The Duke of Albany once said, “I do not understand why people should always be so kind to me.” The reason was not far to seek. He was a young man with an interesting and amiable personality. He had a pensive turn that recalled his father, but with a dash of gaiety of heart which rendered him more acceptable to society than the Prince Consort ever managed to become. His long life of suffering and pain secured for him the sympathies of the people. Despite his ill-health he was even in childhood a bright and promising boy. Professor Tyndall has spoken highly of his capacity at this period, and Dean Stanley, one of his early mentors, so deeply influenced him that at one time the Prince indicated a desire to take Orders in the Anglican Church. At Oxford he was prohibited by the physicians from reading for honours, and after he became a member of the House of Lords, the Queen, noticing his eager interest in politics, had some trouble in dissuading him from plunging into the debates, as a free lance who loved to “drink delight of battle with his peers.” When he was thwarted in this design, the Prince suggested that his services might be utilised in another direction. At the time Lord Normanby resigned the Governorship of Victoria Prince Leopold applied to Mr. Gladstone for the post, and the Tory newspapers and orators of the period heaped the most extravagant abuse on Mr. Gladstone for refusing the offer. Mr. Gladstone was even challenged in the House of Commons on the subject, but his lips being sealed by the Queen, he was unable to defend himself, or do more than make an evasive and ambiguous statement. The truth, however, was that Mr. Gladstone did not refuse the Prince’s offer. He referred it to Mr. Murray Smith, Agent-General for Victoria in London, with a request for his opinion. Mr. Smith replied that the appointment would give great satisfaction in Australia, but when the matter was laid before the Queen she peremptorily vetoed the project, assigning as a reason her fear that the Prince’s ill-health unfitted him for the duties of the position to which he aspired. Obvious reasons of State have, however, always made the Sovereigns of the Hanoverian dynasty reluctant to permit Princes of the Blood-Royal to serve as satraps in distant colonies where aspirations to independence are not always dormant.