seemed so real to her after the long years that had rolled between. 'In looking back,' she wrote, 'it seems to me that the lightest things keep at the top, while the more important sink and are lost. This may be in mercy-the heaviest might sink us.'

To the last she kept her intellectual activity and her keen sympathy, as the beautiful touches which occur in her letters show. Here is one: What wonderful and beautiful things must grow out of sorrow and bereavement, that now, with only our dim anticipations we are able quietly to endure the tremendous griefs of life!'

'She taught me one lesson I shall never forget,' writes a friend. 'I was smarting under a trouble for which there seemed no redress and no human help, and to her I had confided it, sure of her ready sympathy and attention. In two words her help and her comfort were given. 'Accept it," she said. There is nothing else for you, and nothing better." And so I found it.'

Thus were the years spent, doing so much with head and heart, preserving all the early habits of loving consideration for others, that old age, sorrow and bereavement, seemed to have no power over the bright active spirit that kept its youth of feeling green to the end. The same delight in Nature went on, in the seasons and the flowers, and the wild birds she cherished and cared for winter and summer, and her home was made pleasant and beautiful with the same touch which implies infinite pains and infinite taste as when her dear ones were there to enjoy it. She was not alone indeed, a granddaughter lived with her, and there is a pretty sketch of the visits from the grandchildren, to whom Bessie only allowed a quarter of an hour, beginning to paw and fret when that had expired. Heads would then be thrust out of the window with, 'Oh, Bessie dear, do be quiet, we haven't half done yet. Do stand still; there's a dear, do;' then perhaps Bessie would give another five minutes, at the end of which the father's voice would call, 'Come girls, come; I can't hold Bessie any longer,' and a scramble into the carriage would follow. Grandmother looking on at the fun all the time, the proudest and happiest of grandmothers.'

It was a pretty sight to see her standing at the gate watching her precious ones till they were out of sight, then stopping to speak to any poor neighbours who might be passing, or men returning from work, and asking them in to look at the flowers, and giving them a bunch to take home to 'missus' and the children.

It is the picture of a life independent of circumstances, because the heart was fixed on an unchanging God; yet sometimes the undertone was heard, as when in that first spring without Anna she wrote, 'Still I am sad. The primroses coming' (mother and daughter

had peculiarly delighted in spring), ' and no darling to carry them to. The birds beginning to sing to each other, and my bird is flown away, and will sing no more to me here, and I am deaf, and cannot hear her singing in that enclosed garden full of perfumes, though I am sure she is there, and I rejoice for that, but cannot help saying, "How long!""

Yet it did not seem long till her ears ' were to hear the footfall of the messenger who would call her away.' She was full of deeds of kindness to the last, considering the poor, the tempted, the sorrowful. Nothing was too little for her that gave pleasure to others. Now it was the artistic needle-work which occupied her last winter, done with such perfection that it seemed to the recipients 'too precious to use; ' now the thought which gave a girl a chance for a neat and tidy home by furnishing it with the necessaries, instead of standing aloof because her marriage had been silly and improvident. Thus it went on to the end. 'Within four or five days of her death she listened eagerly to what a friend had to say on emigration--the subject which had occupied her mind during the previous winter.'

'Almost my dear mother's latest expression was, “I do not feel as if I were dying-only going into another room in the same house,” writes her son. 'To her the Father's presence made wherever she was His house, and all the plants, and birds, and flowers, and sunshine part of its furniture that He had put there.'

Her last birthday was in April, and she was able to enjoy the lovetokens which it brought her. Gently and gradually her strength gave way, yet still a word of sorrow from one she loved drew a quick response, as is shown by a letter to a friend scarcely a fortnight before her death on June 10, 1884, at the age of 87.

On that morning, she begged to be lifted from her bed to the couch beside the window. It was a glorious summer day-the birds sang, the fair earth was at its fairest. She seemed to take one look around, but no one could tell whether she saw anything or heard the singing of the birds. Consciousness ceased. It was as though some Strong One had taken her in His arms that she might not feel the touch of the cold river of death.' And when she awoke on the other side, she was at home

'Where the child has found the mother,

Where the mother finds the child,

Where dear families are gathered,

That were scattered on the wild.'-H. Bonar.

MARY GORGES.

VICTORIA, R.I.

T

I.

INTRODUCTION.

HE longest and most illustrious reign of English History has come to an end. Queen Victoria, after ruling her people for sixty-three years, was called away on January 22, 1901. In 1887 the Jubilee year of her reign was celebrated with imposing ceremonies. It was the first time that an English queen had reigned so long, and it was natural that her subjects everywhere should unite with the sovereign in commemorating an event so rare and remarkable. The celebration of the jubilee of George III. was at the beginning of the fiftieth year of his reign. By the desire of the Queen, the day of celebration in her case was postponed till the completion of the half-century.

The prolongation of the Queen's reign for ten years beyond the Jubilee, making her reign longer than that of any other sovereign, was the occasion for another celebration, and the way in which her Majesty came forth to praise God at St. Paul's Cathedral and to receive the devotion of her people won all hearts. May 24, 1899, was the Queen's eightieth birthday, and this was kept with great rejoicing throughout the land.

Her closing years were shadowed by the South African War. By her tender sympathy she drew all hearts closer to herself. It is not too much to say that the whole civilised world watched by her dying bed, and mourned when she passed away.

Our simple task is to deal not so much with the history of the reign of the Queen as to speak of her personal character.

Empress and Queen, yet not the more revered,
Not the more loved, for these resounding words
Than for the lowlier titles-gracious, good;
The worthiest of women ever crowned.

II.

EARLY LIFE.

Of the early life of the Queen, her childhood and girlhood, so much has been written that only a very brief notice is needed. Sprung from.a

long line of kings and princes, her father could trace back his descent for nearly a thousand years to Alfred the Great. Her mother's family shows an unbroken line for nine hundred years from a German prince. Her grandfather was George III., who ascended the throne in 1760, and died in 1820. He was succeeded by his eldest son, George IV., who had been Prince Regent during the long and frequent illnesses of his father, and who died in 1830. There are still a few aged people who remember the terrible gloom that overshadowed the country on the death of the Princess Charlotte, the only daughter of George IV., and heiress to the British throne. There have been occasions of national mourning before and since, but none exactly like that dark day in November, 1817. In the grief for the loss of the Princess Charlotte in childbirth, having a husband like Prince Leopold, the hopes of the nation which had centred on her life were suddenly extinguished. To George IV. succeeded the sailor King William IV., whose excellent and pious wife, Queen Adelaide, kept alive some of the respect for royalty, which had been sorely tried.

After the death of the Princess Charlotte, King William IV. being childless, the prospect of possible succession to the throne was opened to the younger sons of George III. Only two were as yet married in the manner allowed by English law: the Duke of York, who was childless; and the Duke of Cumberland, whose first living child was not born till 1819. In 1818, the year after the death of the Princess Charlotte, the remaining three brothers all married-the Duke of Cambridge, on May 7, a princess of Hesse Cassel; the Duke of Clarence, on July 11, Adelaide, a princess of Meiningen; and the Duke of Kent, on the same day, a sister of Prince Leopold of Coburg, afterwards king of the Belgians, the widowed Princess of Leiningen.

The Duke of Kent had early entered the army, and served with distinction abroad, at Gibraltar, and in Canada. Being a man of liberal views, he was never liked by his brothers, and his father George III., had treated him coldly. His income was miserably small, and he had accumulated debts and encumbrances which kept him in constant difficulties. After his marriage to the Princess Victoria of Leiningen, he lived at her castle of Amorbach in Bavaria. He was not forgotten in England, for he had been a good citizen, and took great interest in philanthropic labours. He was patron, or otherwise connected with almost every charitable institution of that time, and it is recorded that in one year, 1816, he presided at above seventy charity meetings. He was patron of the British and Foreign School Society, of the Anti-Slavery Society, the Bible Society, the London Jews Society, and other good institutions. As long ago as 1793 he was patron of the first Sunday Free School at Quebec, when serving

in Canada; and he was the first commander of a regiment who established a regimental school. It was with great joy the people heard of his marriage, and they hoped he would return to England, and become the chief of the royal line.

His wife was worthy of him, personally charming and attractive, endowed with warm feelings, affectionate and unselfish, full of sympathy, and generous. It was his own firm belief that he would one day come to the throne, and that the Duchess would give him an heir or heiress. My brothers,' he used to say, ' are not so strong as I am, and have not lived so regular a life. I expect to outlive them the crown will come to me and my children.'

all; It was his ardent wish that his first child should be born in England. The event is likely to be about the end of May, or soon after. My own wish is that the day might be the 4th of June, as that is the birthday of my revered father, and that the child, too, like him, should be Briton born.'

He came to England in the spring of 1819, and shortly afterwards the mother gave birth, at Kensington Palace, to a princess. A room in the Palace bears on a gilt plate upon one of its walls, the inscription, 'In this room Queen Victoria was born, May 24, 1819.' În another room, which was the Princess's nursery, are still to be seen some of her toys. The father was delighted with his daughter. He often said, with fond pride, 'Take care of her, for she will be Queen of England.' It was his anxiety about her in childhood that led him to go to Devonshire, in order,' as he said, 'to cheat the winter.' The little girl grew strong and healthy, but the father, through neglect of his own health, died in January, 1820, at Sidmouth, whither they had gone for the winter. On the last evening of his life he executed his will, nominating and appointing the Duchess of Kent sole guardian of his dear child, the Princess Alexandrina Victoria.

The poor widowed Duchess, owing to the debts of the Duke, found herself in a very uncomfortable position. But with the help of her brother, Prince Leopold, she resolved to carry out the desires of her husband. She returned to Kensington, and at once commenced that guardianship and training of the child, for which the Queen herself and the British nation owe her the deepest gratitude.

In after years, on the occasion of an address of congratulation to the Princess Victoria on her coming of age, the Duchess of Kent said, in her reply: 'I pass over the earlier part of my connection with this country. I will merely briefly observe that my late regretted consort's circumstances, and my duties obliged us to reside in Germany; but the Duke of Kent at much inconvenience, and I at great personal risk, returned to England that our child should be "born and bred a