The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1861-12-24 00:00:00

THE LATE PRINCE CONSORT.

The mortal remains of the late Prince Albert
—the husband of England's Queen—the father
of our country's future monarch—have been
placed among the silent dead. If we cannot
say, as has been said by some of our contein-
: poraries, that the loss is the greatest that could
have befel the nation, we are faiu to admit that
I it is the most irreparable. As has been justly
remarked,—" Our Parliamentary Constitution in
some sense renews itself, or tends to do so. As
one old statesman leaves the scene, a younger
one conies forward in the vigour of hope and
power to fill his place. When one great orator
dies, another commonly succeeds him. The
opportunity of the new aspirant is the departure
of his predecessor; on every vacancy some new
claimant—inany claimants probably—strive with
eager emulation to win it, and to retain it.
Every loss is in a brief period eavily and fully
repaired. Even, too, in the hereditary part of
our Constitution most calamities are soon for-
gotten. One monarch diesand another succeeds
him. A new Court, a new family, new hopes
: and new interests spring up and supersede those
which have passed away. What was, is for-
: gotten ; what is, is seen.' But we have now the
same uld Courts, with one of its mainstays and
principal supports gone. The Queen still lives—
and God grant that she may yet see many years
of happiness--but her moat trusted counsellor
and dearest friend sleeps the sleep of death. The
Royal Emily of a month 11.40 is the same Royal
faini'y of to-day, lint the Either of that f oidly
is removed. For inch a loss there can be no
coml lete coin; ensation ; for such a i-nil, iii
resource ciii fill. In no rank of life can any one
else be to a widow and cl.ililren what the deceased
husband would have been. In the Court, as in
the cotta4e. such a loss inuist not only be grief
hut periilexitv, trouble, and peril:till mis-
take, hereafter Reciiiime for the last twenty
years everything has gone on so easily and so
well, that it has seemed to go of itself, we have
almost come to regal d the highest power in the
State to he little more than an automaton, to
speak end act as directed by others. Rut we
have only to ponder on the facts, and contrast
the reign of Queen Victoria with the reign of
Queen Anne. whin Prince George WAS a cypher,
and Mrs Masham was the Court favourite, to see
tle erroneousness of such supposition. In

the highest as in the lower strata of society,
everything requires anxiety, and rdlection,
and patience. Under a constitutional govern-
ment like our own, the Crown ia of bluetit:kr im-
portance, because it is the sole obiCCt of attaAi-
!tient which is elevated above every faction.; con-
tention and division ; but to maiotain that im-
portance it must create attachment. We know
that the Crown now does so fully ; but we do not
adequately bear in mind how much rectitude of
intention, how much judgment in conduct, how
lunch power in doing right, how much power of
doing nothing, are requisite to excite the loyalty,
and to retain the confidence of a free people.
The circionstances, and perhaps the character, of
the Prince Consort forbade him to attempt the
visible achievementa and the showy displays
which attract momentary popularity. Discretion
is a quality seldom appreciated till it is lost, and
it was discretion that Prince Albert eminently
possessed. It MRS a happy circumstance that in
her own husband the Queen possessed a
counsellor, whose qualifications enabled him
to guide her through every difficulty, with-
out mixing himself up with party strife ; al-
though now, the more she has been accus-
tomed to confide to Man the many duties
which devolved upon Her Majesty, the more
difficult must it be to resume those habits of
business, the necessity of which had been so
agreeably superseded. We therefore rejoice to
know that Her Majesty has been so far strength-
ened in the midst of her deep affliction as to rise
with the emergency, and to declare that she is
prepared, to the full extent of her strength and
her abilities, to devote herself to the discharge of
the high reapansibifities of her station. May
God himself inspire her with strength and
wisdom, and may she find in the Prince of Wales
a worthy sou of his departed sire !