During her last stay
at the Pavilion the Queen was so much displeased at the rudeness of the
people who pressed about her and Prince Albert, when they were trying to
have a quiet little walk on the breezy pier, that I read she appealed to
the magistrates for protection. There was such a large and ever-growing
crowd of excited, hurrying, murmuring, staring Brightonians and strangers
about them that it seemed a rallying cry had gone through the town, from
lip to lip: "The Queen and Prince are out! To the pier! To the pier!"
The Pavilion was never a desirable Marine Palace, as it commanded no good
views of the sea; so Her Majesty's new home in the Isle of Wight had for
her, the Prince and the children every advantage over the one in Brighton
except in bracing sea-air. Osborne has a broad sea view, a charming
beach, to which the woods run down--the lovely woods in which are found
the first violets of the spring and to which the nightingales first come.
The grounds were fine and extensive, to the great delight of the Prince
Consort, who had not only a peculiar passion, but a peculiar talent for
gardening. Indeed, when this many-sided German was born a Prince, a
masterly landscape-gardener was lost to the world--that is, the world
outside the grounds of Windsor, Osborne and Balmoral, which indeed "keep
his memory green.
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