Frequent levees, and "dinners followed by little dances," formed the chief amusements of the young couple in the earliest stage of their married life. They went much, too, to the play, both having an especial relish for and admiration of Shakespeare. The Queen, although now a married woman, by no means neglected useful or solacing and refining studies. She took singing lessons from Lablache, and frequently sang and played with the Prince, sometimes using the piano, sometimes the organ as accompaniment. They went to Claremont, the Queen's favourite youthful haunt, to celebrate her birthday, and continued to do so, even after the purchase of Osborne, until 1848, when Claremont was given as a residence to the ex-Queen of the French. Both Queen and Prince were extremely glad to get away from the smoke and grime of London. In fact, these constituted a peculiar source of physical oppression to both; and they were always glad to retire to the rural quiet and seclusion of Claremont. [Sidenote: THE QUEEN SHOT AT.] The first alarming incident of the Queen's wedded life occurred on the 10th of June, 1840. In her first early days of maiden queenhood, she had been annoyed by madmen wanting to marry her. On more than one occasion her saddle-horse was attempted to be stopped in the Park by one of such maniacs, as she was attended by an equerry; and in two instances similar attempts were made by innocent lunatics to force their way into Windsor Castle, in each case armed with nothing more deadly than a proposal of marriage. But what we are about to narrate was a much more serious matter. There is no denying the fact, that, after the first two years of her reign, the Queen was, for a time, by no means so popular as she had been. Her ministers were eminently unpopular, and to no slight extent she shared their unpopularity. Appalling distress prevailed, and Chartism and other more dangerous forms of sedition were rife. The poor asked how so much money could be spent on the Queen's hospitable entertainments, while they were starving; and inquired how it was that the name of Lord Melbourne, who should be supposed to have work enough to do looking after the affairs of the distressed nation, should appear in the newspapers almost every day as attending some of Her Majesty's banquets. Occasionally during the summer she was received in public in silence, and once or twice, in theatres and elsewhere, disagreeable cries were heard. More than once during this and one or two succeeding years, pistol-shots were fired at her. We select one, and the first attack upon her, as a type of the others. A youth named Oxford, some seventeen or eighteen years of age, either a fool or a madman, fired two pistol-shots at her, as she and her husband were driving in a phaeton up Constitution Hill. He was at once arrested, and it being impossible to assign any conceivable cause for the act, he was declared insane, and doomed to incarceration for life. Neither