They were very happy amid all the political trouble and perplexity-- almost too happy, considering how life was going on, or going off in poor Ireland. Doubtless the cries of starving children and the moans of fever- stricken mothers must often have pierced the tender hearts of the Queen and Prince; but the calamity was so vast, so apparently irremediable, that they turned their thoughts away from it as much as possible, as we turn ours from the awful tragic work of volcanoes in the far East and tornadoes in the West. It was a sort of charmed life they lived, with its pastoral peace and simple pleasures. Lady Bloomfield wrote: "It always entertains me to see the little things which amuse Her Majesty and the Prince, instead of their looking bored, as people so often do in English society." One thing, however, did "bore" him, and that, unfortunately, was riding--"for its own sake." So it was not surprising that after a time the Queen indulged less in her favourite pastime. She still loved a romping dance now and then, but she was hardly as gay as when Guizot first saw and described her. Writing from Windsor to his son he gives a picture of a royal dinner party: "On my left sat the young Queen whom they tried to assassinate the other day, in gay spirits, talking a great deal, laughing very often and longing to laugh still more; and filling with her gaiety, which contrasted with the already tragical elements of her history, this ancient castle which has witnessed the career of all her predecessors." The political affairs which tried and troubled the Queen and the Prince were not merely English. They were much disturbed and shocked by the unworthy intrigues and the unkingly bad faith shown by Louis Philippe in the affair of the "Spanish Marriages"--a complicated and rather delicate matter, which I have neither space nor desire to dwell upon here. It had a disastrous effect on the Orleans family, and perhaps on the history of France. It has been mostly interesting to me now for the manner in which the subject was, handled by the Queen, whose letters revealed a royal high spirit and a keen sense of royal honor. She regretted the heartless State marriage of the young Queen of Spain, not only from a political but a domestic point of view. She saw poor Isabella forced or tricked into a distasteful union, from which unhappiness must, and something far worse than unhappiness might, come. Many and great misfortunes did come of it and to the actors in it. In the spring of 1847 the Prince-Consort was elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge--a great honor for so young a man. The Queen was present at the installation, and there was a splendid time. Wordsworth wrote an ode on the occasion. It was not quite equal to his "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality." In truth, Mr. Wordsworth did not shine as Poet Laureate. Mr. Tennyson better earns his butt of Malmsey.