1847.] THE CAMBRIDGE FESTIVITIES. 313 selection of striking points is founded on fact, and all exaggeration and humbug were avoided Then the Queen dined in the Great Hall of Trinity, and splendid did the Great Hall look-330 people at various tables . . In the afternoon we had all been at luncheon at Downing College, and enjoyed dancing in a refreshing shade, and the spectacle of cheerful crowds in brilliant sunshine. The Queen came thither and walked round to see the Horticultural Show, and to show herself and the Chancellor. After this was the real dinner, the Queen and her immediate suite at a table across the raised end of the Hall, all the rest at tables lengthways. At the Queen's table the names were put on places, and anxious was the moment before one could find one's place. I was directed by Lord Spencer to take one between him and the Duke of Buccleuch, and found myself in very agreeable neighbourhood. "Yesterday morning I went with the Duchess of Sutherland and Lady Desart through the Library, King's Chapel, Clare Hall, and the beautiful avenue and gardens-with combinations of trees, architecture, green turf, flowers, and water which, under such a sun and sky as we had, could nowhere be finer. The Duchess was conducted by Dr. Whewell, Lady Desart by Lord Abercorn, and my honoured self by Dr. Meyer in uniform (as all had been attending the Chancellor's levee in the morning), and we passed among the admiring crowd who followed us at a respectful distance, for the hero, Sir Harry Smith, as Lord Fortescue said, was taken for the Duke of Wellington. Till twelve we walked, and at one the Queen set out, through the Cloisters, and Hall and Library of Trinity College, to pass through the gardens and avenues, which had been connected for the occasion, by a temporary bridge over the river, with those of St. John's, and we followed her, thus having the best opportunity of seeing everything, and in particular the joyous crowd that grouped among the noble trees. Then the Queen sat down to luncheon in a tent, and we were placed at her table. The only other piece of diplomacy was Van de Weyer; but Madame Van de W. did not come, being unable to undertake the fatigue. The Queen returned by Trinity Lodge, and left for good at three, and as soon as we could afterwards we drove away with Prince Waldemar. I could still tell much of Cambridge, of the charms of its trim gardens, and of how well the Queen looked, and how pleased, and how well she was dressed, and how perfect in grace and movements." Another little vignette of the stately academic pageant, in which the Queen shone as a sweet and charming figure, is rapidly sketched by another eyewitness. Bishop Wilberforce, writing to Miss Noel, July 5th, 1847,* says: "The Cambridge scene was very interesting. There was such a burst of loyalty, and it so told on the Queen and the Prince. C. would not there have thought that he looked cold. It was quite clear that they both felt it was something new; that he had earned, and not she given, a true English honour; and so he looked so pleased and she so triumphant. There were also some pretty interludes-when he presented the address and she beamed upon him, and once half smiled, and then covered the smile with a gentle dignity, and then she said, in her clear, musical voice, The choice which the University has made of its Chancellor has my most entire approbation."" The Royal lady's voice may have been clear and distinct, but, as a matter of fact, she was thrilled with nervous excitement, quite unusual to her, and evidently due to the fulness of her heart in sharing her husband's first great personal triumph over English prejudices. "I cannot say," the Queen records in her Diary, "how it agitated and embarrassed me to receive this address, and hear it read by my beloved Albert, who walked in at the head of the University, and who looked dear and beautiful in his robes, which were carried by Colonel Phipps and Colonel Seymour. Albert went through it all admirably— almost absurd, however, as it was for us." And the same thought shines through the last entry which the Queen makes with reference to the event. "We had spent," she writes in her Diary, "a truly pleasant and most interesting time. To see my Albert honoured and esteemed, as he deserves, gives me the deepest satisfaction. We reached Buckingham Palace at half-past four, and 1847.] DR. WHEWELL AND THE QUEEN. 315 found the children all well. I felt tired and étourdie. We walked a little in the garden, then dined alone, and spent a dear, peaceful, happy evening." Here, perhaps, it may be permissible to say that Cambridge has ever been endeared to her Majesty by reason of many pleasant associations of her early married life which gather round it. As has been stated in a previous Chapter, it was at Cambridge in October, 1843, that Prince Albert first gained any insight into the English University system, during a visit which he and the Queen paid, quite informally, to Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity.* They had a brilliant reception on that occasion, some two thousand, horsemen accompanying them with shouts of welcome. The Royal pair had Whewell for a host and a cicerone, and Prince Albert, in a letter to Baron Stockmar, gives a glowing account of the enthusiasm with which he was received. Many good stories were told of the visit in the University after they left. Professor Sedgwick, the geologist, held some interesting conversation with the Prince in the Woodwardian Museum, and was quite surprised to find that he was a geologist of sound culture, who took much pleasure in teaching the Queen all he knew about the monsters of the Old World, whose history seemed greatly to interest her. The Professor was, however, nonplussed when her Majesty asked him where the head of his pet Ichthyosaurus, which he was unpacking, came from, and was fain to cover his ignorance for the moment by saying, much to her Majesty's amusement, that doubtless "it came as a delegate from the monsters of the lower world to greet her Majesty on her arrival at the University."† It was on this occasion that the Queen made the acquaintance of her rugged but kindly host-the Master of Trinity—a rough diamond who had raised himself by sheer ability from the humble position of a sizar, to be virtually the intellectual head of the University. "W. and I," writes Mrs. Whewell to her mother, "received commands to dine with the Queen at eight o'clock; hasty notices were sent out to those whom she would receive in the evening. At dinner, the Queen, and, still more, the Prince, asked my husband questions about the University and College, to which he gave such full answers, and they seemed to take so much interest in hearing them, that it quite took off the disagreeable effect of a Royal categorical conversation. Certainly the Queen and Prince seemed to like it. After dinner, in the drawing-room, the Queen asked me if these were prints which lay on the table. I had taken care to place some interesting ones there, for the chance of her looking at them. The book she took most notice of was an old book by Sir Edward Stanhope, of coats-of-arms of our founders and benefactors, which we had got out of the Muniment Room. I pointed out some of the changes-Henry VIII.'s, for instance, with the rouge dragon of Cadwallader, It is supposed to be the special prerogative of Trinity to receive Royal visitors to Cambridge. + Martin's Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. X. Whewell's Memoirs. the last of the Britons, for a supporter; James I.'s, with the unicorn. When Prince Albert came up-stairs she pointed it out to him. He seemed a very good herald, and told me several foreign coats that had quite puzzled me, and also Lord and Lady Maybrooke, who are great heralds." On going away the Queen gave Mrs. Whewell a pretty bracelet, "saying she wished to give it to me with her own hands. She spoke very kindly indeed, and Prince Albert came and said that the only thing he regretted was the 1 shortness of the visit. She proceeded to the door; the Master was on the stairs. We accompanied them, walking as much backwards as we could." This part of the etiquette seems to have severely exercised the kindly Cambridge dons, unused as they were to Court ceremonial. Sedgwick says, for example, with reference to the Royal visit to the Woodwardian Museum, "I will only add that I went through every kind of backward movement to the admiration of all beholders, only having once trodden on the hinder part of my cassock, and never once having fallen during my retrogradations before the face of the Queen. In short, had I been a king-crab I could not have walked backwards better." Of the Queen the brusque old Master of Trinity 1847.] THE VISIT TO CAMBRIDGE. 317 himself wrote:-"She was very kind in all her expressions to us; told Cordelia that everything in her apartments was so nice and so comfortable,' and at parting gave her a very pretty bracelet. The Prince was very agreeable, intelligent, and conversible, seemed much interested with all he saw, and talked a good deal about his German University, Bonn. At dinner I was opposite the Queen, who talked easily and cheerfully. I had also a good deal of occasion to talk to her, in showing her the lions of Cambridge, which she ran over very rapidly. It is no small matter to provide for the Queen's reception, even as we did. We had about forty servants of the Queen in the house, besides a dozen men belonging to the stable department who were in the town. The Queen's coachman is reported to have said that he had taken her Majesty to many places, but never to anywhere where she was so well received, or where the ale was so good." These little reminiscences of the Queen's early life are not, when rightly regarded, altogether trivial. They give us a delightful picture of a nature doubly royal-royal not merely by birth, but by what birth can never givethe easy affability of manner, the unaffected determination to please and be pleased, the true politeness and tender graces of demeanour which spring |