Produced by Charlene Taylor, David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) QUEEN VICTORIA QUEEN VICTORIA AS I KNEW HER BY SIR THEODORE MARTIN K.C.B., K.C.V.O. For Private Circulation WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MCMI _All Rights reserved_ _Stifle the throbbing of this haunting pain, And dash this tearful sorrow from the eyes! She is not dead! Though summoned to the skies, Still in our hearts she lives, and there will reign; Still the dear memory will the power retain To teach us where our foremost duty lies, Truth, justice, honour, simple worth to prize, And what our best have been to be again._ _She hath gone hence, to meet the great, the good, The loved ones, yearn'd for through long toilsome years, To share with them the blest beatitude, Where care is not, nor strife, nor wasting fears, Nor cureless ills, nor wrongs to be withstood; Shall thought of this not dry our blinding tears?_ Published in the 'Nineteenth Century,' February 1901. QUEEN VICTORIA AS I KNEW HER. CHAPTER I. My personal introduction to Queen Victoria was due to the circumstance of my being chosen by Her Majesty to be the biographer of the Prince Consort. The obvious difficulties of that task, to which I looked forward with grave apprehension, could not have been successfully overcome but for the personal confidence early reposed in me by the Queen, which led not only to her placing unreservedly at my disposal the very complete collections made by the Prince Consort of confidential State and other papers connected with Her Majesty's reign, but also to the frank communication of such personal details as, while they illustrated the character of the Prince, threw the strongest light upon that of the Queen herself.