superiority and exclaim in triumph, “There!  You didn’t expect that, did you?” when the denouement came.  Her sense of humour was of a vigorous though primitive kind.  She had been one of the very few persons who had always been able to appreciate the Prince Consort’s jokes; and, when those were cracked no more, she could still roar with laughter, in the privacy of her household, over some small piece of fun—­some oddity of an ambassador, or some ignorant Minister’s faux pas.  When the jest grew subtle she was less pleased; but, if it approached the confines of the indecorous, the danger was serious.  To take a liberty called down at once Her Majesty’s most crushing disapprobation; and to say something improper was to take the greatest liberty of all.  Then the royal lips sank down at the corners, the royal eyes stared in astonished protrusion, and in fact, the royal countenance became inauspicious in the highest degree.  The transgressor shuddered into silence, while the awful “We are not amused” annihilated the dinner table.  Afterwards, in her private entourage, the Queen would observe that the person in question was, she very much feared, “not discreet”; it was a verdict from which there was no appeal.

In general, her aesthetic tastes had remained unchanged since the days of Mendelssohn, Landseer, and Lablache.  She still delighted in the roulades of Italian opera; she still demanded a high standard in the execution of a pianoforte duet.  Her views on painting were decided; Sir Edwin, she declared, was perfect; she was much impressed by Lord Leighton’s manners; and she profoundly distrusted Mr. Watts.  From time to time she ordered engraved portraits to be taken of members of the royal family; on these occasions she would have the first proofs submitted to her, and, having inspected them with minute particularity, she would point out their mistakes to the artists, indicating at the same time how they might be corrected.  The artists invariably discovered that Her Majesty’s suggestions were of the highest value.  In literature her interests were more restricted.  She was devoted to Lord Tennyson; and, as the Prince Consort had admired George Eliot, she perused “Middlemarch:”  she was disappointed.  There is reason to believe, however, that the romances of another female writer, whose popularity among the humbler classes of Her Majesty’s subjects was at one time enormous, secured, no less, the approval of Her Majesty.  Otherwise she did not read very much.

Once, however, the Queen’s attention was drawn to a publication which it was impossible for her to ignore.  “The Greville Memoirs,” filled with a mass of historical information of extraordinary importance, but filled also with descriptions, which were by no means flattering, of George IV, William IV, and other royal persons, was brought out by Mr. Reeve.  Victoria read the book, and was appalled.  It was, she declared, a “dreadful and really scandalous book,” and she could not say “how