Some of our readers will remember that there was at one time a great panic in England about the unconstitutional influence of Prince Albert, and that, connected with Prince Albert's name in the invectives of a part of the press, was that of the intimate friend, constant guest, and trusted adviser of the Royal Family, Baron Stockmar. The suspicion was justified by the fact in both cases; but in the case of Baron Stockmar, as well as in that of Prince Albert, the influence appears to have been exercised on the whole for good. Lord Aberdeen, who spoke his mind with the sincerity and simplicity of a perfectly honest man, said of Stockmar; "I have known men as clever, as discreet, as good, and with as good judgment; but I never knew any one who united all these qualities as he did." Melbourne was jealous of his reputed influence, but testified to his sense and worth. Palmerston disliked, we may say hated, him; but he declared him the only disinterested man of the kind he had ever known. Stockmar was a man of good family, who originally pursued the profession of medicine, and having attracted the notice of Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, the husband of Princess Charlotte, and afterwards king of the Belgians, was appointed physician in ordinary to that Prince upon his marriage. When, in course of time, he exchanged the functions of physician in ordinary for those of wirepuller in ordinary, he found that the time passed in medical study had not been thrown away. He said himself, "It was a clever stroke to have originally studied medicine; without the knowledge thus acquired, without the psychological and physiological experiences thus obtained, my _savoir faire_ would often have gone a-begging." It seems also that he practised politics on medical principles, penetrating a political situation, or detecting a political disease, by the help of single expressions or acts, after the manner of medical diagnosis, and in his curative treatment endeavouring to remove as far as possible every pathological impediment, so that the healing moral nature might be set free, and social and human laws resume their restorative power. He might have graduated as a politician in a worse school.