NEWS OF THE WEEK.
'rue youthful Queen VICTORIA, accompanied by her faithful wedded cavalier ALBERT, has left her good castle in "the island of
Windsor," as it is called in the finest of the chivalrous romances, and has set forth in quest of adventures. An agreeable uncertainty gives interest to the daily narrative of the illustrious lady's move- ments. In Scotland last year, her route was chalked out before- hand, and the reports only told us that that had been done which everybody knew was to be done : now, the most industrious cu- riosity can but little anticipate the next movement of the wanderers in their yacht. They dodge a whole fleet of sequacious sightseers round about the Isle cf Wight ; then they utterly discomfit an ex- pectant garrison, shooting past before the sluggards can fire a sa- lute; Plymouth watches for a flying visit in a state of anxious pre- paredness; and all the world is agape to see whether or not the
Queen and her consort really do mean to rush over to France and retaliate in kind the visit of Louts PHILIPPE'S sons. " Can she go,"
asks some one, "without leave of Parliament ? "—" or of the Privy
Council ?" asks another. Of course, if she do go, she can go ; so that constitutional capability will be settled. Nor do we see why
it should be assumed that the Queen cannot go. The only in-
stances we remember of British Sovereigns leaving the United Kingdom, since JAMES the •.Second's flight was construed to be an abdication, are GEORGE the Second's German campaign and GEORGE the Fourth's coronation-visit to Hanover ; both of which took place in the recess of Parliament. A trip to Eu is surely not equivalent to a retirement to St. Germains ; and the most hopeful of surviving Jacobites, or the most ambitious of PLANTAGENETS, would scarcely build hopes on Queen -VICTORIA'S absence in France. Let us trust, then, that no war of succession will arise before she is once more safe among us !
There is a contrast in the view which the two countries take of the supposed visit. In England, certainly, it is regarded with but
one feeling, that of pleased curiosity ; a blending of the gossiping interest which is generally taken in the movements of royalty and its shows, and of satisfaction at an occurrence which promises to strengthen the friendly sentiments of the two governments, and to prolong the peace in which the two countries repose. Our neigh- bours have a more elevated view, comprehending a variety of things quite forgotten by matter-of-fact John Bull : they enter a caveat against being supposed to be precluded from military activity, for they can never lose sight of soldiering ; they discern some "jute- rested motives" in British Ministers, for they cannot conceive a young Princess's amusements to have any but state objects; they steel themselves, with an effort complimentary to the strength of the charms they repel, against the influence of VIcroatA's " smiles" ; and they call to mind, that soon after HENRY the Eighth embraced FRANCIS the First on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the British Monarch declared war against France, then involved with the Emperor. So that, for all their gallantry, the imaginative people suspect that the first of English ladies in the nineteenth century has something in common with the British Bluebeard ! Some of the Paris politicians, indeed, are less penetrating, and perceive nothing so insidious in the proposed interchange of friendly courtesies.
