Scores of nobodies have for years been in the habit of talking glib nonsense about “the Prince of Wales,” and of casually alluding to “Albert Edward” as if they knew him personally, or as if he were hail-fellow-well-met with every little “nouveau riche” that comes to the social scum-top for a moment like a minnow in a garden cistern; and the present writer has often been vastly entertained to hear persons who have never seen the Prince, much less spoken to him, jabbering about him very much after the fashion of monkeys discussing the _habitat_ of the lion. There was never a great name but was not slandered by the envious,--never a high reputation that some coward did not strive to attack and tarnish--never a splendid fame that did not serve as a target for the arrows of the mean and the malicious. And the worst lies and slanders are always said and written of those whose position is too exalted to allow them either answer or self-defence. When persons are themselves ignoble they love nothing better than to defame nobility, and if they could force an answer from those whom they malign, they would be happy to have dragged down the higher than themselves to their own base level. Thus it chances that we have often heard male and female word-mongers mouthing idiot conversation concerning our present King which has marked them as altogether outside the pale of good manners, and has debarred them from every suspicion of either patriotism or loyalty. “The King can do no wrong” is, of course, too far-fetched a statement in any period or in any country, as has been proved over and over again, but until some wrong has been manifested, the King’s name should surely be set well beyond the limit of vulgar society jesting.