“I can assure you I never passed a more quiet and truly satisfactory evening in London than the last, in the Queen’s house, in the midst of the excitement of the season. I think this is a circumstance for which one ought to be thankful; and it has much reminded me of hours that I have spent at Berlin and Sans Souci with the King and the Queen and the Prince William, and, I am thankful to add, with the Princess of Prussia, mother of the future King. It is a striking and consoling and instructive proof that what is called the world, the great world, is not necessarily worldly in itself, but only by that inward worldliness which, as rebellion against the spirit, creeps into the cottage as well as into the palace, and against which no outward form is any protection. Forms and rules may prevent the outbreak of wrong, but cannot regenerate right, and may quench the spirit and poison inward truth. The Queen gives hours daily to the labor of examining into the claims of the numberless petitions addressed to her, among other duties to which her time of privacy is devoted.” The Queen’s name and that of Prince Albert occur often in these memoirs, and a few of Bunsen’s remarks and observations may be of interest, though they contain little that can now be new to the readers of the “Life of the Prince Consort” and of the “Queen’s Journal.” First, a graphic description, from the hand of Baroness Bunsen, of the Queen opening Parliament in 1842:— “Last, the procession of the Queen’s entry, and herself, looking worthy and fit to be the converging point of so many rays of grandeur. It is self-evident that she is not tall; but were she ever so tall, she could not have more grace and dignity, a head better set, a throat more royally and classically arching; and one advantage there is in her not being taller, that when she casts a glance, it is of necessity upwards and not downwards, and thus the effect of the eyes is not thrown away,—the beam and effluence not lost. The composure with which she filled the throne, while awaiting the Commons, was a test of character,—no fidget and no apathy. Then her voice and enunciation could not be more perfect. In short, it could not be said that _she did well_, but she _was_ the Queen,—she was, and felt herself to be, the acknowledged chief among grand and national realities.” (Vol. II. p. 10.) The next is an account of the Queen at Windsor Castle on receiving the Princess of Prussia, in 1842:—