Her Majesty's likeness to the obstinate but conscientious old king, whose honest face is fast fading quite away from old English half-crowns and golden guineas, has grown with her years. The same writer, speaking of her personal appearance, says: "She is low of stature, but well formed; her hair the darkest shade of flaxen, and her eyes large and light-blue." A friend who saw her frequently at the time of her accession, said to me the other day: "It is a great mistake to suppose that the Queen owed all the charming portraits which were drawn of her at this time, to the fortunate accident of her birth and destiny. She was really a very lovely girl, with a fine, delicate, rose- bloom complexion, large blue eyes, a fair, broad brow, and an expression of peculiar candor and innocence." A few days later there was a sensation in Buckingham Palace, at the setting up in the Throne-room of a very magnificent new piece of furniture--a throne of the latest English fashion, but gorgeous enough to have served for the Queen of Sheba, Zenobia, Cleopatra, or Semiramis. It was all crimson velvet and silk, with any amount of gold embroideries, gold lace, gold fringe, ropes, and tassels. The gay young Queen tried it, and said it would do; that she had never sat on a more comfortable throne in all her life. Two stories of the young Queen have touched me especially--one was related by the Duke of Wellington. A court-martial death sentence was presented by him to her, to be signed. She shrank from the dreadful task, and with tears in her eyes, asked: "Have you nothing to say in behalf of this man?" "Nothing; he has deserted three times," replied the Iron Duke. "O, your Grace, think again!" "Well, your Majesty, he certainly is a bad soldier, but there was somebody who spoke as to his good character. He may be a good fellow in civil life." "O, thank you!" exclaimed the Queen, as she dashed off the word, "Pardoned," on the awful parchment, and wrote beneath it her beautiful signature. This was not her last act of the kind, and at length Parliament so arranged matters that this fatal signing business could be done by royal commission, ostensibly to "relieve Her Majesty of a painful duty," but really because they could not trust her soft heart. She might have sudden caprices of commiseration which would interfere with stern military discipline, and the honest trade of Mr. Marwood.