The outrage to the Queen on Thursday evening, with which
the town rings, is an occurrenoe of a kind to hurry ail the world into ab- surdities. Involving the highest political interests in the person of the Sovereign, it is yet so excessively contemptible in its nature, that to make too much of it causes an unpleasant jar between exalt- ed considerations and, the meanest. The mere spectacle of a man striking a woman was enough to rouse the chivalry of the bystand- ers, and the impulse to inflict summary chastisement was as respect- able as it was naturaL But writers who rush into anticipations of the sentence at law are little taught by the calmness of their Sove- reign. On the face of the first story, the man is mad, and the blow which he aimed at the Queen with a little cane is a flight of in- sanity. The unshaken, unaffected dignity of the Queen, neutral- izes all that there can be of indignity in the assault—all that there is of vulgar in the fuss about it: the trace of the blow upon her temple adorns her head as a badge marking her gentle intre- pidity and the affectionate solicitude of her people which it called forth.
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