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From a picture in the pokessions of Her Majesty the Queen

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From a picture, n the possession of Her Majesty the Queen

1847

AND BARON STOCKMAR.

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this priceless friend with whatever interested his attention or occupied his thoughts. Herr Friedrich Carl Meyer, now Councillor of Legation at Berlin, who became the Prince's librarian and secretary in May 1846, on the retirement of Dr. Prætorius, gives a vivid picture of these Friends in Council. Commonly towards evening, when he had returned from a drive or business, the Prince came running to the Baron's room, his arms full of papers and despatch boxes, with the impetuosity peculiar to him, and, telling his own news and asking for ours, flung himself down to rest upon the sofa, while his old friend, first listening observantly, and anon breaking into talk, wałked up and down, and poured forth a sparkling store of mingled experiences, maxims, anecdotes, and illustrations drawn for the most part from his own life.'

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The chain of intimacy thus established was kept up by active correspondence after the Baron's return to Germany. In the conviction that no event of either the home or public life of the Queen or himself was without interest for his friend, it was always a pleasure for the Prince to steal some moments from his scanty leisure to keep him informed of what was going on. Thus on 29th May he writes to him amidst the distractions of a house filled with distinguished guests, and the countless claims of the London season:

'Dear Stockmar,-We are frightfully taken up with royal personages. The Grand Duke Constantine, the Hereditary Prince of Lucca, Prince Oscar of Sweden, the Hereditary Grand Duke and Duchess of Weimar, are all here together, besides which "the season" has suddenly become active, and

This passage occurs in an admirable Memoir of Baron Stockmar, which appeared in the Preussische Jahrbücher for October, 1863. In a note upon this passage, Stockmar's biographer says, 'that the weight of business which by degrees the Prince took upon himself was so great, that he had got into the habit in all his movements, even when passing along the corridors, of going at a double quick pace.'

Herr Meyer met Stockmar for the first time in 1846 at Baron Bunsen's in London. In his Memoir already quoted, he gives the following spirited sketch of this remarkable man: During breakfast, Baron Stockmar was announced; he entered and sat down, very soon dominating the conversation-an active, decided, slender, rather little man, with a compact head, brown hair, streaked with grey, a bold short nose, firm yet full mouth, and, what gave a peculiar air of animation to his face, with two youthful, flashing brown eyes full of roguish intelligence and fiery provocation. With this exterior, the style of his demeanour and conversation corresponded; bold, bright, pungent, eager, full of thought, so that amid all the bubbling copiousness and easy vivacity of his talk, a certain purpose was never lost sight of in his remarks and illustrations.'

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