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that part of the family which can't come there, must stay here; for its no matter what inconvenience any els suffers for your dear sake. I think this way the only one yourself will have, will be my lying in your chamber, which you know I can make as easy to you as may be.

Our being there will certainly forward, the work. My greatest fear is for your closets here; but if you consider how much sooner you come back (from Ireland) than one durst have hoped you will forgive me, and I can't but be extreme glad to be deceived."

To this dutiful letter, William, who, says a pasquinade of the time, was "a churle to his wife," made a savage reply. With what a strange picture of regal domestic economy does it not present us. Instead of king and queen we can more easily imagine the correspondents to be some city merchant and his wife, his having “business in town," for instance, and the necessity of looking after the workmen. The king returned in September, and received at Kensington the thanks of the capital, for the victory of the Boyne.

The characters of the new master and mistress of Kensington Palace have been very differently drawn.

There are, in fact, two sides to that of William.

Regarded from the sphere of European politics, he was the youthful hero who had saved his own country from the might of France, and had rescued England from the tyranny, folly, and bigotry of James; who was a very Cid on the battle field, a very Richelieu at the council table, the soul of a vast European coalition against the grasping Louis the Fourteenth, who, even when worn out with failure and sickness, never gave in, who with a weak body, harassed by mental anxiety and by physical pain, was more self-possessed on the battle field than in the drawing room, who was the assertor of religious toleration and the deadly opponent of tyranny.

He was patient, long-suffering, and forgave the traitors who conspired against him as frequently as they forgot his forgiveness, and repeated the offence. His mind was immense, his views wide and far-seeing; too extensive and anticipatory indeed for our insular prejudices. To him defeat meant necessity for increased action. Like Charles XII. of Sweden, he would not know when he was beaten. He towers in intellectual superiority above the other monarchs of his

age, and England was better governed and happier under his rule than she had been for centuries, while if any little hitches arose between king and people, it was in consequence of his ignorance of our peculiar British idiosyncracies, rather than from any fault of character.

Great men frequently appear less favourably in their domestic than in their public life. The poet who writes so charmingly of love and conjugal happiness, may storm at his wife because the beef is overdone, and the Parson may descend from the pulpit, where he has so eloquently discoursed on forbearance and brotherly love, to blow up the old verger for leaving the vestry door open and causing a draught. As yet we have spoken of William of Orange as the liberator of our country from bigoted tyranny, the scourge of France, the wisest of statesmen.

Such is the William of history, the William whom Macaulay has portrayed for us. "Little Will," says Prior, "no godhead, but the first of men."

Such, however, was not the William of whom we have to speak as the possessor of Kensington Palace. He was a small, thin man, ghastly pale, troubled with a continual cough, with a beak-like nose, and sharp

piercing eye; a man who spoke but seldom, and who when he did speak, usually said something unpleasant, who was apparently unkind, unfaithful and rude to his wife, who quarrelled with her relations, who could find nothing better to amuse him in England than to endeavour to make his residences as un-English as possible; who cared for no one unless they were Dutchmen, who had probably never read a line of Dryden, who used to sit up late at night drinking gin, and who wasted British lands on foreign favourites and mistresses.

The character of his wife has been painted with no less diversity, and fortunately it is the brighter side of that character which belongs to Kensington Palace. In history, we find her spoken of as a daughter who helped to turn her father from the throne, who was harsh to her sister, and who attempted to cover the birth of her brother with unfounded disgrace. But as we see her at Kensington she is the true loving wife, adoring a husband who was, to say the least of it, ungracious, forgiving him, or rather, scarcely conscious that he had faults to forgive, watching his every movement, studious to attend to his slightest wish,

never faltering a moment where he was concerned, undesirous of the richest bauble that earth can offer, a crown, unless he too might share it with her; always loving, always longing for that love to be fully returned. Surely truer, better, more loveable character is not to be found among England's queens. Her life, indeed, was one of those romances so often to be met with in history. There are materials for any number of three volume novels in it. Ay, and the true history would be more exciting, and more readable than all the novels. If it were known how much of romance there is in history, we should have boarding school misses hiding Macaulay under their pillows instead of Miss Braddon, while Ouida would be voted as dull as ditch water when compared with Froude, and "Pascarel" would be set by stern governesses for pupils to copy when they had been unusually troublesome. But there; we have been exercising our rambling propensities too freely, and must return to the household at the Palace.

Mary used to have her nephew, the little Duke of Gloucester, the only surviving son of the princess Anne, over sometimes from Campden House. He

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