To read the speeches and decrees of the Queen, studded as they are with the phrase "_it is our royal pleasure_;" to hear her royal assent given to bills passed by both Houses of Parliament under the formula of _La reyne le veult_, you would believe yourself in the Middle Ages, or at least in the seventeenth century, under a despotic, absolute monarchy. All these vestiges of old royal prerogatives are carefully preserved in England, but they are merely empty forms: the will of the Queen is not more terrible than the Tower of London, from which you can now emerge as easily as you enter, and more easily too, for you must pay sixpence to go in, and you can come out for nothing at all. If a photograph could sign documents, the Queen's would replace her quite well. "Gouvernement facile et beau, A qui suffit, pour toute garde, Un Suisse, avec sa hallebarde, Peint sur la porte du château." The royal speeches and decrees are ratified and signed by the Queen, and no doubt she previously reads them or has them read to her, but not one phrase is hers, and if you would form an exact idea of her as a woman, it is not her speeches and decrees that will help you. In the second volume of the Queen's "Life in the Highlands," published this year, you will look in vain for the slightest allusion to politics; it is the journal of a country gentleman's wife, who takes but small interest in anything outside the family circle. It is the diary of a queen that gives her people but one subject of complaint, which is that they do not see enough of her. Happy queen! happy nation! With the exception of _table d'hôte_ colonels' widows, and Polish counts, who, in England as in every other country trodden of man, know all the secrets of all the royal families in the world, and will tell you with a mysterious look: "Oh! the Princess of _So-and-So_? I know on excellent authority that she had to be married in all haste." Or: "You know that little baby the Countess of ... had the other day? Dear child! it will never know what it owes to His Royal Highness;" with the exception, as I say, of these worthies, you will never hear anyone in England tell you shady stories about one of the ladies of this court, so pure and strict on the subject of conduct, that it is said the Queen will not suffer a woman separated from her husband to be presented to her, even were she a marchioness or a duchess. It is by setting the example of a pure life; by allowing her people to govern themselves as they think fit; by sympathising in the joys and sorrows of her humblest subjects; by creating bonds of affection between the cottage and the throne, that this Queen, this model mother, has inspired in her subjects a love that is akin to worship. * * * * *