sits to Florence and San Remo he
was received with demonstrations of popular respect, and at the latter
place, shortly after his final retirement from office in 1866, he said,
in reply to an address: 'I thank you with all my heart for the honour
you have done me. I rejoice with you in seeing Italy free and
independent, with a monarchical government and under a patriotic king.
The Italian nation has all the elements of a prosperous political life,
which had been wanting for many centuries. The union of religion,
liberty, and civil order will increase the prosperity of this beautiful
country.'

[Sidenote: THE PRINCE CONSORT]

A still more delicate problem of international policy, and one which
naturally came much nearer home to English susceptibilities, arose in
the autumn of 1861--a year which was rendered memorable on one side of
the Atlantic by the outbreak of the Civil War, and on the other by the
national sorrow over the unexpected death, at the early age of
forty-two, of the Prince Consort. The latter event was not merely an
overwhelming and irrevocable loss to the Queen, but in an emphatic sense
a misfortune--it might almost be said a disaster--to the nation. It was
not until the closing years of his life that the personal nobility and
political sagacity of Prince Albert were fully recognised by the English
people. Brought up in a small and narrow German Court, the Prince
Consort in the early years of her Majesty's reign was somewhat formal in
his manners and punctilious in his demands. The published records of the
reign show that he was inclined to lean too much to the wisdom, which
was not always 'profitable to direct,' of Baron Stockmar, a trusted
adviser of the Court, of autocratic instincts and strong prejudices, who
failed to understand either the genius of the English constitution or
the temper of the English race. It is an open secret that the Prince
Consort during the first decade of the reign was by no means popular,
either with the classes or the masses. His position was a difficult one,
for he was, in the words of one of the chief statesmen of the reign, at
once the 'permanent Secretary and the permanent Prime Minister' of the
Crown; and there were undoubtedly occasions when in both capacities he
magnified his office. Even if the Great Exhibition of 1851 had been
memorable for nothing else, it would have been noteworthy as the period
which marked a new departure in the Prince's relations with all gra