mes from a good natural disposition, the sympathetic
influence of a genial manner, and the grace which is given by a training
from childhood in the highest station, and we can understand how the
speeches even of the earliest years were heard with pleasure and
approval. Some of the speeches are very brief, but are always to the
point, and present the gist of the subject in hand. It was Earl
Granville who once said, in proposing his health, that, "if the speeches
of His Royal Highness were usually short, they were always, to use a
homely expression, as full of meat as an egg." Even where there has been
no formal speech, we are interested in knowing what the Prince has done
as well as what he has said; and therefore some important occasions are
included when no speech was made.

It is the variety of subjects that will strike most readers. Let it be
noted, moreover, that the speeches now reproduced are only those
addressed to meetings where reporters for the press were present. There
have been innumerable meetings besides,--meetings of Commissions, of
Boards, of Councils, of Committees, at none of which has the Prince ever
been an inactive or silent member, but rather the guiding and moving
spirit. If the voluntary offices of His Royal Highness were printed at
length, they would far outnumber those mere honorary titles with which
the College of Arms concerns itself; and are such as imply thought and
work, in many useful and beneficent ways.

Long may His Royal Highness have the health and the will for such
offices and duties. If his future career is equal to the hopes and
promise of his early life, and the performances of the last twenty-five
years, he will leave a name illustrious and memorable in the history of
the British Empire.

* * * * *

[***symbol] _The frontispiece portrait, under which the Prince of
Wales has been pleased to put his autograph, is etched by W. Strang,
from a recent photograph by Van der Weyde._

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE
THE EARLY YEARS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES 1

AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY BANQUET OF 1863 11
FREEDOM OF THE CITY OF LONDON 12
BRITISH ORPHAN ASYLUM 14
AT MERCERS' HALL 16
THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND DINNER