Notwithstanding the confidence of Lady St Julians, and her unrivalledinformation, the health of the king did not improve: but still it wasthe hay fever, only the hay fever. An admission had been allowed tocreep into the Court Circular, that "his majesty has been slightlyindisposed within the last few days;" but then it was soon followed bya very positive assurance, that his majesty's favourite and long-maturedresolution to give a state banquet to the knights of the four orders,was immediately to be carried into effect. Lady St Julians had the firstinformation of this important circumstance; it confirmed her originalconviction: she determined to go on with her quadrille. Egremont,with something interesting at stake himself, was staggered by thisannouncement, and by Lady St Julians' unshaken faith. He consulted hismother: Lady Marney shook her head. "Poor woman!" said Lady Marney, "sheis always wrong. I know," continued her ladyship, placing her fingerto her lip, "that Prince Esterhazy has been pressing his long-postponedinvestiture as a Grand Cross, in order that he may dine at this verybanquet; and it has been announced to him that it is impossible,the king's health will not admit of it. When a simple investiture isimpossible, a state banquet to the four orders is very probable. No,"said Lady Marney with a sigh; "it is a great blow for all of us, but itis no use shutting our eyes to the fact. The poor dear king will nevershow again."
And about a week after this there appeared the first bulletin. From thatinstant, though the gullish multitude studied the daily reports withgrave interest; their hopes and speculations and arrangements changingwith each phrase; for the initiated there was no suspense. All knew thatit was over; and Lady St Julians, giving up her quadrille, began to lookabout for seats in parliament for her sons.
"What a happiness it is to have a clever mother," exclaimed Egremont,as he pondered over the returns of his election agent. Lady Marney, dulywarned of the impending catastrophe, was experiencing all the advantagesof prior information. It delighted her to meet Lady St Julians drivingdistractedly about town, calling at clubs, closeted with red tapers,making ingenious combinations that would not work, by means of whichsome one of her sons was to stand in coalition with some rich parvenu;to pay none of the expenses and yet to come in first. And all this time,Lady Marney, serene and smiling, had the daily pleasure of assuring LadySt Julians what a relief it was to her that Charles had fixed on hisplace. It had been arranged indeed these weeks past; "but then,you know," concluded Lady Marney in the sweetest voice and with ablandishing glance, "I never did believe in that hay fever."
In the meantime the impending event changed the whole aspect of thepolitical world. The king dying before the new registration was thegreatest blow to pseudo-toryism since his majesty, calling for a hackneycoach, went down and dissolved parliament in 1831. It was calculatedby the Tadpoles and Tapers that a dissolution by Sir Robert, after theregistration of 1837, would give him a clear majority, not too great aone, but large enough: a manageable majority; some five-and-twenty orthirty men, who with a probable peerage or two dangling in the distance,half-a-dozen positive baronetcies, the Customs for their constituents,and Court balls for their wives, might be induced to save the state.0! England, glorious and ancient realm, the fortunes of thy polity areindeed strange! The wisdom of the Saxons, Norman valour, the state-craftof the Tudors, the national sympathies of the Stuarts, the spirit of thelatter Guelphs struggling against their enslaved sovereignty,--these arethe high qualities, that for a thousand years have secured thy nationaldevelopement. And now all thy memorial dynasties end in the hucksteringrule of some thirty unknown and anonymous jobbers! The Thirty at Athenswere at least tyrants. They were marked men. But the obscure majority,who under our present constitution are destined to govern England, areas secret as a Venetian conclave. Yet on their dark voices all depends.Would you promote or prevent some great measure that may affectthe destinies of unborn millions, and the future character of thepeople,--take, for example, a system of national education,--theminister must apportion the plunder to the illiterate clan; the scumthat floats on the surface of a party; or hold out the prospect ofhonours, which are only honourable when in their transmission theyimpart and receive lustre; when they are the meed of public virtueand public services, and the distinction of worth and of genius. It isimpossible that the system of the thirty can long endure in an age ofinquiry and agitated spirit like the present. Such a system may suitthe balanced interests and the periodical and alternate command of rivaloligarchical connections: but it can subsist only by the subordinationof the sovereign and the degradation of the multitude; and cannot accordwith an age, whose genius will soon confess that Power and the Peopleare both divine.
"He can't last ten days," said a whig secretary of the treasury with atriumphant glance at Mr Taper as they met in Pall Mall; "You're out forour lives."
"Don't you make too sure for yourselves," rejoined in despair thedismayed Taper. "It does not follow that because we are out, that youare in."
"How do you mean?"
"There is such a person as Lord Durham in the world," said Mr Taper verysolemnly.
"Pish," said the secretary.
"You may pish," said Mr Taper, "but if we have a radical government, asI believe and hope, they will not be able to get up the steam as theydid in --31; and what with church and corn together, and the QueenDowager, we may go to the country with as good a cry as some otherpersons."
"I will back Melbourne against the field, now," said the secretary.
"Lord Durham dined at Kensington on Thursday," said Taper, "and not awhig present."
"Ay; Durham talks very fine at dinner," said the secretary, "but he hasno real go in him. When there is a Prince of Wales, Lord Melbourne meansto make Durham governor to the heir apparent, and that will keep himquiet."
"What do you hear?" said Mr Tadpole, joining them; "I am told he hasquite rallied."
"Don't you flatter yourself," said the secretary.
"Well, we shall hear what they say on the hustings," said Tadpolelooking boldly.
"Who's afraid!" said the secretary. "No, no, my dear fellow, you aredead beat; the stake is worth playing for, and don't suppose we aresuch flats as to lose the race for want of jockeying. Your humbuggingregistration will never do against a new reign. Our great men meanto shell out, I tell you; we have got Croucher; we will denounce theCarlton and corruption all over the kingdom; and if that won't do, wewill swear till we are black in the face, that the King of Hanoveris engaged in a plot to dethrone our young Queen:" and the triumphantsecretary wished the worthy pair good morning.
"They certainly have a very good cry," said Taper mournfully.
"After all, the registration might be better," said Tadpole, "but stillit is a very good one."
The daily bulletins became more significant; the crisis was evidentlyat hand. A dissolution of parliament at any time must occasion greatexcitement; combined with a new reign, it inflames the passions of everyclass of the community. Even the poor begin to hope; the old, wholesomesuperstition still lingers, that the sovereign can exercise power; andthe suffering multitude are fain to believe that its remedial charactermay be about to be revealed in their instance. As for the aristocracyin a new reign, they are all in a flutter. A bewildering vision ofcoronets, stars, and ribbons; smiles, and places at court; haunts theirnoontide speculations and their midnight dreams. Then we must not forgetthe numberless instances in which the coming event is deemed to supplythe long-sought opportunity of distinction, or the long-dreaded causeof utter discomfiture; the hundreds, the thousands, who mean to get intoparliament, the units who dread getting out. What a crashing change fromlounging in St James's street to sauntering on Boulogne pier; or,after dining at Brookes and supping at Crockford's, to be saved fromdestruction by the friendly interposition that sends you in an officialcapacity to the marsupial sympathies of Sydney or Swan River!
Now is the time for the men to come forward who have claims; claims forspending their money, which nobody asked them to do, but which of coursethey only did for the sake of the party. They never wrot
e for theirparty, or spoke for their party, or gave their party any other vote thantheir own; but they urge their claims,--to something; a commissionershipof anything, or a consulship anywhere; if no place to be had, theyare ready to take it out in dignities. They once looked to the privycouncil, but would now be content with an hereditary honour; if they canhave neither, they will take a clerkship in the Treasury for a youngerson. Perhaps they may get that in time; at present they go away growlingwith a gaugership; or, having with desperate dexterity at lengthcontrived to transform a tidewaiter into a landwaiter. But there isnothing like asking--except refusing.
Hark! it tolls! All is over. The great bell of the metropolitancathedral announces the death of the last son of George the Third whoprobably will ever reign in England. He was a good man: with feelingsand sympathies; deficient in culture rather than ability; with a senseof duty; and with something of the conception of what should be thecharacter of an English monarch. Peace to his manes! We are summoned toa different scene.
In a palace in a garden--not in a haughty keep, proud with the fame,but dark with the violence of ages; not in a regal pile, bright with thesplendour, but soiled with the intrigues, of courts and factions--ina palace in a garden, meet scene for youth, and innocence, andbeauty--came the voice that told the maiden she must ascend her throne!
The council of England is summoned for the first time within her bowers.There are assembled the prelates and captains and chief men of herrealm; the priests of the religion that consoles, the heroes of thesword that has conquered, the votaries of the craft that has decided thefate of empires; men grey with thought, and fame, and age; who are thestewards of divine mysteries, who have encountered in battle the hostsof Europe, who have toiled in secret cabinets, who have struggled in theless merciful strife of aspiring senates; men too, some of them, lordsof a thousand vassals and chief proprietors of provinces, yet not one ofthem whose heart does not at this moment tremble as he awaits the firstpresence of the maiden who must now ascend her throne.
A hum of half-suppressed conversation which would attempt to conceal theexcitement, which some of the greatest of them have since acknowledged,fills that brilliant assemblage; that sea of plumes, and glitteringstars, and gorgeous dresses. Hush! the portals open; She comes! Thesilence is as deep as that of a noontide forest. Attended for a momentby her royal mother and the ladies of her court, who bow and thenretire, VICTORIA ascends her throne; a girl, alone, and for the firsttime, amid an assemblage of men.
In a sweet and thrilling voice, and with a composed mien which indicatesrather the absorbing sense of august duty than an absence of emotion,THE QUEEN announces her accession to the throne of her ancestors, andher humble hope that divine providence will guard over the fulfilment ofher lofty trust.
The prelates and captains and chief men of her realm then advance to thethrone, and kneeling before her, pledge their troth, and take the sacredoaths of allegiance and supremacy.
Allegiance to one who rules over the land that the great Macedoniancould not conquer; and over a continent of which even Columbus neverdreamed: to the Queen of every sea, and of nations in every zone.
It is not of these that I would speak; but of a nation nearer herfoot-stool, and which at this moment looks to her with anxiety, withaffection, perhaps with hope. Fair and serene, she has the blood andbeauty of the Saxon. Will it be her proud destiny at length to bearrelief to suffering millions, and with that soft hand which mightinspire troubadours and guerdon knights, break the last links in thechain of Saxon thraldom?
END OF THE FIRST BOOK
BOOK II
Book 2 Chapter 1