The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-24 00:00:00

THE LATE PRINCE CONSORT.

When the grave closed yesterday over our lost Prince
the Garter King at Arms stood forth to proclaim his titles.
We, in our place, have now to detail the leading events of

his career and to chisel the dates upon his tomb. The dates

are few, and the career is, above all, remarkable for its

calmness. Seldom before has so much greatness been cotn-

bined with so much of shadow and of silence. _ The temple

of fame for Prince Albert has risen somewhat like the

Temple af Jetusalem, without the sound of the busy work-
man hewing and hammering. A life of silent growth and
unobtrusive work has yielded most precious fruit and has
left a noble example, but its marked events are few ; and the

Prince Consort will no doubt hereafter be more famous for
what he has been than for what he has done. Through the

accident of his position, what he has done cannot easily be
put into a tangible shape and meted out by line and rule.
What he was we can easily appreciate, and run little risk

of overrating.

His Royal Highness Francis Albert Augustus Charles

Emmanuel, Prince Ccnsort, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and

Gotha, Duke of Saxony, was born at Rosenau Castle, about I
four miles from Coburg, on the 26th of August, 1819. The
family f om which he sprung was remarkable for its ability,
and of late years has acquired enormous influence in Europe.
At this moment it is the strongest of all the reigning fami-
lies in the world, and holds a prouder position than that
of any Hapsburgs or Bourbons a old. For renown,
we need not go back to the time when the ancestors
of Prince Albert were Margraves of Meissen and
Electors of the Empire. The rise of the Coburgs
into a first-rate position in European politics is but a few
years old ; their rise into anything of importance is not
half a century old. The fortunes of the family were laid by
Prince Albert's grandfather, the Duke Francis Frederic
Anthony, who had a family of seven children. The first of
these who took a position was Prince Leopold ; he married
the Princess Charlotte, who seemed destined to establish

'he Coburg dynasty on the British throne, and he has suc.

ceeded in fixing that dynasty on the throne of Belgium.
After him came the Princesss Victoria, who, marrying the
Duke of Kent, had the happiness of providing an heir—her
Most Gracious Majesty,Coburg on the mother's side—for the
British Crown. There was another brother, Prince Ferdi-
nand; he had a son, named after himself, who married the
Queen of Portugal, and through whom it now happens that
a Coburg reigns in Lisbon. Another Prince of the same
family, Augustus by name, married a daughter of Louis

Philippe, and indeed there are three intermarriages between
the Coburg and the Orleans families, binding fast together
the two chief Royal Houses in Europe. We reserve to the
last all reference to Duke Ernest, the eldest son of Duke

Francis Frederic Anthony. He had the paternal dominion

of Saxe Saalfeld Coburg, which was afterwards changed to
Saxe-Coburg Gotha. He had not so large a family as his

father. He had only two sons, but these two have in diffe-
rent ways kept up and spread the power of the house. It
was but the other day that the elder, now Duke of Saxe-
Coburg and Gotha, took the rather unusual course of giving

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to the world an account of his career. Some of his revela-
tions were as curious as the fact of his writing a book a:
all, and proved the simplicity of his character. Still he
showed in these pages how far his ideas were in advance of
those current among the crowned heads of the Continent—
how pure were his motives, how noble his purpose ; and,
though the work was to some extent a confession of failure,
its effect was to raise the author in public esteem and to
add to his moral influence. For his younger brother, who
has gone down to the dust before him, a much brighter
destiny was reserved. It has been his lot to plant the Co-
burg family in England, and to have made himself a name
that will never die in the history of the greatest Empire
which the world has seen. His son, a Duke of Saxony,
will one day wield the British sceptre. His daughter, a
Duchess of Saxony, is now the Crown Princess of Prussia.
Others of his blood are ripe for new alliances, and it was in
his person that the Coburg family became the most power-
ful in the world.
Of Prince Albert's education much has been said, but to
us the chief point of interest is that it has been the model
upon which he has improved in the education of his son,
the heir apparent. It was diversified as much as possible,
the young man being never left very long in any one place.
At first the Prince, together with his elder brother,
pursued his studies at the Castle of Ehrenberg, under
his father's eye. So they remained until 1835, when
Prince Ernest was 17 and Prince Albert 16 years of
age. They were then taken by their father to visit the
Courts of Berlin,Vienna, and Dresden, and to travel through
Hungary. In May of the following year the Duke took
his children to another Court—that of St. James's, where
King William reigned. During this visit they stayed
at Kensington Palace with the Duchess of Kent ; and
here the first meeting between Prince Albert and the Prin-
cess Victoria took place. From London the two Princes
went to Paris gn a visit to Louis Philippe, two of whose
daughters bad married two of their uncles. And having
thus got a glimpse of the world, they went to Brussels,
partly to be near their uncle, King Leopold, partly to con-
tinue their studies. They had an English later, and they
had the advantage of studying mathematics under Quetalet,
who had the very highest opinion of Prince Albert's abilities.
Thus prepared, the brothers were now fit for the University
of Bonn, which they entered as students of law, and where
they attended a great variety of lectures, some on the clas-
sics, some on statistics, those on jurisprudence, those on
history, on philosophy, now and again cn mathematics.
Among the names of the learned men whose acquaintance
the Princes sought are mentioned Welcker and Schlegel.
In the meantime their education in other arts than those
which a university teaches was not neglected. They studied
poetry, music, and drawing. Prince Albert could boast
some skill as a composer of music, and he made considerable
progress as a painter. So the br others lived for three terms
at the University of Bonn, giving their vacation to a tour
on foot into Switzerland and the North of Italy. In 1839
their formal education might be regarded as complete; in
that year Prince Albert, then but 20, was declared of age,
and towards the close of it he found himself, together with
his brother, again at the Court of St. James's, now ruled by
the young maiden Queen, their cousin.
The Queen gave her heart to Prince Albert, and was mar-
ried to him en the 10th of February in the following year.
At a meeting of her Privy Council in the previous Novem_
bar she announced her intention of forming this union, and
her words are memorable. " I have caused you to be sum-
moned," said her Majesty, "in order that I may acquaint
you with my resolution in a matter which deeply concerns
the welfare of my people and the happiness of my future
life. It is my intention to ally myself in marri, ge with
Prince Albert of Saxo-Coburg and Gctha. Deeply im-
pressed with the solemnity of the engagement which I am
about to contract, I have not come to this decision without
mature consideration, nor without feeling a strong assu-
rance that, with the blessing of Almighty God, it will at
once secure my domestic felicity and serve the interests of
my country." These anticipations have hitherto been ful-
filled to the utmost. Of the Queen's domestic felicity, and
the bright promise of her family of four sons and five daugh-
ters, not a word has been said more than the truth. Upon
the more public question, as to the service which Prince
Albert performed for the nation, the point which especially
calls for remark is—that, having done a great work, and
having fairly earned a great reward, his merits were never
fully recognized, and it is not until we have lost him that
we have discovered all his worth. Now, in making this
admission we appear to be blaming ourselves—we seem to
confess an injustice. In rendering Prince Albert, however,
his due weed of praise, let us render to the English people
their due. The, Prince was some 20 and odd years among
us. During the first half of these he could have been
but little more than a learner—learning our language,
learning our history, learning our ways. Ten years is but
a short time for a foreigner to become naturalised among
us, and it was not till 10 years had elapsed that Prince
Albert made his first mark in this country. All that time
he had been taking root. At the end of it he felt the ground
firm beneath him, and he struck out the idea of the Great
Exhibition. It was a success, but we, at this distance of time,
forget the novelty of the idea, and the doubtfulness with
which it was received by men of eminence, such as the Duke
of Wellington. Prince Albert, high as his position eves,
could scarcely have trusted himself to carry out that scheme
in the face of coldness and opposition before he had felt
himself thoroughly master of the situation. The result of
that work was to him an immense accession of popularity.
People began to discover that he had a will and a mind of
his own, and that the country had somewhat to learn from
him. Now, it is only from that time that Prince Albert can
properly be said to have attained his true position ; and
therefore it is only fir about 10 years that we have had real
experience of him at the head of affairs. But, considering
the nature of his work, 10 years is a very short time for the
discovery of a man's reputation. It will show how slowly
his anonymous kind of work comes to be known and appre-
ciated, if we call to mind the outcry that was raised against
him eight years ago, for his alleged improper interference in
State affairs. Lord Aberdeen and others of our great
statesmen crushed the outcry by adaiittine the facts. It
was admitted that Prince Albert had been present at
the interviews of her Majesty mith Ministers, was in
the habit of seeing all State papers, and continually
advised the Queen. But how could it be otherwise ?
How was it possible to reverse the relations of husband
and wife ? The answer was complete ; but the most remark-
able thing about the whole affair was that for 13 years the
Prince had been married to the Queen, and yet it never en-
tered into the minds of those who raised the scandal that the
Royal wife would have to turn to leer husband for support
and guidance. The Prince's work was of the anonymous
kind, and if it was not fully app. eciated, it was chiefly be-
can e it was little known. That his merits were not entirely
recognised is not an injustice, but a pure accident, which
time would quickly have rectified. We may say roundly
that the Prince had been bat 10 years in the fulness and in
the consciousness of bis powers. But a few years more and
he would have been thoroughly understood.
With regard to the part of the Prince's work which was
not anonymous, and which was regarded as peculiarly his
awn, full justice has been done to his reputation. With an
income of little more than £30,000 a- year, his means were
fettered, but yet he accomplished great things. In him all
the fine and the useful arts had a meet ardent patron. His
taste in music was very refined, and no man has done so
much as he to direct the musical inclinations of the metre-
polls. The sculptors and painters can tell how he encou-
raged and led them. Even in the lower details of decorative