“I intend to create Bertie ‘Earl of Dublin,’ as a compliment to the town and country; he has no Irish title, though he is _born_ with several Scotch ones (belonging to the heirs to the Scotch throne, and which we have inherited from James VI. of Scotland and I. of England); and this was one of my father’s titles.” Accordingly the Prince of Wales was soon afterwards gazetted Earl of Dublin, but in the peerage of the United Kingdom, not, as had been done in the case of the Duke of Kent, in the peerage of Ireland. It is a curious fact that King Edward visited Ireland, and, as we have seen, Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland, and made an excellent impression upon the “Celtic fringe” before he was brought before the public notice of his future English subjects. He made his first official appearance in London on 30th October 1849. It had been arranged that Queen Victoria was to be present at the opening of the Coal Exchange, but she was not able to go as she was suffering from chicken-pox. Accordingly it was arranged that the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales should represent their Royal mother. “Puss and the boy,” as the Queen called them, went with their father in State from Westminster to the city in the Royal barge rowed by twenty-six watermen. All London turned out to meet the gallant little Prince and his pretty sister. Lady Lyttelton, in a letter to Mrs. Gladstone, gives a charming account of the event, and tells how the Prince Consort was careful to put the future King forward. Some city dignitary addressed the young Prince as “the pledge and promise of a long race of Kings,” and, says Lady Lyttelton, “poor Princey did not seem to guess at all what he meant.” In honour of the Royal children a great many quaint old city customs were revived, including a swan barge, and both the King and the Empress Frederick seem to have retained a very delightful recollection of their first sight of the City. [Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA, PRINCE ALBERT, AND THEIR CHILDREN _From the Painting by Winterhalter_] It must have been about this time that Miss Alcott, the author of _Little Women_, paid a visit to London, and sent home to her family the following description of the Prince:-- “A yellow-haired laddie, very like his mother. Fanny, W., and I nodded and waved as he passed, and he openly winked his boyish eye at us, for Fanny with her yellow curls and wild waving looked rather rowdy, and the poor little Prince wanted some fun.” Two years later the King was present at the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and in the following year Mr. Birch retired from his responsible post, greatly to the sorrow of his young pupil, who was a most affectionate and open-hearted little boy. In June 1852 Viscountess Canning wrote from Windsor Castle:--