ew King conveyed to the Lord Mayor of London, tidings of
the great Queen's death:--

"My beloved Mother passed peacefully away, at 6.30, _surrounded
by her children and grandchildren_."

In the midst of her children she lived; and all fittingly in the midst
of her children she died!

As her most signal virtues were of the domestic type, so also her
acutest sorrows were domestic. A father's strongly tender love, or
wisely-watchful care, she never knew. In one sad year there was taken
from her her long-widowed mother, and her almost idolized husband,
Albert the Good.

"Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Whose glory was redeeming human wrong;
Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it;
... thro' all the tract of years,
Wearing the white flower of a blameless life."

Concerning that great sorrow, the Queen was wont in homely phrase to
say that it made so large a hole in her heart, all other sorrows
dropped lightly through. Nevertheless of other sorrows too she was
called to bear no common share. As you are all well aware, two of the
daughters of our widowed Queen have themselves long been widows. Two
of her sons perished in their ripening prime. Her favourite daughter,
the Princess Alice, and her favourite grandson, the heir-presumptive
to her throne, drooped beside her like flowers untimely touched by
frost; and within the last few weeks we ourselves have seen yet
another of her grandsons laid beneath the sod in this very city of
Pretoria. Nor is it with absolutely unqualified regret we call to mind
that notably sad event. Like many another of lowlier name he died in
the service of his queen--and ours; and perchance the Queen herself
rebelled, not as against an utterly unfitting thing, when thus called
in her own person to share the griefs of those among her own people,
whom recent events have made so desolate.

Reverentially we may venture to say that in all afflictions she was
afflicted, and thus endeared herself to those she ruled as no other
monarch ever did. Because she was Queen of Sorrows she became also
Queen of Hearts.

That of which we have just spoken was indeed her last sore
bereavement; and now that to her who shed such countless tears there
has come the end of all grief, we have therewith witnessed the full
and final prevailings of her Laureate's familiar prayer:--

"May all love