22 OCTOBER 1870, Page 10

THE USE OF PRINCE-DUKES.

"EVERYBODY" that is anybody still talks of the marriage of the Princess Louise with the Marquis of Lorn, and it is quite curious to watch the amount of feeling and interest and flutter it excites. Some people, the majority, are quite gratified, and feel as if everybody were slightly raised in the world because a descendant of George III. is going to marry a man who is legally a commoner, though he will, it is said, be raised to the Peerage before his apotheosis comes off. There is Mr. Vernon

Harcourt, who, one would fancy, has, if anybody has, a good solid belief in himself independent of most external accidents of life, who would not feel the smallest surprise if he were Premier to-morrow, and does feel a good deal because he is not a Cabinet Minister, even he is obviously a little elated, tells his constituents he is a great friend of the Campbells, and even said something which all the reporters understood to mean that he was a relative of Lord Lorn, which is the fact, though the relationship is of the farthest. All men in Clubs laughed, and wished internally they could say the same, though all thought they would not have said it ; but Mr. Harcourt was quite right in his appreciation of his constituency, and his seat is all the safer for his betise.' Then there are the tenantry of Argyll, who are delighted beyond measure, and have extorted out of the Marquis at a public dinner an official confession of the truth,—made, we are bound to add, as we are not quite reverential over the sacredness of the affair, in the most perfect simplicity and good taste. Then there is a learned correspondent of our own who is quite annoyed because we, quoting the legendary sort of history usual on such occasions, took the Peerage view of the Campbell pedigree, inptead of the historic one, which latter we published not long since in our own columns. If he thinks we are going to publish his letter, with its views on the most cloudy point in Scotch history, and its blas- phemies about Scotch pedigrees, and its reverential prostrations before Irish pedigrees, all we can say is he does not know the world, or dread in a „proper manner the grand infliction of Editors —explanatory letters on personal questions. Has he thought for a moment what it is to be written to by every descendant of every Scotch Peer and Irish King all in one week? Forbid it, heaven I Rather will we acknowledge what appears historically to be true, that the Campbell only represents the Maarmors of the Isles, through a marriage which occurred, or did not occur, seven hundred years ago, in the reign of Malcolm IV., and therefore does owe something undefined to British Royalty, which we said, and if we were not too lazy would show, he does not. Then there are the funny evidences of latent dislike to the arrangement ; the grand apologies in the Times ; the grander assertions in the Telegraph about love and affection,—which may all be true, but are either needless, or if needful, meaningless, Royalty having higher duties than obedience to impulse, however commendable ;- and the outspoken protest of the Standard, which holds that Royalty should only touch Whigs and other canaille with a pitch- fork ; and finally, the wonderful outburst of that correspondent of the Echo, who calls on the women of England to petition the Throne against this degradation of the Royal Family. lird do hope every aristocrat in England will read that letter. It would give him some information as to the real feeling of the English Electorate about the difference between this particular pedigree and every other, which would enlighten his mind upon that subject ever after. The old Indian lawgivers knew their business when, intending to build up a system of caste, they made separateness of blood its immovable pivot, and rendered it impossible for a true Brahmin even to take a Sudra mistress.

We do not think, on reflection, that the arrangement will get through the House of Commons silently, and may as well state frankly exactly where its practical recommendation, under our system—and ignoring its grand recommendation in our eyes, that it breaks through the absurd, but most effective separateness, or, so

Josephine, and had repeatedly heard her mention the circumstance in early youth." Indeed, Mr. Alison gives Josephine's own account of her belief that she was to live to be Queen of France. So strongly did she believe it that she nominated the ladles of the bedchamber when she was lying in the dungeons of the Conciergerie waiting for the order for her immediate execution. She was only saved by the fall of Robespierre. We believe the prophecy also mentioned that she was to die in a hospital, but Alison does not quote it on this head.

to speak, sanctity of the Royal Caste--really is. Some provision will, of course, have to be made, barring the right of younger sons to be Princes, just as they are now debarred from becoming Dukes. A Prince of the Blood who dealt in tea or sold wine would in a country like England, fall as it is of fools, be an unendurable social nuisance, and distinctly injurious to a monarchy which everybody is in political politeness supposed to be religiously anxious to maintain for -ever and ever. It will be well and not difficult to stop that, and as for eldest sons, they will belong to a caste which may be very useful. We ventured months ago to point out the extremely useful as well as dignified position open to the Princess Louise if, as reported truly or falsely, she wished to assume a definite leader- ship in certain social questions and Associations,—a position such as one sister assumes in the political and another in the religious world of Germany. That position is but rendered the more possible and the more useful by this alliance, and we -can promise to the Princess, if she assumes it, a popularity without limit or alloy,—and what is more to the purpose, a power of doing effective good. England, and especially female England, is still devoted enough to Royalty to reduce the phil- anthropic chaos into discipline, if Royalty will but assume the --command of the philanthropic, but horribly undisciplined, army -of social progress. But there is a place for Prince-Dukes too. It is by no means certain that in a country like --ours, where rank, though powerless to retain privilege, is powerful to obtain deference, a politician of average ability -and very exceptional rank might not, if legally a subject, be of the greatest use to the Government of the day. Supposing Lord Lora to possess something like his father's ability—we know -nothing about it, but tf he wrote his book he has observant eyes and a habit of generalization—there are at least four offices of State in which he would, as the husband of a Princess, be much snore useful, instead of less useful, than any ordinary noble. The -exceptional rank, as of the Royal Family yet not so included in it as to burden him with their seclusion and their responsibili- ties, would distinctly increase Lord Lorn's fitness for the Indian Viceroyalty, in which it would protect him, and therefore India, against that greediness of the India Office for power over -details which threatens to dissolve the Administration and drive -out every decently capable man ; for the Washington Embassy, which would then for the first time really gratify the American .people, who are sensitive to the Old-World code of respect ; for the Viceroyalty of the Dominion, which wants at once a politician -and a Court in which no one could be openly drunk on duty, and which has in its French Canadians men quite capable of appresiating a certain stateliness of life; and above all, for the Viceroyalty -of Ireland, where men hunger fora little of the social sunshine which the English Court, with a perversity that is almost malignant, so persistently refuses. A Court in Dublin, about whose dignity, -or social precedence, or European rank no question could be raised, a Court not Brummagem— would be a real pleasure to Ireland ; and if headed by one whom the Ministry could treat as any other 'Cabinet Minister, no injury to the Empire. The link with Royalty would be just close enough to convey social power, without being -close enough to awaken constitutional jealousies or fears, or rouse that strange but absolutely incurable suspicion among English people that the Royal House, in all its alliances, and even in its patronage of art, has an insatiable appetite for cash.