New-York tribune., 1868-02-19
ROYAL CIYILITY.

Il is stated in the newspapers that the
amiable Queen of England has sent letter of
coincidence to Mrs. Charles Kean upon the
death of her husband. If it be true, as some
times asserted, that Victoria has by her per-
sistent isolation since the death of the Prince
Consort lost something of the affection of her
subjects, she appears, by the publication of her
husbands biography, and by several acts which
in monarchical countries are considered conde-
scending, to be desrous of assuring her
subjects that there is nothing of royal hm-
teur in her seclusiOn. The soyereigns
of England since the ealy days of
George III. have had very little to do
with the Government. That wrong headed
parsonage, whenever he was in his right mind,
fought for the irresponsible prerOgatives of the
throne with all the zeal and irrational obsti-
macy of the Stuarts. Aided by the French
Revolution. he succeeded in fastening upon the
nation for long series Of years Tory adj
ministration; but he bartered the future for
tunes OF his house for the sake of mere
shadow, and when'th inevitable reaction came
there was nobody to oppose it, except King
who was simply gaceless by the grace of God.
His successor would have made an excellent
u
presses his influence as a ruler. 1t was to
q throne assailed upon one side by
Wing faction and upon the other by growing
spirit of democracy, that the Queen succeeded; !;
but az a woman, she had a claim upon what
ever Chivalry might remain in the English
character We have sometimes thought that
with maternal instinct, and with full knOwl-
edge of the deficiencies of the heir-apparent,
she was seeking in his behalf, to reach the
more generous sympathies of those who are
her subjects only in name. The Prince OF
Wales should he reign long enough, may yet
be indebted to the memory of his mother Tor
the stability Of his royal head upon his royal
shoulders. There are a dozen questions un-
settled now, which cannot remain unsettled
forever. Ireland is one of the most difficult of
these problems; the land tenures furnish another
and the Church Establishment third, while
pauperism has certainly reached hight in En-
gland almost as great as it had attained in
France when Louis XIV. bade final farewell
tq bis painted segTtezsens s EnslllsRl passions
may rise slowly, but, when once at their tull
tide, English history proves that they are not
easily restrained. James |. would have sent
anybody who had foretold the fate of his son
instantly to the Tower, and with but small
delay to the scaffOld The English prophets OF the
present day print their predictions in quarterly
reviews and in daily newspapers; while those
who think the throne has too much power,
aud those who think the throne has not power
enough, seem to agree in the opinion that very
possibly, sooner or later. there may be no
throne at all. A democracy is the one expert
ment in government which the English people
have never tried. They might like republican
rule, and they might not but if they should
take fancy to taste liberty, or even license,
for themselves, dark day might come for
princes, for peers and for prelates. Such
day would surely be fastened by the accession
of o dissolute monarch; for in these
times the people would not bear what
they tolerated. and even half approved, in the
times of the Regency. The throne, it is true,
has not of itself sufficient authority justly to
provoke any great degree of personal animosity,
but it is part of system Of which the remain
ing elements are peculiarly obnOxious-it is the
keystone of that arch Of which entail, primo
geniture, hereditary rank, and the church estab-
lsbment (all distasteful alike to the lower and
the commercial classes) are the component
divisions. The Queen, with the intutive readi-
ness of woman. may comprehend the future
perils of tho throne; but whether Cancellation
and complasance may be trusted to avert them,
after the tragic experience of the Widow Capet
ia a question for the students of history and
the observers of mankind.
The Committee from Albany now in this
city should not confne its attention to inves-