NEWS OF THE WEEK.
QUEEN VICTORIA. has been away a whole week, and is now immersed in German hospitalities; yet the country manages tolerably to keep up its spirits in the absence of the maternal guard. Not that her departure was unattended by dire portents, which might have deterred a more timid mother of a family from venturing abroad. Three weird or wearied sisters—wearied, that is with the session—Lord John Russell, Lord Campbell, and Mr. Peter Borthwick, were very oracular as to the perils of suffering the Sovereign to depart without appointing a Regent or Lords- Justices : the Queen went, no Lords-Justices were appointed, yet we and the constitution are pretty well where we were. In the very presence before her Majesty had left the House of Lords, the Duke of Argyll—forgetting the throne-steps, illustrating the ineptitude of the human frame for retrogression, and receiving from the floor of the House a smart memento on the subject of Lord Monboddo's theory—let fall from velvet cushion the imperial -crown, thus typifying the downfall of the great from dignity and luxury : yet we do not hear of any steps taken to depose Queen Victoria. Nay, though several jewels were knocked off the illustrious bauble, we hear not of Mr. O'Connell's havino. wrested Ireland from the Queen of Great Britain, or even of the threatened "independence of the Isle of Man." Perhaps the averting of that omen may be in part ascribed to the vigilance and energy of the Housekeeper of the Lords; who with much intrepidity stepped in front of the throne and guarded the scattered jewels from any " improper search "—that is, from being purloined by any of the noble Peers or distinguished tisiters. So that whether the jewels after the vulgar metaphor, mean dependencies, or after Cornella's phrase, children, all is safe : the empire is not dismembered, and the Royal little Gracchi remain at Osborne House, and play with their sisters upon the beach with the most delightful condescension towards the shingle and surf.
After all, there would have been something like bathos if the Queen had gone to the trouble of appointing Lords-Justices, and then had done no more than travel in the very quiet and com- monplace way that has "distinguished her journey. Her Majesty seems to have gone for neither more nor less than to see some- thing of the tour to the Rhine. Some talk of a Congress of crowned heads, with profound political views ; but we suspect the only views contemplated are those common to all travellers— scenery, public buildings, and spectacles ; and that, except the interchange of amenities, the only political advantages accruing will be those experiences which Queen Victoria will share with so many barristers, Government clerks, and other gentlemen, during the long vacation and a trip to the Rhine. Her Majesty, however, will have seen some sights neither uninteresting nor un- instructfve to the English legislatrix. For instance, the excellent 'order of the Belgian railways will suggest the possibility of avoid- ing such accidents as that dozen or so which happened here within about as many days ; while any needless forms which encum- ber that order may suggest how irksome must be all superfluous restraint on a people still more accustomed to freedom than the worthy Belgians. Ceremonial is very- apt to be ridiculous in the
eyes of those who do not warm to share irit of the hour. The soldierly Landwehr of Prussia, the regular militia which forms the vast reserve of the standing army, may suggest doubts whether our plan of keeping up the forces is the most intelligent, convenient, or economical. The universal popularity- of music among the Germans may prove that the project, which some count so strange as well as new in England, of making it a branch of general education, is neither impossible nor useless ; for the music-loving Germans are among the nations some of the most moral, the most orderly, and the most easily-governed. She will -see the birth-place of her husband, the home of his family—with the one painful void in it made since her marriac,o.e : and she will find that even to royal personages " sunt lachrynne rerum, et mentem mortalia tang-unt,"—if she needed to go to Germany to learn that, as easily learned, perchance, by the wife at Windsor. At all events, such excursions cannot but be useful : "home- keeping youths have ever homely wits" : there is no reason why Queen Victoria should be debarred from a trip taken by every young gentleman or lady in her dominions ; and even if her geo- graphical knowledge already extends beyond the bounds of her expedition, she cannot but return from seeing humanity in its different phases, we hope not a sadder, but a wiser woman. And the wiser its Queen, its "first Estate," the better for England. Why, then, obstruct these practical studies in living politics and government, by cumbersome and needless forms like the ap- pointment of Lords-Justices! Seeking "free trade" in all things, let us not impose restraints on the export or import of royalty.
