, sprang largely from character, from the
quick and lively sympathies of an eminently affectionate nature. No one
could have been less theatrical, or less likely in any unworthy way to
seek for popularity; but she knew admirably the occasions or the methods
by which she could strike the imagination and appeal most favourably to
the feelings of her people. She showed this in the very beginning of her
reign when she insisted, in defiance of the opinion of the Duke of
Wellington, on riding herself through the ranks of her troops at her
first review. She showed it on countless other occasions of her long
reign--pre-eminently in her two Jubilees and in her last visit to
Ireland. It is well known that this visit was entirely her own idea. To
many it seemed rash or even positively dangerous. They dwelt upon the
bitter disaffection of a great portion of the Irish people, upon the
danger of mob outrage or even assassination, upon the extreme difficulty
of preventing a royal visit to Ireland from taking a party character and
being regarded as a party triumph or defeat. But the Queen, as Sir
William Harcourt once truly said, 'never feared her people,' and nothing
could be more happy than the manner in which she availed herself of the
new turn given to Irish feeling by the splendid achievements of Irish
soldiers in South Africa, to come over, as if to thank her Irish people
in person, and at the same time to repair in extreme old age a neglect
for which she had been often, and not altogether unjustly, blamed. There
never indeed was a more brilliant and unqualified success. To those who
witnessed the spontaneous and passionate enthusiasm with which she was
everywhere greeted, it seemed as if all bitter feeling vanished at her
presence; and the Irish visit, which was one of the last, was also one
of the brightest pages of her reign. The credit of its most skilful
arrangements belongs chiefly to the officials in Dublin, but the Irish
people will long remember the patient courage with which the aged Queen
went through its fatigues; the tactful kindness and the gracious dignity
with which she won the hearts of multitudes who had never before seen
her or spoken to her; the evident enjoyment with which she responded to
the cordiality of her reception. One feature of that visit was
especially characteristic. It was the Children's Review in Phoenix Park,
where, by the desire of the Queen, 'some fifty thousand children were
brought together to