politics are ever conspicuous in the Princess Alice’s letters. When the Schleswig-Holstein question first began to threaten war, she wrote to the Queen, filling the first part of the letter with her speculations on the political situation, and then passing to her baby’s first tooth, “She makes such faces if one ventures to touch her little mouth;” and the Princess then goes on to mention some of her activities in trying to set the hospital at Darmstadt in good order, and to interest the burgomaster and town councillors in the work, and the provision she was making for the safety and well-being of poor women in childbirth. She was indeed a very political woman, and a very womanly politician. In 1870, when the Franco-German War broke out, the Queen’s sympathies, it is almost needless to say, went wholly with Germany; she had looked for the unification of Germany as steadily as old Stockmar and the Prince Consort, and the year 1871 saw this vision become an accomplished fact. King William of Prussia was proclaimed the German Emperor by the assembled German Princes in the banqueting hall of Versailles. In 1868, when Prince Alfred was absent in Australia, he was shot at and wounded by a Fenian named O’Farrell. When telegraphic news of this was received in cipher at the Colonial Office, it was at first impossible to make out whether the Prince had been killed or only wounded. Another telegram on the following day set the worst anxieties at rest, and further despatches brought word that the ball had been extracted, and that the Prince was doing well; but it can easily be understood what a shock the event must have been to the Queen. Prince Alfred, who had been created a peer under the title of Duke of Edinburgh, married in 1874 the Grand-Duchess Marie, only daughter of Emperor Alexander II of Russia. In 1893, on the death of the Prince Consort’s brother, Duke Ernest of Coburg, the Duke of Edinburgh succeeded him, and is now the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. When Prince Alfred’s engagement to the Grand-Duchess Marie was impending, but not yet settled, he joined his sister, Princess Alice, on a tour in Italy, the Empress of Russia and her daughter being at Sorrento. Visits were made to them by the English Prince and Princess; the latter of whom wrote to the Queen that the bride-elect had an attack of fever, and she added, “We remained at Rome a day longer on account of poor Alfred. He is very patient and hopeful.” This was in April, 1873. The betrothal took place in July of the same year, and the marriage in January, 1874, at St. Petersburg. This was the only one of the marriages of the Queen’s children at which she was unable to be present. All the others have married from their mother’s house. Dean Stanley attended the Duke of Edinburgh’s marriage, and performed the English part of the service, by the Queen’s express command.