On Wednesday at a special Court of the Governors of
the Royal Scotch Hospital Lord Rosebery delivered a striking speech on the Queen. He insisted that the public at large did not yet realise the full nature of the loss they had sustained. They do not understand of what enormous weight in the councils of the world we are deprived by the death of our late Sovereign. "She gave to the councils of Great Britain an advantage which no talents, no brillian y, no genius, could supply. Think of what her reign was ! She had reigned for sixty-three years. For sixty-three years she had known all that was to be known about the political condition of her country. For sixty-three years she has been in communication with every important Minister and with every important public man. She bad received reports, daily reports almost, from her successive Ministers, or their deputies in the House of Commons. She had, there- fore, a fund of knowledge which no constitutional historian has ever had at his command. That by the stroke of death is lost to us to-day." This is well said. In the Queen her Ministers possessed a guide and adviser on whose capacious and well-stored mind they could draw, and whose great and sage experience was always ready to be employed in the service of the nation.
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