APPENDIX E. A Copy of the Official Notice of the Ceremonial to be observed in mak- ing the Declaration, and of the Declaration itself.............. Page 340 Directions to the Binder. Prince Albert at the Age of Four. From a Picture by Döll.. Frontispiece. Prince Albert at the Age of Twenty. From a Miniature by Sir W. Ross......... To face page 205 PREFACE. THIS volume was originally compiled, under the Queen's direction, solely for private circulation among the members of her own family, or such other persons as, from the relations in which they had stood to her Majesty or to the Prince Consort himself, would naturally be interested in the story of his early days. As, however, notwithstanding the limited circulation to which it was intended to confine the volume, there was felt to be considerable danger of a copy being surreptitiously obtained and published, possibly in a garbled form, the question arose whether it might not be expedient to avert this danger by publishing it in substantially the same form as that in which it was first printed for private circulation. Acting upon the opinion of several persons in whose judgment she had the greatest confidence; believing also that the free and unreserved expression which the volume contains of her own feelings, as well as of those of the Prince, is such as, if made public (however unusual such publicity may be), will command the entire sympathy of every one whose sympathy or good opinion is to be desired; and, above all, feeling that there is not one word coming from the Prince himself which will not tend to a better and higher appreciation of his great character, the Queen has not hesitated to give her consent to the present publication. "In regard to the effect of the volume upon the people of England," writes one of the oldest, most devoted, and most honored of the Prince's friends,* "should her Majesty hereafter resolve to publish it, there can not, I think, be the shadow of a doubt, should it ever come before them, that it would exact the loyalty and love of all true-hearted Englishmen. . . . . Where every thing is so pure, so lovely, and so true, why should not our honored and beloved Queen lay open the innermost recesses of her heart, and thereby fix forever the loyal sympathy of all who have faith in what is good, and hold true Christian allegiance to their God and to their country?" Then speaking of the impression produced on himself by a perusal of the volume, he proceeds: "You will forgive me for noting down one or two thoughts which struck me while reading your volume. We now see, from first to last, the beautiful consistency of the Prince's character. He was a lovely boy with a gentle temper; yet even then he had a mental strength above his years, which gave him the mastery over his elder brother. And so it was in after life. Those gentler qualities, which made him the purest pattern of domestic love, never, for a moment, degenerated into feebleness or ef feminacy, but were carried out into a noble purpose by their unbroken union with the firm will of his great and unselfish heart. From his earliest years he seems never to have flinched from labor, and he had amassed vast treasures of exact knowledge, which he did not for a moment exhibit for ostentation, but he made them bear, He was Secretary to the Prince as Chancellor * Professor Sedgwick. .. of the University of Cambridge. at every turn of life, upon some intellectual aim or some plan that would tell upon the moral and physical good of his fellow-creatures. "If it be good for man, as is taught by the poet Goethe, daily to see and to feast upon objects of great beauty in art and nature, surely the contemplation of a character at once so great and so beautiful as that of the Prince Consort should be a sublime and touching lesson to our countrymen." Thus wrote Professor Sedgwick on the 27th of May, 1867, to the editor of this volume, and it would be vain to try and add a syllable to the beautiful picture here given of the Prince's character; the more so, as in the introductory remarks to the volume as first printed, and which are here reproduced, will be found an attempt to describe that character at some length; and a still fuller and more comprehensive estimate of it will naturally fall to be given when the whole story of the Prince's life is placed before the world in the volumes by which this is to be succeeded. The task of preparing those volumes will be executed by other and abler hands. His own occupations making it impossible for him to undertake it, the present editor is happy to think that Mr. Theodore Martin has, at the request of the Queen, consented to go on with, and has for some time been engaged upon, the work, for the prosecution of which he will have the same advantages as to information from authentic sources that have been enjoyed in the preparation of the present volume. June, 1867. A 2 |