A FRENCH REPROACH AND AN ENGLISH APOLOGY.
THERE was one purpose of the Queen's grand fete last week dis- covered only by our sensitive neighbours over the water : ever pricked to the quick by their point of honour, they were sorely alive to the fact that the whole affair was no more than a splendid insult to France 1 In the days of the July and the Quintuple Stave-trade Treaties, the days of Crecy and Poictiers should be forgotten-; whereas France, in her own imagination, again graced the triumph of England, because in the age of Waterloo were re- vived the pageants of the age of the earlier victories. But our worthy neighbours overlook the difficulty of choice. If the young Queen of 'England and her chosen spouse desired to personate a couple on England's ancient throne, what scope had they Ihr selec- tion, without disastrous associations of some kind ? To begin with the latest reign of a picturesque costume, the last before the Dutch Prince introduced dulness and ugly dresses,that of &MRS the Second—should ALBERT play the sneaking fugitive, the patron of JEFFREYS, and VICTORIA -enact ANNE HYDE, or the Queen that fled into exile ? Should they have personated the abandoned CHARLES and his plain neglected wife? CROMWELL may be passed over, as unsuitable for royal sport. Then comes CHARLES the First, the man that defied the law and corrupted the Judges, to perish on the scaffold, and HENRIETTA, who henpecked 'her hus- band and fled by night with her babe. Next is JAMES the First and his Danish wife—the misshapen pedant and bungling state- craftsman, stained with RALEIGH'S blood. 'Would our French friends have had VICTORIA appear as ELIzAnErn—and Prince ALBERT as LEtcEsrEn?—oh tie ! Should they have been 'Maar and ?Imre, a Queen Regnant and her 'husband, with Smithfield fires and conjugal misery ? 'Hamer the Eighth and one 'of his murdered wives? -HENRY the Seventh, who married the niece of the man that he 'had caused to be slain before his eyes? The crookback RICHARD and his'bride, his victim's widow ? EDWARD the Fourth and ELIZABETH WoonviLLa, a rake and-the adventurer that trapped him'? Idiotical HENRY the Sixth and the virago MARGARET? HENRY the Fifth and KATHARINEP—France forbid that! Should Prince ALBERT have been the audacious Boustonaolia, the usurp- ing HENRY the Fourth ? or Rieumro the 'Second, perishing 'by vio- lence ? EDWARD the Second, shrieking in Berkeley 'Castle ? ED- WARD the First, who swindled Wales, betrayed the Scots, and was the father of the minion just named ? HENRY the Third, called in the Paston Letters " a squinting fool," whose reign was one at- tempt to cheat his people out of the Charter? Joon, The 'name for all that is base, mean, andcruel; whose vices were the Strength of the Chartists 'of those days? Cceur de Lion, who roved from BERENGARIA 'and his usurped throne, to spend his people's money in Syrian wars ? HENRY the Second, the sport of bigotry and of filial impieties? STEPHEN, who scarcely sat upon the throne? HENRY the'First, the usurper of a crown, the husband of a nun, and the father of children drowned at sea? Rtreus, the hard sports- man, 'wifeless and childless, may be pasied. Could the Saxon Prince of Saxe-Gotha have played therrt-tithe Norman bastard, that wrenched the kingdom from the Saxons, and lived a life of tyranny, to die abandoned by his menials and be buried by cha- rity ? Or should the royal mummers have gone back to the Saxon days for the beautiful lovers, EDWY and ELeivA—separated, seared, and worried to death by DUNSTAN ? What couple could they have chosen for prototype, in. the picturesque ages, not tormented by violence against their own persons, disgraced by profligacy or cruelty or both, the victiins of political intrigue or religious bigotry, wretched in their progeny, or associated with some national misfor- tune? -111 truth, EDWARD the Third and Ponders made about as good and safe a choice as any ; although romance would fain arrest the progress even of their history, and avert the tight from the monarch's declining age. France may put up with the rub‘on an old forgotten wound, in thinking that England has escaped yet harsher reminiscences.
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