On the 21st of June the Queen and the Prince, with the Lords of the Admiralty, inspected the fleet off Spithead. The royal yacht was attended by a crowd of yachts belonging to the various squadrons, a throng of steamboats and countless small boats. The Queen visited and went over the flagship--which was the _St. Vincent_--the _Trafalgar_, and the _Albion_. On her return to the yacht she held a levee of all the captains of the fleet. A few days afterwards she reviewed her fleet in brilliant, breezy weather. The royal yacht took up its position at Spithead, and successive signals were given to the squadron to "Lower sail," "Make sail," "Shorten sail and reef," and "Furl topgallant sails," all the manoeuvres--including the getting under way and sailing in line to St. Helen's--being performed with the very perfection of nautical accuracy. The review ended with the order, "Furl sails, put the life-lines on, and man yards," which was done as only English sailors can accomplish the feat, while the royal yacht on its return passed through the squadron amidst ringing cheers. During the earlier part of the summer Sir John Franklin sailed with his ships, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, in search of that North Pole which, since the days of Sir Hugh Montgomery, "a captain tall," has been at once the goal and snare of many a gallant English sailor. The good ships disappeared under the horizon, never to reach their haven. By slow degrees oblivion, more or less profound, closed over the fate of officers and men, while, for lack of knowledge of their life or death, the light of many a hearth was darkened, and faithful hearts sickened with hope deferred and broke under the strain. As one instance, out of many, of the desolation which the silent loss of the gallant expedition occasioned, sorrow descended heavily on one of the happy Highland homes among which the Queen had dwelt the previous summer. Captain, afterwards Lord James, Murray, brother of Lord Glenlyon, was married to Miss Fairholme, sister of one of the picked men of whom the explorers were composed. When no tidings of him came, year after year, from the land of mist and darkness, pining melancholy seized upon her and made her its prey. In the month of July the King of the Netherlands, who, as Prince of Orange, had served on the Duke of Wellington's staff at the close of the Peninsular War, came to England and took up his quarters at Mivart's Hotel, the Queen being in the Isle of Wight, where he joined her. Prince Albert met the King at Gosport and escorted him to Osborne. On his return to London the King, who was already a general in the English army, received his appointment as field-marshal, and reviewed the Household troops in Hyde Park. He paid a second visit to the Queen at Osborne before he left Woolwich for Holland.