from this country abroad, which is not submitted to the Queen. The whole of the internal administration of this country greatly depends upon the sign-manual of our sovereign, and it may be said that her signature has never been placed to any public document of which she did not know the purpose, and of which she did not approve. . . . At this moment there is probably no person living who has such complete control over the political condition of England as the sovereign herself."
In the course of her long reign there have been many political changes. When she came to the throne the Whigs had control of Parliament and seemed likely long to continue in power. When, in August, 1841, the Whig ministry resigned, Sir Robert Peel became Premier, and at his first interview the Queen rather awkwardly remarked that she was sorry to part with Lord Melbourne. But she afterwards became used to these changes, and left the people to decide in their own way whom they wished to send as her chief constitutional advisers. In her later days, two men stood forth pre-eminent by force of genius, each in turn deputed to submit to her his party's plans for the country's welfare and glory—one of unmistakable Jewish descent, the other of Lowland Scotch—yet each in his own way devoted to what he believed the interests of England. Strange, perhaps, to say, she gave her personal preference to the former, though she treated both with the stately courtesy which their respective places demanded. In his youth Disraeli had been one of the foremost of the Young England party, whose rallying cry had been "Our young Queen and our old Constitution." To his fervid protestations of loyalty may have been due that friendship which she ever cherished for him, while Gladstone's more measured utterances, though really heartfelt, did not so readily kindle her sympathy.
To Disraeli's Oriental tastes and sympathies Queen Vic-
