The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-22 00:00:00

princely nature, of him whose loss has bowed her
to the earth with a sense of desolation and misery
that every day, alas ! serves only to increase, is ap-
preciated by the country—that the benefits he has
been instrumental in conferring upon the nation,
the good he has wrought since he first came among
us, and to effect which he may truly be said alone
to have lived, are understood and acknow-
ledged." Her MAJESTY the
MATE
STY'S
Agxoessnon,s to remark,
through the medium of her
is The QUEEN is also much touched by the feeling
which has led the promoters of the movement for
erecting a national monument to the Prince to leave
the nature of that monument to her decision. It is

a subject on which there must necessarily be much
difference of opinion. Many, influenced, doubtless,

by the belief that there was nothing which the

Prince himself had so deeply and constantly at heart
as the promotion of whatever might tend to the ad-
vantage of the community at large, or of any por-
tion of it, have thought that the most appropriate
monument to his memory would be to connect
his name with some great work that should have
that end in view ; and the Queen cannot but be
gratified by Its proof of a just appreciation of his
character." General GREY, it will be observed, in
one of the above sentences, refers to the hitherto
debated questions as to the character of the proposed
memorial, as to the choice of its site, and again as to
the manner of its execution, as constituting altogether
"a subject on which there must be much difference
of opinion." Much difference of opinion there has
been, no doubt. But that is now all put an end to.
The matter is definitively set at rest by her
MAJESTY'S own gracious and, we cannot
but think it really a admirable decision.
What tho Royal decision is we will let
the QUEEN'S Secretary himself explain in his
own words. "After giving the subject her
best consideration," writes General GREY, " her
MAJESTY has come to the conclusion that nothing
would be more appropriate, provided it is on a scale
of sufficient grandeur, than an obelisk to be erected
in Hyde-park on the site of the Great .Exhibition of
1851, or on some spot immediately contiguous to
it ; nor would any proposal that can be made be
more gratifying to the QUEEN personally, for she
can never forget that the PRINCE himself had
highly approved of the idea of a memorial of this
character being raised, on the same spot, in remem-
brance of that Exbibition." Who is there amongst
her MAJESTY'S loyal subject who will not instantly
recognise the grace, the dignity, the tenderness,
and the grandeur of those loving recollections which
have led Queen VICTORIA to this most admirable
selection at once of memorial, of site, and of manner
of execution. The site—the greensward in Hyde-
park, where, eleven years ago, glittered in the sun-
light the Fairy Crystal Palace of the 1851 Exhibi-
tion! The monument itself—a favourite style of me-
morial with the departed PRINCE—an Obelisk. But,
quoth the QUEEN, though her MAJESTY'S Secretary
an Obelisk—and an Obelisk there—upon one pro-
viso [and here it is that Her MAJESTY decides the
mode of execution !]—" provided it is on a scale of
sufficient grandeur" Her MAJESTY has said it.
All the difficulties hitherto surrounding the scheme
of the nation's memorial are at length, and by those
few words, effectually dissipated. Happily too the
wherewithal through which to erect this grand
memorial obelisk in Hyde Park on the site of the
late Prince Consort's MASTERPIECE, the Great
International Exhibition of 1851, has been magni-
ficently provided already by those loyal contribu-
tions to the memorial, now considerably over
,hirty thousand pounds sterling.

A supplementary letter, it will have been I
remarked, was alluded to yesterday by the Lord
Mayor as having been addressed to his lordship by
command of the QUEEN, and enclosed in the same
envelope with the gracious communication from
which the foregoing extracts have been taken.
That separate and supplementary letter, as the Lord
Mayor himself calls it, was merely read by the Chief
Magistrate yesterday to the members of the assem-
bled Committee, with a request from the Lord Mayor
to the representatives of the Press not to give it
publication unless Her MAJESTY should have
herself graciously authorised its publication. The
Royal permission having since then been accorded,
empowering us to give publicity to this second and
still more beautiful and affecting expression of the
QUEEN'S grief for the loss of her MAJESTY'S
Royal Consort, we have the sorrowful gratification
of giving insertion to it verbatim elsewhere.

Another Federal success is at least another
favourable augury for the North. If it were of no
great military value, still success itself in war is
something; if it does nothing else, it raises the
spirit of the conquering side. It shows superior
skill or courage, or both ; and, if only better luck,•
even this last, in its effects, is not to be despised.
The capture of Fort Henry is not, however, to be
despised from any point of view. It was a fort in a
very important position, commenced by the rebels
last summer, because it commands an important
railroad from Memphis, on the Mississippi, to Ken-
tucky and the North, and also the navigation of the
Tennessee, a large and navigable branch of the
Ohio, running through the State of the same
name. The fort was, it would seem, well built
and armed. The Southerners thought it impreg-
nable. It mounted twenty guns, and a
little army appears to have been encamped
under them. The affair, however, was one of long
balls. Several iron-clad gun-boats, from Cairo—
situated at the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio—
steamed up the latter river, turned up the Ten-
nessee, and shelled the fort from a distance. The
commander, a regularly trained West Point officer,
defended it vigorously for an hour and a half, when
he was obliged to haul down the Confederate flag,
and surrender at discretion. As to the regiments
encamped under the fort, they appear to have taken
to their heels when the artillery, which they were
to support, ceased to support them. The Federal
loss was, it is said, 30 men killed by a shot enter-
ing a boiler. But the official report makes no men-
tion of this loss.

We shall now see whether General BEM:MEG/01D,
who has been some weeks in the west, will succeed
in retrieving, or maintaining the Confederate posi-
tion. He has kept the large army on the Potomac
at bay, and he will have a country to defend, it
must be supposed, naturally stronger, than the more
populous North of Virginia. The Federals have
pretty nearly possessed themselves of Kentucky,
and in the part adverted to, are pressing into Ten-
nessee, in parts of which, as well as in Kentucky,
there are many Unionists. There seems a disposi-
tion to try now the effect of attacking the flank of
the rebel force in the West. ,The sea-board expedi-
tions have not resulted in calling forth any Union
demonstrations at the points seized; the generals
hardly advance beyond the covering fire of the
ships, slaves show:no marked appreciation of North-
ern generosity, and of the whites we do not hear
that a single man has joined the Federals. It may
be better in the West. Several States there have,
or parts of them, an anti-slavey population—whole
counties which keep all slaves as far away as they
can. Congress seems well pleased with the recent
Ismall successes, and on the arrival of the news of
Ithe fall of Fort Henry promptly voted the
£2,000,000 for twenty iron-clad gunboats, respect-