meet her. No act of kindness could have gone more
directly home to the hearts of the parents, and it left a memory in many
young minds that will never be effaced.

It is rather, however, by the example of a life than by any public
acts that a constitutional Sovereign can impress her personality on
the affections of her people. Of the reign of Queen Victoria it may be
truly said that very few in English history have been so blameless as
this, which was the longest of all. Her Court was a model of quiet
dignity and decorum, singularly free from all the atmosphere of
intrigue and from all suspicion of injudicious or unworthy
favouritism. She managed it as she managed her family, with a happy
mixture of tact and affection; and though she gave her confidence to
many she gave it to such persons and in such a way that it seemed
never to be abused. No domestic life could in all its relations have
been more perfect, and her love of children amounted to a passion.
Among the great female rulers it would be difficult to find one less
like Queen Victoria than the Empress Catherine of Russia, but they had
this common trait of an intense love of children and a great power of
winning their affection. There is a charming letter of Catherine to
Grimm, describing her life among her grandchildren, which might almost
have been written by the English Queen. Her vast family, spread
through many countries, was her abiding interest and delight, and
although she had to pay in full measure the natural penalty of many
bereavements, she at least never knew the dreary loneliness that
clouded the last days of her great predecessor, Elizabeth.

In the early years of her reign she fully filled her place as the
leader of English society. In the plays she patronised, in the art
she preferred, in the restrictions of her Drawing Rooms, in the
fashions she countenanced, in the intimacies she selected or
encouraged, her influence was always healthy and pure, and for some
years it powerfully affected the tone of English society.
Unfortunately, after the great calamity of her widowhood the nerves of
the Queen seem to have been shaken, and though she never intermitted
her political duties and spent daily many hours over her
correspondence, she allowed her social duties to fall too much and too
long into abeyance. She still, it is true, occasionally appeared in
public ceremonies. She laid the first stones of several hospitals and
infirmaries. She presided ove