NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Oust Queen is at home again, after spending some weeks in Ger- many, and nearly two days with King Louis Philippe at Eu. The youthful Monarch has undergone some vicissitude. The city of Cologne has been within an ace of returning her present of money towards finishing the cathedral, because it was not enough; the good folks seeming to forget that importunate begging is at least as mean as nearness. But indeed Queen Victoria is not charge- able with meanness, seeing that she is allowanced by Parliament and importuned by all the world that wants money—a large race. On passing Antwerp, King Leopold would make her dine with him; wherefore she lost the tide; thus playing the involuntary Canute, and conveying to Lord Aberdeen, Mr. Anson, and other persons in need of it, the lesson that time and tide wait for no man, nor even for a royal lady. At Treport there was another tidal lesson : the water was too shallow, the barge could not approach the dry land, and the Queen was threatened with the odious task of waiting. But Louis Philippe was there fertile in resources : he spied a bathing-machine—it was made his carriage for the nonce; and in that cousin-german to a travelling-fair-van he conveyed to the shores of France the Sovereign of the British Isles. A commonplace man of royalty would have hesitated at that inroad on etiquette, and would have suffered the fair potentate to endure that shocking breach of royal prerogative, helpless delay : but Louis Philippe was equal to the emergency ; he knew on what side royalty could most pleasantly and easily bear the rub, and he brought it off triumphing over circumstances. After these checkered fortunes on the perverse flood, Queen Victoria and her Prince landed safely at the Isle of Wight. They hastened to the nuisery ; while Lord Aberdeen pushed on for Downing Street.
