
been still pleasanter had not the heat been such, ever since Saturday
week, that one is quite overcome; the grass is quite brown, and the
earth full of wide cracks; there has not been a drop of rain since the
24th, my birthday! We rode and walked and danced, and I