them, Lord Palmerston, the Prince was at one time, as is well known, in sharp conflict with regard to his conduct as Foreign Secretary, and this makes his testimony to the Prince's ability of all the greater value. In 1855, when Palmerston was Prime Minister, one of his political friends, calling on him, expressed a high opinion of the abilities of Napoleon III. Palmerston concurred, but said: "We have a far greater and more extraordinary man nearer home," referring to the Prince; he then added, "The Prince would not consider it right to have obtained the throne as the Emperor has done; but in regard to the possession of the soundest judgment, the highest intellect, and most exalted qualities of mind, he is far superior to the Emperor."
The Prince made an equally favorable personal impression on statesmen of the Tory party. When Lord Derby was Prime Minister for ten months in 1852, Lord Malmesbury was Foreign Secretary, and in that capacity was brought much in contact with the Queen and her husband. He wrote of the latter, "I never met a man so remarkable for his variety of information in all subjects, … with a great fund of humor quand il se déboutonne."
It was not only in statesmanship that his ability was shown.[1] He was a good musician, and excelled as a performer, especially on the organ; Peel was not
- ↑ In Lady Bloomfield's Reminiscences, she records a conversation she had with the Prince shortly before his death. "He said his great object through life had been to learn as much as possible, not with a view of doing much himself,—as, he observed, any branch of study or art required a lifetime,—but, simply for the sake of appreciating the works of others; for, he added, without any self-consciousness or vanity, 'No one knows the difficulties of a thing till they have tried to do it themselves; and it was with this idea that I learnt oil-painting, water-color, etching, fresco-painting, chalks, and lithography, and in music I studied the organ, pianoforte, and violin, thorough-bass, and singing'" (vol. ii. p. 110).
