uddenness, fulness, and harmony. Indeed,
the suddenness of the cry was surprising--till we remembered that what was
then said had lain unexpressed in the minds of the whole community for
years, with annual increment; and that when popular feeling gathers in
that way, it is generally relieved at last by something of the nature of
an explosion." He then goes on to speak of "republicanism of a very
revolutionary form flooding in," and says that such a complexion of
affairs could be viewed with pleasure by no friend of the monarchy.(277)
The details of this movement are no longer of much interest, and they only
concern us here because they gave Mr. Gladstone real anxiety. For him it
was one of the special duties of a prime minister, as distinguished from
his cabinet, to watch and guard relations between the crown and the
country. Whether in office or in opposition, he lost no opportunity of
standing forth between the throne and even a faint shadow of popular or
parliamentary discontent. He had done it in the case of Prince
Albert,(278) and he did it now. When the end came after nearly thirty
years from our present date, the Queen wrote: "I shall ever gratefully
remember his devotion and zeal in all that concerned my personal welfare
and that of my family." In 1871 his zeal went beyond the Queen's personal
welfare, and his solicitude for the institution represented by the Queen
undoubtedly took a form of deferential exhortation--an exhortation that she
should return to a fuller discharge of public duty, which the Queen found
irksome. The Queen was as fond of Balmoral as Mr. Gladstone was fond of
Hawarden. The contrast between the formality of Windsor and the atmosphere
of simple attachment and social affection that surrounded her in Scotland,
was as delightful to her as the air and the scenery. A royal progress
through applauding multitudes in great cities made her ill. Hence, when
Mr. Gladstone pressed her to defer a northern journey, or to open
parliament, or to open a bridge, or otherwise emerge from seclusion, the
Queen, though well aware that he had not, and could not, have any motive
save her own and the public interest, undoubtedly felt that her energetic
minister was attempting to overwork her. This feeling, as most of us know,
breeds resistance, and even in time resentment. To say, however, that "in
his eagerness Mr. Gladstone pressed her to do what she knew to be not her
work so much as his," is misleading and a littl