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brought prominently forward. Lord Aberdeen in the House of Lords, and Lord John Russell in the House of Commons, read aloud, to eager and attentive members, a brief frank note, written by that deceased Minister to the Queen, expressive of his favorable opinion of the discretion, ability, and excellence, of her Royal Consort; and of the guarantee those qualities gave, of safe and intelligent guidance, of pure and irreproachable motives, in all advice that might be tendered to the crowned Ruler of England. It could not be otherwise than a proud and touching thought, to those who loved and remembered Lord Melbourne in life; that even after his death,—past the silence of the grave and the semi-oblivion of a closed career,—his words had still power publicly to serve his Sovereign on a subject nearest to her heart. His letter was held to be of sufficient authority, to define the position, and to declare the character, of the Consort of the Sovereign. What gave those words their value? The profound conviction in those who listened, that Lord Melbourne had written precisely what he thought. That with the capacity of judging, he joined the conscience of the judge; that in the sincerity of an honest heart, and not for intrigue or court favor, he penned those lines. His surviving influence, was in the undoubting belief that he had been frank, true, and loyal,—as minister, statesman, and counsellor: from the hour when, with the rays of a morning sun in June shining bright on her golden hair, men saw Victoria mount the steps of her hereditary throne, leaning on his hand,—to that in which, having faded out of life in the lingering seclusion of illness,—no longer the busy statesman, but the helpless friend,—news was brought to the Palace, in the gloom of a November day, that he was DEAD, whose voice first hailed her accession: he was dead, whose counsels, while he was able to give them, never wavered for the sake of selfish ambition, nor swerved beneath the rivalry of faction; but kept the compass true to a single star,—Duty to his country and his Queen.
