Samuel Johnson - "Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young etc."

Clarence Young - "The Motor Boys on the Pacific"

Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v2: The Contented Cuckold and Others"

Henry F. Lutz - "To Infidelity and Back"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1.

S >> Sarah Tytler >> Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1.




"'It will be my unceasing study to maintain the reformed religion as by law
established, securing at the same time to all the full enjoyment of
religious liberty; and I shall steadily protect the rights and promote, to
the utmost of my power, the happiness and welfare of all classes of my
subjects.'"

Her Majesty's speech was after the model of English royal speeches; but one
can feel at this day it was spoken in all ingenuousness and sincerity, and
that the utterance--remarkable already for clearness and distinctness--for
the first time, of the set words, ending in the solemn promise to do a
Sovereign's duty, must have thrilled the hearts both of speaker and
hearers.

A critical listener was not wanting, according to the testimony of the
witness who, on his own account, certainly did not object to chronicle
detraction of every kind. "The speech was admired, except by Brougham, who
appeared in a considerable state of excitement. He said to Peel (whom he
was standing near, and with whom he was not in the habit of communicating),
'"amelioration;" that is not English. You might perhaps say "melioration,"
but "improvement" is the proper word.'

"'Oh!' said Peel, 'I see no harm in the word; it is generally used.'

"'You object,' said Brougham, 'to the sentiment; I object to the grammar.'

"'No,' said Peel, 'I don't object to the sentiment.'

"'Well, then, she pledges herself to the policy of _our_ Government,'
said Brougham.

"She was quite plainly dressed, and in mourning. After she had read her
speech, and taken and signed the oath (administered by the Archbishop of
Canterbury) for the security of the Church of Scotland, the Privy
Councillors were sworn, the two royal Dukes first by themselves."

The days of violence were ended, and whatever private, hopes he might once
have entertained, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, was the first to hail his
niece as the high and mighty Princess Alexandrina Victoria, to whom the
imperial Crown of Great Britain and Ireland had solely and rightfully
come--the first to proclaim her, with one voice and consent of tongue and
heart, on the part of himself and his peers, his only lawful and rightful
liege Lady Victoria, to whom he acknowledged all faith and rightful
obedience, with all hearty and humble affection. It may be, the fact that
he had succeeded to the throne of Hanover rendered the step less difficult.
His name was also the first in the signatures of princes, Privy
Councillors, peers, and gentlemen affixed in the next room to the
proclamation. His brother, the Duke of Sussex, followed. They were both
elderly men, with the younger older in infirmities than in years. The King
of Hanover was sixty-six, the Duke of Sussex sixty-four years of age.

"And as these two old men, her uncles, knelt before her, swearing
allegiance and kissing her hand," Greville went on, with a sense of pathos,
curious for him, in the scene, "I saw her blush up to the eyes, as if she
felt the contrast between their civil and their natural relations, and this
was the only sign of emotion which she evinced. Her manner to them was very
graceful and engaging; she kissed them both, and rose from her chair and
moved towards the Duke of Sussex, who was farthest from her, and too infirm
to reach her. She seemed rather bewildered at the multitude of men who were
sworn, and who came one after another to kiss her hand, but she did not
speak to anybody, nor did she make the slightest difference in her manner,
or show any in her countenance, to any individual of any rank, station, or
party. I particularly watched her when Melbourne and the Ministers, and the
Duke of Wellington and Peel approached her. She went through the whole
ceremony, occasionally looking at Melbourne for instruction when she had
any doubt what to do, which hardly ever occurred, and with perfect coolness
and self-possession, but at the same time with a graceful modesty and
propriety particularly interesting and ingratiating. When the business was
done she retired as she had entered, and I could see that nobody was in the
adjoining room."

Mr. Greville's comment on the scene was singularly enthusiastic from such a
man. "Never was anything like the first impression she produced, or the
chorus of praise and admiration which is raised about her manner and
behaviour, and certainly not without justice. It was something very
extraordinary, and something far beyond what was looked for." He quoted Sir
Robert Peel's and the Duke of Wellington's opinions in accordance with his
own. "He (Sir Robert) likewise said how amazed he was at the manner and
behaviour, at her apparent deep sense of her situation, her modesty, and at
the same time her firmness. She appeared, in fact, to be awed, but not
daunted; and afterwards, the Duke of Wellington told me the same thing, and
added, that if she had been his own daughter he could not have desired to
see her perform her part better."

We can understand the fatherly reference of the Duke, and the sort of
personal pride he took in his young Queen. He had been present at her birth
in this very Palace of Kensington; he had known her at every stage of her
life hitherto. She was doing credit not only to herself and her mother, but
to every friend she had, by her perfect fulfilment of what was required of
her. Lord Campbell was equally eulogistic. "As soon as I heard that King
William had expired I hurried to Kensington, to be present at the first
Council of the new Sovereign. This, I think, was the most interesting scene
I have ever witnessed.... I am quite in raptures with the deportment of the
young Queen. Nothing could be more exquisitely proper. She looked modest,
sorrowful, dejected, diffident, but at the same time she was quite cool and
collected, and composed and firm. Her childish appearance was gone. She
was an intelligent and graceful young woman, capable of acting and thinking
for herself. Considering that she was the only female in the room, and that
she had no one about her with whom she was familiar, no human being was
ever placed in a more trying situation."

What was most conspicuous in the Queen had been already remarked upon and
admired in the young girl at Queen Adelaide's Drawing-room. Here were the
same entire simplicity, with its innate dignity only further developed; the
power of being herself and no other, which left her thoughtful of what she
ought to do--not of how she should look and strike others--and rendered her
free to consider her neighbours; the docility to fit guidance, and yet the
ability to judge for herself; the quick sense all the time of her high
calling.

That first Council at Kensington has become an episode in history--a very
significant one. It has been painted, engraved, written about many a time,
without losing its fascination. Sir David Wilkie made a famous picture of
it, which hangs in a corridor at Windsor In this picture the artist used
certain artistic liberties, such as representing the Queen in a white
muslin robe instead of a black gown, and the Privy Councillors in the
various costumes of their different callings--uniforms with stars and
ribands, lawyers' gowns and full-bottomed wigs, bishops' lawn, instead of
the ordinary morning dress of the gentlemen of their generation. It must
have tickled Wilkie as he worked to come to an old acquaintance of his
boyhood and youth in John, Lord Campbell, and to recognise how
bewilderingly far removed from the bleak little parish of Cults and the
quiet little town of Cupar was the coincidence which summoned him, the
distinguished painter, in the execution of a royal commission, to draw the
familiar features of his early playmate in those of the Attorney-General,
who appeared as a privileged member of the illustrious throng.

We still turn back wistfully to that bright dawn of a beneficent reign. We
see the slight girlish figure in her simple mourning filling her place
sedately at the head of the Council table. At the foot, facing her Majesty,
sits the Duke of Sussex, almost venerable in his stiffness and lameness,
wearing the black velvet skull-cap by which he was distinguished in those
days. We look at the well-known faces, and think of the famous names among
the crowd of mature men, each of whom was hanging on the words and looks of
his mistress. There is Copley the painter's son, sagacious Lyndhurst, who
lived to be the Nestor of the bench and the peerage; there is his great
opponent, Robertson the historian's grand-nephew, Brougham, a tyrant of
freedom, an illustrious Jack-of-all-trades, the most impassioned, most
public-spirited, most egotistical of men. He was a contradiction to himself
as well as to his neighbours. His strongly-marked face, with its shaggy
brows, high cheek-bones, aggressive nose, mouth drooping at the corners,
had not lost its mobility. He was restless and fault-finding in this
presence as in any other. The Duke of Wellington's Roman nose lent
something of the eagle to his aspect. It was a more patrician attribute
than Sir Robert Peel's long upper lip, with its shy, nervous compression,
which men mistook for impassive coldness, just as the wits blundered in
calling his strong, serviceable capacity, noble uprightness, and patient
labour "sublime mediocrity." William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, was the type
of an aristocrat, with brains and heart. He was still a very handsome man
at fifty-eight, as he was also "perhaps the most graceful and agreeable
gentleman of the generation." His colleague--destined to marry Lord
Melbourne's sister, the most charming woman who ever presided in turn over
two Ministerial _salons_, Lord Palmerston, in spite of his early
achievements in waltzing at Almack's, was less personally and mentally
gifted. He had rather an indiarubber-like elasticity and jauntiness than
stateliness, or dignity, or grace. His irregular-featured face was comical,
but he bore the bell in exhaustless spirits, which won him, late in life,
the reputation of perennial juvenility, and the enviable if not altogether
respectful sobriquet of "the evergreen Palm." Lord John Russell, with his
large head and little body, of which _Punch_ made stock, with his
friendship for Moore and his literary turn, as well as his ambition to
serve his country like a true Russell, was at this date wooing and wedding
the fair young widow, Lady Ribblesdale, his devotion to whom had drawn from
the wags a profane pun. They called the gifted little lord "the widow's
mite." When the marriage ceremony was being performed between him and Lady
Ribblesdale the wedding-ring fell from the bride's finger--an evil omen
soon fulfilled for the marriage tie was speedily broken by her early death.
"Plain John Campbell" was a very different man. The son of a minister of
the Church of Scotland, in a presbytery which included among its members
the father of Sir David Wilkie, his Scotch tongue, Scotch shrewdness,
healthy appetite for work, and invulnerable satisfaction with himself and
his surroundings, caused themselves to be felt in another sphere than that
to which he was born.

"The Cabinet Ministers tendered to the Queen the seals of their respective
offices, which her Majesty was most graciously pleased to return, and they
severally kissed hands on their reappointment." The last business done was
to arrange for the public proclamation of the Queen, and to take her
pleasure with regard to the time, which she fixed for the day following,
Wednesday, the 21st of June, at ten o'clock. When Lord Albemarle, for whom
she had sent, went to her and told her he was come to take her orders, she
said, "I have no orders to give. You must know this so much better than I
do, that I leave it all to you. I am to be at St. James's at ten to-morrow,
and must beg you to find me a conveyance proper for the occasion." We are
further informed that the Queen, in the course of the morning, received a
great many noble and distinguished personages. So finished a busy and
exciting day; the herald of many other days crowded with engagements and
excitement.

The Palace of St. James's, where the proclamation was to take place, had
been for a long time the theatre of all the principal events in the lives
of the kings and queens of England. Even the young Queen already viewed it
in this light, for though she had been baptized at Kensington, she had been
confirmed at St. James's. She had attended her first Drawing-rooms, and
celebrated her coming-of-age ball there. St. James's is a brick building,
like Kensington Palace, but is far older, and full of more stirring and
tragic associations. It has an air of antiquity about it, if it has few
architectural claims on the world's interest; but at least one front, that
which includes the turreted gateway into St. James's Street, is not without
picturesque beauty. The situation of the palace, considering that it is in
the middle of a great city, is agreeable. It has its park, with a stretch
of pleasant water on one side, and commands the leafy avenue of the Mall
and the sweep of Constitution Hill. As a royal residence it dates as far
back as Henry VIII., whose daughter Mary ended her sad life here. Both of
the sons of James I. received it as a dwelling, and were connected with it
in troubled days. Prince Henry fell into his pining sickness and died here.
Charles, after bringing Henrietta Maria under its roof, and owning its
shelter till three of his children were born, was carried to St. James's as
a prisoner. He was taken from it in a sedan-chair to undergo his trial at
his new palace of Whitehall. He was conveyed back under sentence of death.
Here Bishop Juxon preached the last sermon to which the King listened, and
administered to him the Sacrament; and here Charles took leave of his
children--the little Duke of Gloucester and the girl-Princess Elizabeth.
From St. James's the King went to the scaffold on the bitter January
morning, followed by the snowy night in which "the white King" was borne to
his dishonoured burial. Other and less tragic scenes were enacted within
its bounds. A familiar figure in connection with Kensington
Palace--Caroline of Anspach, wife of George II.--died like herself here.
Her King had fallen into a stupor of sorrow across the bed where she lay in
her last agony, and she forbade his being disturbed. She told those who
were praying to pray aloud, that she might hear them; then raising herself
up and uttering the single German word of acquiescence, "_So_," her
brave spirit passed away.

When the Queen arrived, accompanied by her mother and her ladies, and
attended by an escort, on the June morning of her proclamation, she was
received by the other members of the royal family, the Household, and the
Cabinet Ministers. Already every avenue to the Palace and every balcony and
window within sight were crowded to excess. In the quadrangle opposite the
window where her Majesty was to appear a mass of loyal ladies and gentlemen
was tightly wedged. The parapets above were filled with people, conspicuous
among them the big figure of Daniel O'Connell, the agitator, waving his hat
and cheering with Irish effusion.

"At ten o'clock," says the _Annual Register_, "the guns in the park
fired a salute, and immediately afterwards the Queen made her appearance at
the window of the tapestried ante-room adjoining the ante-chamber, and was
received with deafening cheers. She stood between Lords Melbourne and
Lansdowne, in their State dresses and their ribands, who were also cheered,
as was likewise her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent. At this and the two
other windows we recognised the King of Hanover, the Dukes of Sussex,
Wellington, and Argyle; Lords Hill, Combermere, Denbigh, Duncannon,
Albemarle, and Winchester; Sir E. Codrington, Sir William Houston, and a
number of other lords and gentlemen, with several ladies.

"Her Majesty looked extremely fatigued and pale, but returned the repeated
cheers with which she was greeted with remarkable ease and dignity. She was
dressed in deep mourning, with a white tippet, white cuffs, and a border of
white lace under a small black bonnet, which was placed far back on her
head, exhibiting her light hair in front simply parted over the forehead.
Her Majesty seemed to view the proceedings with considerable interest. Her
Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent was similarly dressed to the Queen."

"In the courtyard were Garter-King-at-Arms with heralds and pursuivants in
their robes of office, and eight officers of arms on horseback bearing
massive silver maces; sergeants-at-arms with their maces and collars; the
sergeant-trumpeter with his mace and collar; the trumpets, drum-major and
drums, and knights'-marshal and men."

"On Her Majesty showing herself at the Presence Chamber window,
Garter-Principal-King-at-Arms having taken his station in the courtyard
under the window, accompanied by the Duke of Norfolk as Earl-Marshal of
England, read the proclamation containing the formal and official
announcement of the demise of King William IV., and of the consequent
accession of Queen Alexandrina Victoria to the throne of these realms ...
'to whom we acknowledge all faith and constant obedience, with all humble
and hearty affection, beseeching God, by whom kings and queens do reign, to
bless the Royal Princess Alexandrina Victoria with long and happy years to
reign. God save the Queen.' At the termination of this proclamation the
band struck up the National Anthem, and a signal was given for the Park and
Tower guns to fire in order to announce the fact of the proclamation being
made. During the reading of the proclamation her Majesty stood at the
Presence Chamber window, and immediately upon its conclusion the air was
rent with the loudest acclamations by those within the area, which were
responded to by the thousands without."

The scene drew from Elizabeth Barrett Browning the following popular
verses:--

O, maiden, heir of kings,
A king has left his place;
The majesty of death has swept
All other from his face;
And thou upon thy mother's breast
No longer lean adown,
But take the glory for the rest,
And rule the land that loves thee best.
The maiden wept,
She wept to wear a crown.

* * * * *

God bless thee, weeping Queen,
With blessings more divine,
And fill with better love than earth
That tender heart of thine;
That when the thrones of earth shall be
As low as graves brought down,
A pierced hand may give to thee
The crown which angels shout to see.
Thou wilt not weep
To wear that heavenly crown.

A maiden Queen in her first youth, wearing the crown and wielding the
sceptre, had become _un fait accompli_ and the news spread over the
length and breadth of the land. We have seen how it touched the oldest
statesmen, to whom State ceremonials had become hackneyed--who were perhaps
a little sceptical of virtue in high places. It may be imagined, then, how
the knowledge, with each striking and picturesque detail, thrilled and
engrossed all the sensitive, romantic young hearts in the Queen's
dominions. It seemed as if womanhood and girlhood were exalted in one woman
and girl's person--as if a new era must be inaugurated with such a reign,
and every man worthy of the name would rally round this Una on the throne.

The prosaic side of the question was that the country was torn by the
factions of Whig and Tory, which were then in the full bloom of party
spirit and narrow rancorous animosity. The close of the life of William
IV. had presented the singular and disastrous contradiction of a King in
something like open opposition to his Ministers. William had begun by being
a liberal in politics, but alarmed by the progress of reform, he had hung
back resisted, and ended by being dragged along an unwilling tolerator of a
Whig _regime_. The Duke of Kent had been liberal in his opinions when
liberality was not the fashion. The Duchess was understood to be on the
same side; her brother and counsellor, the King of the Belgians, was
decidedly so. Accordingly, the Whigs hailed the accession of Queen Victoria
as their triumph, likely to secure and prolong their tenure of office. They
claimed her as their Queen, with a boasting exultation calculated to wound
and exasperate every Tory in the kingdom. Lord Campbell, who, though a
zealous Whig, was comparatively cool and cautious, wrote in his journal,
after the Queen's first Council, "We basked in the full glare of royal
sunshine;" and this tone was generally adopted by his party. They met with
some amount of success in their loud assertion, and the consequence was a
strain of indignant bitterness in the Tory rejoinder. A clever partisan
inscribed on the window-pane of an inn at Huddersfield:

"The Queen is with us," Whigs insulting say,
"For when she found us in, she let us stay."
It may be so; but give me leave to doubt
How long she'll keep you _when she finds you out._

There was even some cooling of Tory loyalty to the new Queen. Chroniclers
tell us of the ostentatious difference in enthusiasm with which, at Tory
dinners, the toasts of the Queen, and the Queen-dowager were received.

As a matter of course, Lord Melbourne became the Queen's instructor in the
duties of her position, and as she had no private secretary, he had to be
in constant attendance upon her--to see her, not only daily, but sometimes
three or four times a day. The Queen has given her testimony to the
unwearied kindness and pleasantness, the disinterested regard for her
welfare, even the generous fairness to political opponents, with which her
Prime Minister discharged his task. It seems as if the great trust imposed
on him drew out all that was most manly and chivalrous in a character
which, along with much that was fine and attractive, that won to him all
who came in close contact with him, was not without the faults of the
typical aristocrat, correctly or incorrectly defined by the popular
imagination. Lord Melbourne, with his sense and spirit, honesty and
good-nature, could be haughtily, indifferent, lazily self-indulgent,
scornfully careless even to affectation, of the opinions of his social
inferiors, as when he appeared to amuse himself with "idly blowing a
feather or nursing a sofa-cushion while receiving an important and perhaps
highly sensitive deputation from this or that commercial interest." The
time has come when it is fully recognised that whatever might have been
Lord Melbourne's defects, he never brought them into his relations with the
Queen. To her he was the frank, sincere, devoted adviser of all that it was
wisest and best for her to do. "He does not appear to have been greedy of
power, or to have used any unfair means of getting or keeping it. The
character of the young Sovereign seems to have impressed him deeply. His
real or affected levity gave way to a genuine and lasting desire to make
her life as happy and her reign as successful as he could. The Queen always
felt the warmest affection and gratitude for him, and showed it long after
the public had given up the suspicion that she could be a puppet in the
hands of a Minister. "But men--especially Lord Melbourne's political
adversaries--were not sufficiently large-minded and large-hearted to put
this confidence in him beforehand. They remembered with wrath and disgust
that, even in the language of men of the world, "his morals were not
supposed to be very strict." He had been unhappy in his family life. The
eccentricities and follies of Lady Caroline Lamb had formed the gossip of
several London seasons long years before. Other scandals had gathered round
his name, and though they had been to some extent disproven, it was
indignantly asked, could there be a more unsuitable and undesirable guide
for an innocent royal girl of eighteen than this accomplished, bland
_roue_ of threescore? Should he be permitted to soil--were it but in
thought--the lily of whose stainlessness the nation was so proud? The
result proved that Lord Melbourne could be a blameless, worthy servant to
his Sovereign.

In the meantime the great news of Queen Victoria's accession had travelled
to the princely student at Bonn, who responded to it in a manly, modest
letter, in which he made no claim to share the greatness, while he referred
to its noble, solemn side. Prince Albert wrote on the 26th of June: "Now
you are Queen of the mightiest land of Europe; in your hand lies the
happiness of millions. May Heaven assist you and strengthen you with its
strength in that high but difficult task. I hope that your reign may be
long, happy, and glorious, and that your efforts may be rewarded by the
thankfulness and love of your subjects." To others he expressed his
satisfaction at what he heard of his cousin's astonishing self-possession,
and of the high praise bestowed on her by all parties, "which seemed to
promise so auspiciously for her reign." But so far from putting himself
forward or being thrust forward by their common friends as an aspirant for
her hand, while she was yet only on the edge of that strong tide and giddy
whirl of imposing power and dazzling adulation which was too likely to
sweep her beyond his grasp, it was resolved by King Leopold and the kindred
who were most concerned in the relations of the couple, that, to give time
for matters to settle down, for the young Queen to know her own mind--above
all, to dissipate the premature rumour of a formal engagement between the
cousins which had taken persistent hold of the public mind ever since the
visit of the Saxe-Coburg princes to Kensington Palace in the previous year,
Prince Albert should travel for several months. Accordingly, he set out, in
company with his brother, to make an enjoyable tour, on foot, through
Switzerland and the north of Italy. To a nature like his, such an
experience was full of keen delight; but in the midst of his intoxication
he never forgot his cousin. The correspondence between them had been
suffered to drop, but that she continued present to his thoughts was
sufficiently indicated by the souvenirs he collected specially for her: the
views of the scenes he visited, the _Alpenrosen_ he gathered for her
in its native home, Voltaire's autograph.