The Prince does not mention a very pretty incident which I find recorded elsewhere. As the Queen's carriage reached the Park, it was received with enthusiastic cheers, smiles, and tears by crowds of people, equestrians and pedestrians, and the gay world on wheels; and as they neared the Marble Arch, the gentlemen and ladies on horseback followed them as with one impulse--all Rotton Row turned out, and escorted them to Buckingham Palace. It is said, too, that for several days this was repeated--that whenever the Queen and Prince drove out they were escorted by this singular volunteer body-guard. Of course, the whole country was excited, and the Queen, whose life had been menaced, was more popular than ever. They say that her first visit to the opera after this shocking attempt was a most memorable occasion. Her reception was something almost overwhelming. The audience were all on their feet, cheering and shouting, and waving handkerchiefs and hats, and there was no quieting them till the National Anthem was sung--and even then, they broke in with wild cheers at the close of every verse. Her Majesty stood throughout these demonstrations, bowing and smiling, her heart melted within her, I doubt not. Of course there was no conspiracy, and Oxford the pot-boy, "a pot-boy was, and, nothing more." He was acquitted on the ground of insanity, but ordered to be confined "during Her Majesty's pleasure," which he was in Bedlam for some years. Then he was sent to Australia as cured, and where he went into better business than shooting Queens, and earned an honest living, they say. He always declared that he was not insane, except from a mad passion for notoriety--which he got. The five or six successors of Oxford who have shot at Her Majesty, and that wretched retired officer, Robert Pate, who waylaid her in 1850, and struck her a cruel blow across the face with a walking-stick, were pronounced insane, and confined in mad-houses merely. The English are too proud and politic to admit that a sane man can lift his hand against the Constitutional Sovereign of England. When there arrived in London the news of the shooting of President Garfield, a distinguished English gentleman said to me, "I think we will not be annexed to the United States while you shoot your Presidents." I replied by reminding him of the many attempts on the life of his beloved Queen, adding, "I believe the homicidal mania is a Monarchical as well as a Republican affliction,--the difference only is that, unhappily for us, our madmen are the better shots."