CHAPTER III.  LORD MELBOURNE

I

The new queen was almost entirely unknown to her subjects.  In her public appearances her mother had invariably dominated the scene.  Her private life had been that of a novice in a convent:  hardly a human being from the outside world had ever spoken to her; and no human being at all, except her mother and the Baroness Lehzen, had ever been alone with her in a room.  Thus it was not only the public at large that was in ignorance of everything concerning her; the inner circles of statesmen and officials and high-born ladies were equally in the dark.  When she suddenly emerged from this deep obscurity, the impression that she created was immediate and profound.  Her bearing at her first Council filled the whole gathering with astonishment and admiration; the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, even the savage Croker, even the cold and caustic Greville—­all were completely carried away.  Everything that was reported of her subsequent proceedings seemed to be of no less happy augury.  Her perceptions were quick, her decisions were sensible, her language was discreet; she performed her royal duties with extraordinary facility.  Among the outside public there was a great wave of enthusiasm.  Sentiment and romance were coming into fashion; and the spectacle of the little girl-queen, innocent, modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks, driving through her capital, filled the hearts of the beholders with raptures of affectionate loyalty.  What, above all, struck everybody with overwhelming force was the contrast between Queen Victoria and her uncles.  The nasty old men, debauched and selfish, pig-headed and ridiculous, with their perpetual burden of debts, confusions, and disreputabilities—­they had vanished like the snows of winter, and here at last, crowned and radiant, was the spring.  Lord John Russell, in an elaborate oration, gave voice to the general sentiment.  He hoped that Victoria might prove an Elizabeth without her tyranny, an Anne without her weakness.  He asked England to pray that the illustrious Princess who had just ascended the throne with the purest intentions and the justest desires might see slavery abolished, crime diminished, and education improved.  He trusted that her people would henceforward derive their strength, their conduct, and their loyalty from enlightened religious and moral principles, and that, so fortified, the reign of Victoria might prove celebrated to posterity and to all the nations of the earth.

Very soon, however, there were signs that the future might turn out to be not quite so simple and roseate as a delighted public dreamed.  The “illustrious Princess” might perhaps, after all, have something within her which squared ill with the easy vision of a well-conducted heroine in an edifying story-book.  The purest intentions and the justest desires?  No doubt; but was that all?  To those who watched