" I do not think I have done so. I leave
that to her English biographers and eulogists. In my researches, I have
come upon curious things, in the way of pompous panegyric, which would
have made Minerva the Wise, feel foolish, and which Juno the Superb,
would have pronounced "a little too strong, really." I have not, it is
true, pointed out faults--I have not been near enough to "the Queen's
Most Excellent Majesty" to become acquainted with them. I presume she has
them--I hope she has. I think all writers who deny her human weaknesses,
or betray surprise at any exhibition of ordinary human feeling, pay the
Queen a very poor compliment. There is in England a good deal of
exaggerated expression of loyalty. Such words as "gracious" and
"condescending" are habits and forms of speech. Of the real sentiment of
loyalty, I do not think there is an excess--at least not toward the
Queen. When Her Majesty gives way to natural emotion over the death of a
friend, or over a great public calamity, I do not believe she likes to
have the fact made a circumstance of. For instance, when that dreadful
tragedy occurred in the Victoria Hall, at Sunderland, when hundreds of
children perished, by being trampled underfoot and suffocated, the Court
intelligence, which seemed to deepen the sadness in many minds, was that
"Her Majesty was observed to weep on reading the account.
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