Though it is no secret that he
prefers the society of ladies, not one breath of scandal has ever tinged
his name. Of how many English princes could this be said, in days when
Figaro, quill in hand, inclines his ear to every key-hole?

Upon the one action that were well obliterated from his record I need
not long insist. It seems that the wife of an aged ex-Premier came to
have an audience and pay her respects. Hardly had she spoken when the
Prince, in a fit of unreasoning displeasure, struck her a violent blow
with his clenched fist. Had His Royal Highness not always stood so far
aloof from political contention, it had been easier to find a motive for
this unmannerly blow. The incident is deplorable, but it belongs,
after all, to an earlier period of his life; and, were it not that no
appreciation must rest upon the suppression of any scandal, I should not
have referred to it. For the rest, I find no stain, soever faint, upon
his life. The simplicity of his tastes is the more admirable for that he
is known to care not at all for what may be reported in the newspapers.
He has never touched a card, never entered a play-house. In no stud of
racers has he indulged, preferring to the finest blood-horse ever bred a
certain white and woolly lamb with a blue riband to its neck. This he
is never tired of fondling. It is with him, like the roebuck of Henri
Quatre, wherever he goes.

Suave and simple his life is! Narrow in range, it may be, but with every
royal appurtenance of delight, for to him Loves happy favours are given
and the tribute of glad homage, always, here and there and every other
where. Round the flower-garden at Sandringham runs an old wall of red
brick, streaked with ivy and topped infrequently with balls of stone.
By its iron gates, that open to a vista of flowers, stand two kind
policemen, guarding the Princes procedure along that bright vista.
As his perambulator rolls out of the gate of St. James's Palace, he
stretches out his tiny hands to the scarlet sentinels. An obsequious
retinue follows him over the lawns of the White Lodge, cooing and
laughing, blowing kisses and praising him. Yet do not imagine his life
has been all gaiety! The afflictions that befall royal personages always
touch very poignantly the heart of the people, and it is not too much to
say that all England watched by the cradle-side of Prince Edward in that
dolorous hour, when first the little battlements rose about the rose-red
roof of hi