Carlyle fired a perfect _mitrailleuse_ from his grave.
The Prince's English biographer calls the Humboldt publication
"scandalous." Yet the English, who sternly condemn the most kindly
personalities of living authors (especially American authors), seem to
have rather a relish for these peppery posthumous revelations of genius,
--often saddening post-mortem exhibitions of its own moral weaknesses and
disease. No great English author dies nowadays, without his most
attached, faithful and familiar friends being in mortal terror lest they
be found spitted on the sharp shafts of his, or worse, _her_ satire.
During those Windsor festivities, the little Prince of Wales was shown to
the people at an upper window and pronounced satisfactory. A Court lady
described him at the time, as "the most magnificent baby in the Kingdom."
And perhaps he was. He was fair and plump, with pleasant blue eyes. It
seems to me that after all the years, he must look to-day, with his
fresh, open face, a good deal as he did on the day when his nurse dandled
him at the Castle window. He still has the fairness, the plumpness, the
pleasant blue eyes. It is true he has not very abundant hair now, but he
had not much then.
Tytler, the historian, gives a charming picture of him.
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