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Art. 9.-THE TRAINING OF A QUEEN.

1. The Girlhood of Queen Victoria. A Selection from Her Majesty's Diaries, 1832-1840. Edited by Viscount Esher. Two vols. London: Murray, 1912.

2. Correspondence of Sarah Spencer, Lady Lyttelton, 1787-1870. Edited by the Hon. Mrs Hugh Wyndham. London: Murray, 1912.

THERE is a certain irony in the fact that the century which more than any other produced revolutionary changes in the standing of women, and in the ideas current about them, was in this country identified with a woman who, rigid in many directions, was nowhere so rigid or so unchanging as in her attitude towards her own sex. It is too early yet to get an unbiased view of Queen Victoria in relation to her work, or to strike a balance between the limitations belonging to her character and those imposed upon her by tradition; we can only note the singular paradox of her life. That she was in training for her task from an early age would be evident enough from this Journal, were it not already known. But the training, though it aimed at a single and clearly defined object, was confused and contradictory in itself. The young Princess knew that she was to rule over her country, and she was encouraged to take a high view of the sacredness of the charge. Simultaneously she learnt, not only by direct precept, which is the least part of education, but from all the ideas and influences surrounding her, that the charge was one which must bring her into direct conflict with the sacred laws governing her duty as a woman. Only a skilled casuist could have done justice to the ethics of her position. A Quaker divinely called to lead a military expedition would find himself in much the same case; conscience would impose upon him duties which would be crimes in his fellow religionists as well as repugnant to his own feelings. All rulers are exempt to some degree from the laws of conduct binding ordinary men. Queen Victoria was so exempt to a degree that was extraordinary if not unnatural.

The discrepancy between her actual and her theoretical obligations might have produced inconvenient results

upon a mind more speculative or more sensitive to mental climates. Man, as philosophers inform us, is so constituted that by telling him he is a fool you may make him believe he is one. Had Victoria been placed in France or Russia or some other country where ideas react more immediately upon life, she might easily have been convinced by all that she read, heard, and dutifully accepted about women, that she could not by any means fulfil her task. As it was, with a truly British knack of separating views from conduct, she mounted the throne with an alacrity and self-confidence that amazed those who were more accustomed to consider what women should be than what they could be or were. How the Queen herself, then and afterwards, reconciled her active exercise of authority with the views she is known to have held about feminine duty, is a problem before which curiosity must retire unsatisfied. From time to time she expressed herself with dogmatic force upon the subject, but apparently she never attempted to examine the ground of her conviction, or to pursue the anomalies of her case to their logical conclusion. Probably she took the more pious course of regarding herself as an exception created by inscrutable Providence for some good but not-to-be-questioned purpose, as a man separates his mother or his daughter from the great mass of women, condemned by nature to be either rakes or dolls.

That this was her attitude is amusingly apparent in some of her talk with Lord Melbourne, whose views about women may be described as classical. Except on one point, they fitted in very comfortably with the Queen's notions of things. No woman should touch pen and ink, Melbourne assures her; and he gives as the reason that women have too much passion and too little sense.' These faults are more likely to disqualify a queen than a writer; and the Queen's meek acquiescence would seem to imply that, in her own view, she was fit only to register automatically the decrees of those with less passion and more sense than herself. It did in fact imply nothing of the sort, because she escaped from the dilemma by the simple expedient of endorsing the criticism as regards women in general, and firmly rejecting it in the case of the Queen. Drastic as were Melbourne's generalisations on this side, his detailed

judgments-as witnessed by some of his comments on history quoted by the Queen-were considerably more enlightened and sympathetic than hers. It is not good for anyone to be self-separated from his fellows; and there can be little doubt that the Queen's character to some extent suffered because, being a queen, the ideas of the time compelled her to be also a super-woman. The autocratic element in her was certainly not diminished by her practice of regarding herself as a being in more ways than one removed from the common lot. But the blame for any regrettable results must be divided between her and the old-fashioned ideas about women which coincided with her advent to the throne.

With her training on the purely intellectual side the Queen in after years expressed some discontent. Her information was slight, no doubt, as appears clearly enough from the candid pages of her Journal; but perhaps the Dean of Chester and her other teachers were not altogether in fault. Neither here nor elsewhere is there much evidence of her possessing a disinterested love of knowledge, or any great capacity to gain experience from books. Life at first hand, rather than through books, was her concern; and it is probable that, like most women of a practical and positive turn of mind, she only learnt with ease and profit under a directly utilitarian incentive. For the most part, her remarks upon her studies show her interest in them to have been narrowly specialised; reading in history or in Shakespeare, for instance, becoming strictly a means of discovering the good and bad qualities of rulers in the past, with the lessons to be learnt from them for a 19th century purpose. Still more to her taste was the contemplation, under the guidance of her uncle Leopold (who governs Belgium so beautifully'), of living Kings and Queens, and of the constitutions under which they ruled their countries, France, Spain, or Portugal. From the time she was fifteen, Princess Victoria began to express herself upon public affairs and to learn the vocabulary of her craft. This, and her wonderful habits of industry and of accurate observation and statement, were probably the best that she gained from her bringing up. They were not exciting acquisitions, but she might have done worse; and without them it is possible that her enthusiasm would Vol. 218.-No. 434.

not so easily have survived the drudgery of her office. With what zest she came to it is shown in her Journal'I have immensely to do, but I like it very much... I delight in this work.'

By a pleasant coincidence the successful Queen who sincerely believed that women were not made to govern, got her most masterly schooling at the hands of an instructor who thought it' tiresome to educate and tiresome to be educated.' Lord Melbourne wore his scholarship and his practised knowledge of men and affairs with a negligent ease which, while it did not deceive, no doubt commended itself to his royal pupil. With all her docility and willingness to learn, Victoria was fastidious about ways and means. The Journal records some girlish strictures upon Croker for his superior tone and want of tact which remind us that the writer in after years was to quarrel with the most powerful of her Prime Ministers because he talked to her as if she were a public meeting. Lord Melbourne's method, if method it can be called, did not err on the side of superiority. His expressed views upon systematic education were of the rather sceptical nature which still appeals to the majority of his countrymen: 'My opinion is it doesn't much matter what is taught, so long as what's taught is well taught.' The Normal Schools of which there was talk in the spring of 1839 would, he thought, breed the most conceited set of blockheads ever known'; and the education of circumstances was the best.' These are views and prejudices calculated to reassure the half-cultured. From the first the Queen put herself unreservedly in the hands of her Prime Minister who was also her private secretary and tutor. His 'honest, blunt and amusing' manner not only won her liking but gave her a sense of security, of which she felt a peculiar need in a world which she had already recognised as one of deceit. His politics seemed to her perfectly in accord with those of her uncle Leopold, so that she had no hesitation in accepting them as the best there are.' She took unremitting pains to make his knowledge her own, unhindered by petty vanities. She was not ashamed to ask questions, nor to confess when she had not understood. 'I said I was so stupid I must ask him to explain again. He explained like a kind father would do to his child.'

There was no end to the things he had to explain. One day it was the Civil List and the Household Expenditure ('his ideas about all these things are so reasonable and so excellent'); on another a difficult question of Army administration, upon which it would be his duty to offer a decided opinion, though the Army is a department of government I do not very well understand'; on a third would be explained' in the clearest manner' the principles of Colonial policy ('an Empire like this cannot stand still-it must go on or slip back'), the position of the Irish Church, or another question of great difficulty, which is the Ballot.' There were besides Foreign Affairs, incessantly, and the stock business of administration— Revenue, Education, Poor-laws, and from time to time what Ministers were about to discuss in the Cabinet; 'it's right you should know.' In addition to the state papers which Lord Melbourne thought it necessary to read to her himself in his fine soft voice, there were boxes of dispatches for her to look through, and important letters that she must see, so that both she and her Minister sometimes confessed themselves quite muzzed' with reading. The Queen worked hard in her own thorough and uncompromising fashion; and, as the instruction proceeded and was assimilated, Lord Melbourne, besides placing before her his decided opinion, began to ask also for hers. Thus, in connexion with the offer of the Irish Mastership of the Rolls to O'Connell, she states that he asked her twice over if she had any particular feeling about it.

Of more importance than familiarity with the subject matter of government was it to acquire the right tone and attitude proper to the constitutional ruler of England. Here Lord Melbourne had some advantage over King Leopold, who was perhaps more learned in constitutions than in the temper of the English people. Almost every page of these volumes, from the date of the Queen's accession, proves how singularly happy was the accident which brought the young and impressionable Queen at the outset of her career under the influence of this one mind. Saxon, Lord Melbourne defined his ancestry in answer to a question of the Queen. However that may be, he possessed those virtues and that combination of qualities and defects which are generally regarded as belonging to the soil, and in particular a tolerant, easy-going wisdom