having been raised to the peerage more for transcendent ability than
for any other motive--a distinction that never would have been so
bestowed by our early Hanoverian kings, and which offers a marked
contrast to the sort of patronage with which later sovereigns have
distinguished the great writers of their time. A new spirit rules
now; of this no better evidence could be given than this recently
published testimony to the relations between Queen and poet: "Mrs.
Tennyson told us that the poet laureate likes and admires the Queen
personally very much, and enjoys conversation with her. Mrs. Tennyson
generally goes too, and says the Queen's manner towards him is
childlike and charming, and they both give their opinions freely,
even when those differ from the Queen's, which she takes with perfect
good humour, and is very animated herself [Footnote]."

[Footnote: "Anne Gilchrist: her Life and Writings." London: 1887.]

[Illustration: Princess of Wales. _From a Photograph by Walery._]



CHAPTER VII.

CHANGES GOOD AND EVIL.

With the death of Lord Palmerston in 1865, a sort of truce in the
strife of parties, which his supremacy had secured, came to an end.
That supremacy had been imperilled for a moment when the Government
declined to make an armed intervention in the struggle between
Denmark and the German Powers in 1864. Such an intervention would
have been very popular with the English people, who could hardly know