estion her sympathies, unlike
those of her people, were decidedly with Germany, and although she was
fully sensible of the misgovernment of some of the Italian States, she
was not favourable to that cause of Italian unity which Lord John
Russell and Lord Palmerston so strenuously upheld. Her nature, which
was very frank, made it impossible for her, even if she desired it, to
conceal her opinions, and she devoted much time and pains to making
herself acquainted with the details of every question as it arose. She
made it a rule to sign no paper that she had not read. She did not
hesitate fully to apprise her Ministers of her views when they
differed from their own, and she enforced her views by argument and
remonstrance. She more than once drew up memoranda of her dissent from
the opinions of her Foreign Minister, and insisted on their being
brought before the Cabinet for consideration. In the formation of a
new Ministry she more than once exercised her power of deciding to
whom the succession of the first places should be offered. After an
adverse vote of the House of Commons, she considered herself fully
authorised to decide whether she would accept the resignation of a
Minister or submit the issue to the test of a dissolution, and there
were occasions on which she remonstrated with her Ministers on their
too ready determination to resign.

At the same time it is certain that the Queen fulfilled with
perfection that most difficult duty of an able constitutional
Sovereign--the duty of yielding her convictions to those of her
responsible Ministers and acting faithfully with Ministers she
distrusted. To a Sovereign with clear views and a more than common
force of character this must often have been very painful, and to have
fulfilled it faithfully and with no loss of dignity is no small merit.
It is the universal testimony of all who served her, that no Sovereign
ever supported her successive Ministers with a more perfect loyalty or
held the scales between contending parties with a more complete
impartiality. No one understood better to what point a constitutional
Sovereign may press her opinions and at what point she is bound to
give way; and while maintaining her rightful authority she never in
any degree transgressed its bounds. In the very beginning of her reign
she showed this quality in a high degree. She looked up to Lord
Melbourne with an almost filial affection, and there were peculiar
reasons why his great oppon