for example, considered it his duty to inform Palmerston of the sad event, and was utterly astounded at the effect the news had on him. He told Count Vitzthum that “the Prime Minister was so affected that he had fainted away several times in the presence of the Duke, who expected him to have a fit of apoplexy, and still fears that his days are numbered.” Count Vitzthum, however, adds significantly:--“He (Palmerston) recovered again in the afternoon so far as to be able to receive Baron Brunnow, who perceived nothing unusual about him.”[110] Mr. Hayward has stated that the news of the Prince Consort’s death so affected Lord Palmerston that he had a violent attack of gout.[111] According to Mr. Ashley, the Prime Minister was suffering from gout before it was suspected that the Prince Consort was dangerously ill; though, no doubt, Mr. Hayward rightly accounts for Lord Palmerston’s demonstrative emotion when he explains that he was afraid of the effect of the Prince’s death on the Queen. But this apprehension as to the weakness of her Majesty’s nerves must have quickly worn away, for when he visited her at Osborne, on the 29th of January, 1862, for the first time after the Prince’s death, he not only neglected to put on mourning, but enhanced the gaiety of his raiment by wearing green gloves and blue studs.[112] The English people, however, had on the whole judged the Prince Consort generously through life, and they mourned over his death with genuine and unaffected sincerity. Never since the death of the Princess Charlotte was the grief of the people more widespread and more real. Friar Francis says of Hero’s supposed death-- “That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost, Why, then we rack the value.” Some such feeling as this was universal when, amidst the gloom that tinged the skirts of the dying year with hues of sorrow, the nation reviewed Prince Albert’s career, so full of usefulness, of self-restraint, of high aim, of patriotic purpose, of unselfish devotion. Very beautiful and touching, too, were the popular expressions of sympathy which were sent to the widowed Queen, the light of whose life had been extinguished at one fell stroke.