that made men useful to each other, or added comfort, grace, beauty, and dignity to existence, had an irresistible fascination for him. A clever critic has said of Edmund Burke what might well be said of Prince Albert, whose mind, though less imaginative was more reflective. “Burke’s imagination,” writes Mr. Augustine Birrell, “led him to look out over the whole land: the legislator devising new laws; the judge expounding and enforcing old ones; the merchant despatching his goods and extending his credit; the banker advancing the money of his customers upon the credit of the merchant; the frugal man slowly accumulating the store which is to support him in old age; the ancient institutions of Church and University, with their seemly provisions for sound learning and pure religion; the parson in his pulpit; the poet pondering his rhymes; the farmer eyeing his crops; the painter covering his canvases; the player educating the feelings.”[119] Similarly, when Prince Albert thought of England or her interests, her aims, and her mission in the world, it was not the England of St. James’s or St. Giles’s, of Piccadilly or the slums, or of any special class or order, that presented itself to his mind. It was the England which the eye of the historian will see--the England which has been built up and is maintained by the toil, the self-sacrifice, the enterprise, the leadership, and the genius of all who in their several stations work for her with brain and hand. To give these workers peace and security--that was to the Prince Consort the fundamental problem of statecraft, and the only true touchstone of policies. His finger was always on the pulse of the nation, and to every change in its feverish throbbing he was as sensitive as a physician. His “catholicity of gaze” has done for his writings and his speeches, what originality of thought and brilliancy of style have done for those of other men. It has enabled them to stand the test of time. If he failed to win unbounded popularity during his lifetime, it was because, as the French say, he had the defects of his qualities. His lot was not with the idlers of the earth, and he had little in common either with an aristocracy of pleasure or a democracy of noisy but futile activities. “Society,” says Dr. Martineau, “has reason for dismay where there is an ever-widening chasm between the two summit levels of thought and character.” The Prince Consort’s public life seemed as if it were planned in order to bridge this chasm. As for his private life, it is perhaps enough to say that the veneration and love with which his family, his friends, and his servants regarded him sufficiently attest its unblemished worth. Of the calumnies that pursued him almost to the verge of the grave, there is little to add to what has been already stated in preceding chapters. They never touched his honour as a gentleman, or his conduct as the head of an illustrious family. All