l instance of the blended
prudence and tenderness that have marked the relations between our
Sovereign and her children. Aware what a power for good or evil the
characters of those children must have on the fortunes of very many
others, she and her husband sedulously surrounded them with every
happy and healthy influence, never forgetting the supreme need of due
employment for their energies. "Without a vocation," said the Prince
Consort, "man is incapable of complete development and real
happiness": his sons have all had their vocation.

It was the same period, marked by these domestic passages of mingled
joy and sorrow, that became memorable in another way, through the
various troublous incidents which gave an extraordinary impetus to
our national Volunteer movement, which were not remotely connected
with the War of Italian Independence, and for a short time overthrew
the popular Ministry of Lord Palmerston, who was replaced in office
by Lord Derby. The futile plot of Felice Orsini, an Italian exile and
patriot, against the life of Louis Napoleon, provoked great anger
among the Imperialists of France against England, the former asylum
of Orsini. A series of violent addresses from the French army,
denouncing Great Britain as a mere harbour of assassins, did but give
a more exaggerated form to the representations of French diplomacy,
urging the amendment of our law, which appeared incompetent to touch
murderous conspirators within our borders so long as their plots
regarded only foreign Powers. The tone of France was deemed insolent
and threatening; Lord Palmerston, who, in apparent deference to it,
introduced a rather inefficient measure against conspiracy to murder,
fell at once to the nadir of unpopularity, and soon had no choice but
to resign; and the Volunteer movement in England--which had been
begun in 1852, owing to the sinister changes that then took place in
the French Government--now at once assumed the much more important
character it has never since lost. The immense popularity of this
movement and its rapid spread formed a significant reply to the
insensate calls for vengeance on England which had risen from the
French army, and which seemed worthy of attention in view of the vast
increase now made in the naval strength of France, and of other
preparations indicating that the Emperor meditated a great military
enterprise. That enterprise proved to be the war with Austria which
did so much for Italy, and w