from the natural sunshine of the heart, and before which ine pedantries of etiquette seem ghastly unrealities. Nothing can illustrate her Majesty's simple geniality of heart better than a story about her visit to Cambridge, which it may be remarked Whewell does not tell. He was no courtier, as all the world knew, and he treated the Queen in the old-fashioned hospitable manner which the middle-class gentry in England assume towards their guests. The morning after her arrival he accordingly came down bustling into the room quite unceremoniously, and, to the horror of the Lords and Ladies in waiting, ignoring all Court etiquette, he walked up quite coolly and saluted her with brusque frankness as follows:-"Good-morning, your Majesty! How d'ye do? Hope your Majesty slept well. Fine morning, isn't it?" to which the Queen, to the astonishment of her suite, returned an equally cordial answer, wreathed in the sweetest of smiles.

The visit to Scotland was arranged in August, after the General Election brought peace for a time into the political world. On the 11th of August the Royal party left Osborne in the Royal yacht; "our party," says Prince Albert, "being composed of Victoria and myself, the two eldest children, with Miss Hildyard, Charles (Prince of Leiningen), the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, Lady Jocelyn, General Wemyss, and Sir James Clark." On the 12th they succeeded, in spite of the mist, in getting well out towards the Atlantic, but though the Prince, thanks to the advice of Admiral Sir Charles Napier, whose panacea for sea-sickness was a glass of port wine, stood the voyage well, some of the party were so sea-sick that they had to abandon the yacht at Falmouth. On the 13th they paid a hazardous visit to "the dogs of Scilly"-as one of the party observed to the Prince, "That is a very good thing over; I should think you will never care to see them again;" and on the 14th, under brighter skies and over smoother seas, they neared the Welsh coast, making land at Miiford Haven, and anchoring under the shadow of its red cliffs. The Prince paid a flying visit to Pembroke Dockyard and Castle, but the Queen sat on deck sketching, as was often her favourite custom in these cruises to Scotland. On the 15th they were opposite the Isle of Anglesea, gazing with silent rapture on the hoary head of Snowdon rising from the midst of a sea of surrounding verdure. The Victoria and Albert was then sent to Holyhead, the Royal party proceeding in the Fairy through the Menai Straits, and passing the old Keep of Carnarvon, and Plas Newydd, and many other places recalling to the mind of the Queen touching reminiscences of a Welsh tour which, when Princess Victoria, she had made with her mother. On the 16th they ran into Douglas Bay and Ramsey Harbour in the Isle of Man, where, remarks Prince Albert in a letter to Stockmar, the good people "put in their paper that I led the Prince Regent (the little Prince of Wales) by the hand." "Usually," he adds humorously, "one has a Regent for an infant; but in Man it seems precisely the reverse." On the 17th they were tossing in wonderment before the beetling cliffs of Ailsa Craig, their ears

1847.]

HOLIDAY IN THE HIGHLANDS.

319

deafened by the screams of the sea-birds that wheeled and whirled in clouds between them and the sun; but as the creatures kept out of range, "with almost mathematical precision," says Prince Albert mournfully, not one fell to his gun. The noble outlines of the Isle of Arran then broke on their view, and they sped on through Lamlash and Brodick Bays, past the Isle of Bute, past the Cumbraes, and up the romantic Firth of Clyde, with its great sea fiords eating their way northwards into the heart of the Highlands, to Greenock, where, embarking in the Fairy, they flew along to Dumbarton, "pursued in the literal sense by upwards of forty steamers." The castle on the old rock here was explored, and the party then returned to Rothesay Bay, where the people were delighted to see their young Duke (the Prince of Wales). On the 18th they ran through the far-famed Kyles of Bute, on to Inverary, where an old-fashioned Highland welcome awaited them from the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, and a large family party of old friends. Outside," writes the Queen, "stood the Marquess of Lorne, just two years. old, a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow, with reddish hair, but very delicate features, like both his mother and father; he is such a merry, independent little child. He had a black velvet dress and jacket with a sporran, scarf, and Highland bonnet." There was luncheon in the castle, stalwart clansmen in their tartans lining the fine feudal hall with halberts in their hands.

66

The Royal yacht then glided down Loch Fyne, whose waters sparkled in the mellow sunshine, the Queen watching, with keen enjoyment, the long swathes of golden light that fell athwart the mighty shoulders of the mountains. Lochgilphead, the Sound of Jura, and Staffa were all reached in turn, and, the weather being fine, they ran into Fingal's Cave in the Royal barge, with the Royal standard floating at the stern. "On me," observes. Prince Albert, "the cave produced a most romantic impression, on the ladies a very eerie and uncomfortable one." The Queen writes:-"At three we anchored close before Staffa, and immediately got into the barge, with Charles, the children, and the rest of our people, and rowed towards the cave. As we rounded the point, the wonderful basaltic formation came into sight. It (the cave) looked almost awful as we entered, and the barge heaved up and down on the swell of the sea. It was the first time the British standard, with a Queen of Great Britain and her husband and children, had ever entered Fingal's Cave." Next day rain confined the Queen to her cabin, but in the afternoon she was able to come on deck and see Loch Linnhe, Loch Eil, and the entrance to Loch Leven. At Fort William the yacht anchored, and Prince Albert, with the Prince of Leiningen, went up the grim and gloomy Pass of Glencoe, haunted by the wraiths of the massacred Macdonalds.

When they returned the Queen landed from the yacht. In a drenching Scotch mist she was enthusiastically welcomed by a vast gathering of clansmen in characteristic tartans, and wearing their tribal badges, who turned out to

receive her. By a rough and dreary road the Royal tourists drove through the mist to their destination-the lonely shooting-lodge of Ardverikie, by the wildly-beautiful but desolate shores of Loch Laggan. Ardverikie belonged to Lord Henry Bentinck, but at the time of the Queen's visit it was let to Lord Abercorn: its great charm lay in its being, as the Prince said, a most un-come-at-able" place, and here the Royal family, despite the atrocious weather, enjoyed a pleasant time of freedom and peace. Lord Grey and Lord Palmerston visited them in turn, and with both the Prince talked gravely on foreign politics—with the latter more especially, on impending troubles in Italy. It was on the 28th of August that the Queen and Prince Albert were startled by a letter from Lord John Russell, intimating that Lord Palmerston and he were desirous of sending Lord Minto to Italy as an unofficial envoy to strengthen and encourage Pope Pius IX. in his reforming policy. This step, one may say in passing, was the one at which Mr. Disraeli jeered when he ridiculed the Whigs for sending their emissary to teach politics to the countrymen of Machiavelli. Her Majesty and her husband were of opinion that great caution would be necessary in arranging this mission, as it was illegal for the English Government to hold direct diplomatic intercourse with the Vatican; but they fully agreed that the time had come for England to adopt an independent line in foreign policy. "England's mission," wrote the Prince to Lord John Russell, "is to put herself at the head of the diffusion of civilisation and the attainment of liberty," and they felt that it was no longer possible to adopt a purely passive attitude in the growing contest between Absolutism, as represented by Austria, and the forces of Liberalism which were beginning to strain the fetters in which the policy of Metternich confined them. But England, in the opinion of the Queen and her husband, was to wisely act the part of a sympathetic guide, and not push any nation beyond its own march, nor "impose on any nation what that nation does not itself produce." But, says the Prince, boldly, “let her declare herself the protector and friend of all States engaged in progress, and let thein acquire that confidence in England that she will, if necessary, defend them at her own risk." Long and anxiously had these matters been debated between the Queen, her husband, and Lord Palmerston, who was with them. It was, however, agreed that on these lines Lord Minto's instructions should be drawn up, and that similar instructions should be sent to all our diplomatic agents abroad for their guidance. The main idea of the new departure in foreign policy, according to the Prince, was that, whilst England should foster the cause of constitutional progress abroad, there must be no "pressing upon any State an advance which is not the result of its own impulse." In carrying out this policy Lord Palmerston contrived to embroil England with every great Power in Europe. That, however, does not prove that the policy was bad. It merely shows that Lord Palmerston's methods of dealing with foreign Governments were deficient alike in tact and taste-that his diplomacy, in fact, was