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it was not a mistake. He acted a similar part when the case of Bishop Colenso came in hand.
It is always a particular pleasure to her faithful people to catch a glimpse of the Queen, whether in a carriage or in a book. “Nobody like her” for the eager crowd, “even,” as people say, “when the Princess is there,” to whom England is grateful for preserving her beauty and youth. It was a surprise as well as a pleasure to find her Majesty here in the first exercise of a matured statesmanship, overruling with her personal influence an internal conflict like to be very bitter, and making not only peace but a way in which life might be possible, and the work of the kingdom go on without a violent wrench. Whatever the measure might be which was the disturbing influence, it is strange to think how any criticism could be possible on this action of the Queen and the Archbishop, so every way appropriate to the characters of both. We do not need now to be told that her Majesty’s heart and life are full of the imperial work which belongs to her, and that her presence where she stands above all parties, “seeing the game” on all sides, and ever watchful to avert a catastrophe, is of the deepest importance to the State, besides affording an ideal example of the use and office of a Sovereign in the most liberal of constitutions—which is of infinite service to the imagination and to history. Could a young man, one wonders, save by special potency of genius, ever fill this place which is so beautiful and appropriate in our aged Queen? It is one of those express advantages which belong to female sovereignty, also no doubt to the experience of an age seldom attained in full power and conservation of all faculties by a reigning monarch. The relations between the Sovereign and the Archbishop were at all times beautiful, and the very last act of his life was to write with trembling hand a last message of “earnest love and affectionate blessing” to his Queen.
We have lingered long upon this admirable biography, which, amid so much that the general reader may find laborious in the records of the Church, contains a picture full of truth and life of a rare and noble character—a very true, natural, and, in his chastened and sober way, great man. The tremulous accompaniment of personal feeling which is in the atmosphere, the minor key of repeated and overwhelming bereavement which subdues all the triumphs of life— yet the prevailing tones of patience, humour, and observation which keep it in harmony with the brightest things, are expressed in the most unobtrusive yet effective manner. The book is worthy of the man, and it would be difficult to say more.
We are afraid that it would scarcely be possible to say so much for the work of Mrs Sutherland Orr.[1] Robert Browning is a great poet; but if he was as attractive and attaching a human creature as Archbishop Tait, his biographer has not been able to show it. Is it perhaps true that it was not so?—that the poet was less of a man, less of a hero, with fewer human sympathies, and a less significant and interesting being than the ecclesiastic? This is a thing that nobody can tell. To his most intimate friends he would naturally be dear because he was their inti-
- ↑ Life and Letters of Robert Browning. By Mrs Sutherland Orr. Smith, Elder, & Co.