"lisped in numbers, for the
numbers came," natural descriptions, ethical reflections, _vers de
societe_ and all, for around him here there was food for them all. To
descend from Pope in point of both time and romance, the view
includes the scenes of Prince Albert's agricultural experiments. Quite
successful many of them were. He was a thoroughly practical man--a
circumstance which carried him by several routes across ploughed
fields and through well-built streets, straight to the hearts of the
English people. His memory is more warmly cherished, and impressed
upon the stranger by more monuments, than that of any other of the
German strain. It might have been less so had he succeeded in the
efforts he is now known to have made soon after his marriage to attain
a higher nominal rank. He possessed, through the alliance of Leopold
and Stockmar and the devotion of Victoria, kingly power without the
name and the responsibility, and with that he became content. He used
it cautiously and well when he employed it at all. His position was a
trying one, but he steered well through its difficulties, and died
as generally trusted as he was at first universally watched. The
love-match of 1840 was every way a success.

[Illustration: EAST FRONT, WINDSOR CASTLE.]

Another figure, more rugged and less majestic, but not less
respectable, will be associated with Victoria in the memories, if not
the history proper, of her reign. This is John Brown, the canny and
impassive Scot, content, like the Rohans, to be neither prince nor
king, and, prouder than they, satisfied honestly to discharge the
office of a flunkey without the very smallest trace of the flunkey
spirit. He too has lived down envy and all uncharitableness.
Contemptuous and serene amid the hootings of the mob and the squibs
of the newspapers, he carries, as he has done for years, Her Majesty's
shawl and capacious India-rubbers, attends her tramps through the
Highlands and the Home Park, engineers her special trains and looks
after her personal comfort even to the extent of ordering her to
wear "mair claes" in a Scotch mist. The queen has embalmed him in
her books, and he will rank among the heroes of royal authors as his
namesake and countryman the Cameronian, by favor of very similar moral
qualities, does with those of more democratic proclivities.

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH'S BUILDING, WINDSOR.]

We cannot apply literally to the view from Windsor Thackeray's lines
o