In a memorandum drawn up by Count Arthur Mensdorff, cousin of the Prince, he describes the young Albert when about ten years of age, at which period the cousins contracted a friendship which lasted unimpaired until the Prince's death. His disposition was mild and benevolent; nothing could make him angry, except anything unjust or dishonest. He was never wild or noisy, and his favourite study was natural history. He was a good mimic, and had a keen sense of the ludicrous; but he never pushed a joke to the extent of hurting one's feelings. His moral purity was as conspicuous as the meekness of his disposition. In November of 1831, the Princes suffered a great bereavement in the death of their admirable grandmother, the Duchess Dowager of Coburg; she died in the arms of her two eldest sons. She had, from an early period, formed the wish that a marriage should be contracted between her two grandchildren, Albert and Victoria. In 1832, the young Princes, in their turn, accompanied their father in a journey to visit their uncle, King Leopold. This was a most important event in the Prince's life; for, though the visit was of but short duration, the spectacle which he then saw, of a nation which had freed itself, and worked out its own destiny, had the strongest effect upon his mind and conscience, which thence grew in attachment to liberal principles. His deeply-rooted love of art, too, received a strong stimulus from the splendid architectural and artistic treasures of the old Belgian city. On his return from Brussels, being now about thirteen years old, he became remarkably studious, and vigorously set himself to the pursuit of an unusually comprehensive circle of subjects. The only recreation which he pursued with vigour was deer-stalking, and this most beneficially promoted the robustness of a frame as yet distinguished by delicacy. On Palm Sunday, 1835, he was confirmed, and his heart seems, at and from this period, to have come under the influence of religious convictions of peculiar depth and sincerity, though of singular freedom from all traces of bigotry. The confirmation of the Princes was immediately followed by a series of visits to various of their imperial, regal, princely, and noble relatives and friends throughout Germany and the provinces on the Danube. They visited in succession Mecklenburg, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Pesth, and Ofen. In May, 1836, the Princes came to England, on a visit to their aunt Kent. It was on this occasion that Albert and Victoria first met.