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GOOD EFFECT OF PRINCE'S SPEECH.

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to run after what is pleasantest, invariably end in disappointment.'

These were pleasant words, confirming as they did the faith which had led King Leopold to select the Prince as the consort for his niece. Highly, however, as he rated his nephew's powers, even he seems to have found it hard to believe, that a speech of such a character should have been spoken, not read. The Queen hastens a few days later to assure him, in answer to a letter written under this impression, that the Prince spoke this, as he did all his speeches, having first prepared and written them down. This,' Her Majesty adds, he does so well, that no one believes that he is ever nervous-which he is.'

In another letter of the Queen's to her uncle some days afterwards (2nd April), this passage occurs: Good Stockmar is too partial to me; to Aibert he never can be enough so, for what he does, and how he works, is really prodigious, and always for the good of others. I am sometimes anxious lest he should overwork himself, and, in fact, he was not well in the autumn and winter; but he is, thank God, quite well again now.'

For bodily disorder brought on by mental fatigue-and the Prince's illness was of this nature-there is no such medicine as success. So far, this had attended him in the great venture on which he was now fairly embarked, and with it had come many unmistakeable signs, that he had not striven in vain to win the confidence of his adopted country,that confidence, which, as he had himself said, was of slow growth, but which, whether he should win it or not, it was a necessity of his nature that he should deserve. Within the next few days he received a gratifying proof, that his efforts had not been in vain, and from a quarter, where confidence was most to be desired.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE breaking-up of Parliament for the Easter recess enabled the Queen and Prince to escape from town for the enjoyment of a brief holiday at Windsor Castle. The country and its pursuits at all times wrought a charm upon the Prince's spirits, and it is obvious, from the following passage in a letter of the Queen's to Baron Stockmar (6th April), that a respite from labour had not come to him an hour too soon. 'Of ourselves I can give you, I am happy to say, the best acMy dearest Prince has, thank God, been giving himself a rest, and was himself astonished at his disinclination to work, which Sir James Clark was delighted at. It is absolutely necessary to give the brain rest to enable it to work again with advantage, and I always am uneasy, lest he should overstrain his powers. We have enjoyed being here very much, and I have been out a great deal.'

count.

In this interval of comparative rest, which, however, was filled with an amount of work sufficient for the energies of the most active brain, the Prince found time to devise a system for the utilisation of sewage, which he subsequently perfected, with the assistance of Mr. Lyon Playfair, and applied with success on the Osborne estate. "I think,' he writes to Baron Stockmar, I have made an important discovery "for the conversion of sewage into agricultural manure" and "drainage of towns." This has become for England an important public question. All previous plans would have cost millions, mine costs next to nothing.' Fil

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PROPOSAL BY DUKE OF WELLINGTON

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tration from below upwards, through some appropriate medium, which retained the solids, and set free the fluid sewage for irrigation, was the principle of the scheme. Where the fall of the ground is considerable, as it is at Osborne, the arrangement works cheaply and with effect; but this is the condition which, in the case of towns, is almost always wanting. The hopes of the Prince that he had done something towards solving what still remains one of the most urgent of our social problems, were, therefore, disappointed.

The Prince had, during the stay at Windsor, to consider and dispose of a proposition by the Duke of Wellington, which came upon him by surprise, that he should succeed the Duke in the office of Commander-in-Chief. On the 3rd of April the Duke, who was then on a visit to the Castle, submitted his views in an interview with the Queen and Prince. The same day a brief entry in the Prince's Diary records that he was himself not very eager for the plan.' And it is curious to observe that within the next few days this Diary contains more entries about his sewage scheme, which he hoped might result in a great public good, than about a proposal, which had in it so much to flatter the selfesteem, and to captivate the ambition of even the least selfish.

In the letter to Baron Stockmar just quoted, Her Majesty says, The Prince will write to you soon upon some important conversations he had with the Duke. It is a pleasure and a wonder to see how powerful and how clear the mind of this wonderful man is, and how honest and how loyal and kind he is to us both. His loss, when it comes, will be a thoroughly irreparable one.' To Baron Stockmar the Prince himself writes, two days later :

'Dear Stockmar,—-To-day I have an excellent opportunity

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TO THE PRINCE.

253

for writing to you, but no time to do so. I confine myself to telling you that the question, whether or not I am to be Commander-in-Chief after the death of the old Duke, has been discussed by me with him, when he brought it forward as a plan which had been cherished by him for years, and expressed with the utmost frankness the political importance to myself of my adoption of his plan. Herewith I send you copy of my letter to the Duke, in which the result of our conference and my final decision are contained. Of the latter I hope you will approve, of the former I have made full notes, which I will show you when you come back. The occasion seemed to me peculiarly apt for putting on record in writing my views as to my own position. The Duke's answer will show

you that he accepts them as sound, and Lord John, to whom to-day I gave the notes and the letter to read, has also expressed himself to the same effect.

'Buckingham Palace, 8th April, 1850.'

The following are the notes referred to in the Prince's letter, and which have hitherto been only partially made public:

'Windsor Castle, 3rd April, 1850.

'I went yesterday to see the Duke of Wellington in his room after his arrival at the Castle. Our conversation soon turning to the question of the vacant Adjutant-Generalship,1 asked the Duke what he was prepared to recommend? He said, he had had a letter from Lord John Russell on the subject, recommending the union of the two offices of AdjutantGeneral and Quartermaster-General; and he placed his answer to it in my hands. He then proceeded to say, that he thought it necessary, that we should cast our eyes a little before us. He was past eighty years, and would next month

The office had become vacant by the death, in March, of Sir James Macdonald.

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DUKE OF WELLINGTON

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enter

upon

his 82nd year. He was, thank God! very well and strong, and ready to do anything, but he could not last for ever, and in the natural course of events, we must look to a change ere long. As long as he was there, he did the duty of all the offices himself. . . . To form a new office by uniting the duties of Adjutant-General and QuartermasterGeneral in the person of a Chief of the Staff (as was the practice in some foreign armies) would be to appoint two different persons to do the same duty, which would never answer. The Chief of the Staff would again have to subdivide his office into an Adjutant-General's and a Quartermaster-General's department, as at present, and nothing would be gained.

'However, the Duke saw the greatest advantage in having a Chief of the Staff, if after his death that arrangement should be made, which he had always looked to and which he considered the best, viz. that I should assume the command of the Army.

'He was sure I could not do it without such a Chief of the Staff, who would be responsible before the public, and carry on the official communications with the other Government departments. For this contingency he was prepared to organise the machinery now, and he would answer for its

success.

'I answer to the Duke that I should be very slow to make up my mind to undertake so great a responsibility; that I was not sure of my fitness for it, on account of my want of military experience, &c. &c. (to which the Duke replied, that with good honest intentions one could do a great deal, and that he should not be the least afraid on that score), whether I could perform the duties consistently with my other avocations, as I should not like to undertake what I could not carry through, not knowing what time and attention they would require. The Duke answered, that it