The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-26 00:00:00

PRINCE ALBERT AND HIS ASSAILANTS.

TO THE EDITOR OR THE TIDIES.. , •
Sir,-,--However disgraceful, weak, and spiteful
may be the attacks on Prince Albert, they are only
so .much additional proof of the real value of great
popUlarity. Toadied, be-statued one day, pelted
with all manner of moral filth the next, what is
this but the ordinary course of things in the case
of any to whom birth, wealth, power—any combi-
nation of circumstance—may have given a high
position above their fellow-men ?
Is Hudson forgotten, now he has again settled into
his own natural sphere ? Wherein was he to blame
that as a successful speculator men worshipped him,
lifted him, all vulgar as be was, on to a shrine be-
fore which the highest in rank and the most dis-
tinguished in refinement were too willing to bow ?
They made his language, his vulgarism; the stock
jokes of the hour ; but yet they courted him, drank
his wine, ate .his dinners, filled Mr. Hudson's
rooms, and acted, at the court of the mere cun-
ning money dealer, all the false folly which forms
ao much the staple of every-day life in the " first
i society:" _ -- - -

Had not the bubble burst, I can conceive it pos-
sible that the frequenters of Capel Court would,
ere this, have moved the City to call for a statue
to their great God of Gain, and the opening of the
Exhibition would have been voted a failure had not
the Railway King joined te more ordinary court.
Louis Napoleon might have sought his private
esteem, and Russia been suspected of trying to
be-Cossack Europe through some malachite doors
hung on gold hinges in the palace of the Railway
Sovereign.
Say—though there is no proof of it—that Prince
Albert has done some intrusive acts at the Horse
uards, or some imprudent acts in the manner of
interference in foreign affairs. Are these the real
grounds of all this sudden outpouring of rancorous
reproof, determined depreciation of his character ?
Is it only just now known that he has not lived a
Sovereign's Consort in these troublous times, and
been devoid of all political predilections ? Did the
world really believe that this prince—the so-called
" soul of commerce and scientific progress"—was a
mere dressed doll in all those matters which must,
of all matters, most engage his wife's attention—
must bear so intimately on every hour of his and
her daily life ? If he has done one or a dozen im-
prudent acts in the many years he has now been
the husband of our Queen, let them meet that re-
proval from which such acts, in relation to public
policy, are, thank God, never sacred ; let the
Englishman's birthright—to speak his mind—have
its free course ; but let us be careful that, in vin-
dicating a public principle, we do not use weapons
sharpened by private, unrelenting pique.
It is said he has German notions—wishes to
Germanise the whole tone of our domestic and
foreign policy. That the Prince should be biassed
by the education of his fatherland—that he should
esteem the advice of those of the country of his
birth, when they are men of world-wide reputation,
is surely not unnatural. That he may have what
we call "foreign prejudices" is very likely. Youmay
naturalise a man, but I will defy any human power
to make an Englishman by any Act whatever. He
is svi, generis, and it is a genus the characteristics
of which will' graft, to grow, on no foreign stock.
Let the country at least know what he has done.
I am no idolater ; but really it does try one's
patience to see the idol of any body of men assailed
with all manner of abuse on mere report. Albertism
was—and I believe, with much justice—a very
prevalent social creed. The generality of us looked
on him as one who had shown no common pru-
dence under no common trial. We were content
to Punch the task of dealing with any such little
temporary departures from common sense as all
great men are liable to. We heard of him at all
manner of charitable inaugurations. When ho
spoke in public he spoke so well that men who
did not hear him even questioned the reports of
his speeches. Scientific professors brought in con •
tact with him were won by his tact, as they were
astonished at his knowledge. Agricultural autho-
rities declare lie is not only nearly first in pigs,
but that he has well nigh mastered all the modern
theory and practice of agriculture. One might fill
columns with tributeg.to his character. And now
it is told from cottage to cottage, "he is in the
Tower for treason !" Nay, the quidnuner- of
country-town libraries know "he will be im-
peached !"
My belief is that, with a certain class of men,
ho has never had any real popularity. The common
sense of the nation has appreciated him—not so
the men of that school which holds common sense
only to be the sense of vulgar, common people.
Ho has not boon wicked enough. There, sir, is
the whole truth. We have had, at last, a moral
Court. Principle has been upheld, and the un-
principled feel it cannot forgive it. They talk of
prudery,—in their dictionary it means opposition
to licentiousness. They say he is slow,—i.e., he
does not bet, gamble, talk indecency, or find lodg-
ings for an opera dancer. Ho inclines towards
" progress" and the interest of the " many ;" a
deadly sin that in the eyes of those who only value
a Court for its glitter, and esteem the chief duty of
the high in rank to be supporting the privileges and
flattering the idle pleasures of the higher classes.
It is not until private weaknesses or follies be-
come the cause of public hurt or annoyance that
public censure should venture to deal with them.
The worst that has been whispered or printed of the
Prince, on authority which could convict a pick-
pocket, has not amounted to anything more than a
criticism of the character of a foreigner, in a most
trying position, in matters none would venture to
censure in the case of any private nobleman. A
man may be, to casual acquaintances, so reserved
in manner as to even hurt the feelings of the very
sensitive, and yet all the while have a very warm
heart, and be capable of winning from intimate
friends the deepest affection. Those who only knew
Queen Adelaide by her mere external every-day
manner were for ever talking of her un-English
reserve ; those who knew her well only did so to
love her more and more. Had that so-called " true
English gentleman," George IV., at any time of
his life, such real friends as Prince Albert is known
to have ? Even the clubs will allow that he has
about him those in constant intercourse with him
whose respect and admiration he has justly won.
The worst feature of these attacks, in a public
point of view, is that, while they are aided by private
malevolence, which in society clothes every news-
paper hint with the inventions no newspaper dare
publish, it is more than suspected that the whole
movement is a "party" one. It is sought to sow
division in the Cabinet by this system of attack upon.
the Prince in connexion with it. The effort will re-
coil on the actors. John Bull is not yet so cravenish
as to see the domestic Peace of his Queen rashly
invaded to further the interests of any section
of men. The Prince will now have gained some
experience of what a desire to gratify private
malice, vulgar curiosity, and party jealousy may
lead to in this country. His flatterers, I trust,
will also have seen the danger of pushing hero-
worship into a too premature development of its
moral issue—.Lgure in marble or bronze, Labelled
for posterity, with a great weight of the inventive
flattery of the ago of its date.
For my own part, were all that I have heard or
read about him these last six weeks true, I should
esteem the character he has hitherto won from
all thinking men, as the husband of our Queen,
quite sufficient in itself to make me feel utter
disgust at the baseness of his present assailants.
He may yet live to see these patriotic (I) censors of
his actions among the most cringing of those who
would seek his or the Queen's favour. His best
revenge would be to grant them their wishes, that
their cowardice may appear all the clearer.
A LOYAL SUBJECT, BUT No FLATTERER.