It was not only that Victoria
was a really lovely girl, but that she had the _prestige_ of having
been brought up as a Liberal, and then she kept the hated Duke of
Cumberland from the throne. Possibly he was not guilty of half the
atrocious sins attributed to him, but I do not remember any royal
personage so universally hated."
It was fear of this bogie of a Cumberland that made the English people
anxious for the early marriage of the Queen, and yet caused them to dread
it, for the fate of poor Princess Charlotte had not been forgotten. But I
do not think that political or dynastic questions had much to do with the
popularity of the young Queen. It was the resurrection of the dead
dignity of the Royal House of Brunswick, in her fair person--the
resuscitation of the half-dead principle of loyalty in the hearts of her
people. Of her Majesty's subjects of the better class, actors and quakers
alone seem to have taken her accession with all its splendid accessions,
coolly,--the former, perhaps, because much mock royalty had somehow
cheapened the real thing, and the latter because trained from infancy to
disregard the pomps and show of this world. Macready jots down among the
little matters in his "Diary," the fact of Her Majesty coming to his
theatre, and waiting awhile after the play to see him and congratulate
him.
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