esive stamp, a
profile of the Queen is the principal ornament. The letter paper stamp
is being engraved by Mr. Wyon, R.A., medallist to the Mint. Charles
Heath is engraving the drawing taken from Wyon's City medal, by H.
Corbould, intended for the adhesive stamp. W. Mulready, R.A., has
furnished the design for the cover and envelope, which is in the hands of
John Thompson for engraving."

And, now, until the Queen was married, all the talk was of that event.
First of all Prince Albert must be made a naturalised Englishman, and a
bill to that effect was read for the third time in the House of Lords on
21 Jan., in the Commons on the 22nd, and received the Royal Assent on the
24th. {119a} On the 23rd he was invested with the Order of the Garter at
Gotha. The second reading of the Act for his naturalization was heard in
the House of Lords on the 27th, but owing to some dispute as to the
question of his precedence, it was adjourned until the 31st, when it was
read, and on 3 Feb. it was read a third time, and it received the Royal
Assent on 7 Feb. But there was another thing yet to be done, which was
to supply His Serene Highness with Funds, and on Jan. 22 Lord John
Russell proposed the sum of 50,000 pounds per annum. The discussion
thereon was adjourned until the 24th, and re-adjourned until the 27th,
when Mr. Hume moved a reduction to 21,000 pounds, which was lost by a
majority of 267. Col. Sibthorp then proposed a sum of 30,000 pounds,
which was agreed to, and the Act received the Royal Assent on 7 Feb.

The feeling of the country on the subject of the Royal Marriage is, to my
thinking, very fairly summarised in a leading article in the _Times_ of
10 Feb., portions of which I transcribe: "It has followed from this
policy, {119b} that an English monarch should, _coeteris paribus_, rather
avoid than court an alliance with one of the first-rate powers of Europe,
but should prefer security to aggrandizement, satisfied with a consort
selected from a less prominent, and, therefore, less exposed, position.
If there be safety, therefore, in comparative weakness and
insignificance, we know not that, on such a ground, any other princely
house throughout Europe, could offer inducements preferable to those
possessed by those of Saxe-Coburg. Objections against this individual
member of the family might, perhaps, present themselves to reflecting
minds, on the score of his close consanguinity to Queen Victoria, a
circumstance n