I hear that a distinguished American friend has expressed a fear that I shall "idealize Queen Victoria." I do not think I have done so. I leave that to her English biographers and eulogists. In my researches, I have come upon curious things, in the way of pompous panegyric, which would have made Minerva the Wise, feel foolish, and which Juno the Superb, would have pronounced "a little too strong, really." I have not, it is true, pointed out faults--I have not been near enough to "the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty" to become acquainted with them. I presume she has them--I hope she has. I think all writers who deny her human weaknesses, or betray surprise at any exhibition of ordinary human feeling, pay the Queen a very poor compliment. There is in England a good deal of exaggerated expression of loyalty. Such words as "gracious" and "condescending" are habits and forms of speech. Of the real sentiment of loyalty, I do not think there is an excess--at least not toward the Queen. When Her Majesty gives way to natural emotion over the death of a friend, or over a great public calamity, I do not believe she likes to have the fact made a circumstance of. For instance, when that dreadful tragedy occurred in the Victoria Hall, at Sunderland, when hundreds of children perished, by being trampled underfoot and suffocated, the Court intelligence, which seemed to deepen the sadness in many minds, was that "Her Majesty was observed to weep on reading the account." This item went the rounds, and called forth such expressions of sympathy that one would have supposed that it was the august _mater patriæ_ at Windsor, who had been bereaved, and not those poor distracted mothers at Sunderland. Why should the Queen not weep over such a "massacre of the innocents," like any other good, sympathetic, motherly woman? She has not wept away all her tears for herself. I remember at the time of the death of Lady Augusta Stanley, who had formerly been one of Her Majesty's Maids of Honor, much was said of the Queen's sympathy with the Dean. She attended the funeral, and afterwards, it is said, "led the widowed mourner into his desolate home." This act, so simple and sweet in a friend, was, I know, looked upon' by some as "condescension," in a sovereign; but how could one sorrowing human soul condescend to another--and that other Arthur Stanley? Sorrow is as great a leveler as death. Tears wash away all poor human distinctions.