36 IN ITALY. 1839 In Florence the Prince continued his active and studious. habits, rising at six and working till noon, dining simply at two o'clock, when his drink was water, and going to bed as a rule at nine. Music occupied much of his attention. He played well on both the piano and the organ, and he would often resort to the Church of the Badia, when it was closed to the public, to play on its fine organ. As the music penetrated the solemn stillness of the church and cloisters (Sir Francis Seymour writes), the monks on their way to the Refectory would stop and listen, whispering to each other, 'Quel principe forestiere suona bene quasi quanto il nostro Papi'—Papi being the organist of the Badia, and also the Prince's in structor. Little as the Prince was disposed for such things, the amusements of society necessarily claimed many of his evenings. I have thrown myself,' he says, in his letter already quoted, 'into the vortex of society. I have danced, dined, supped, paid compliments, been introduced to people and had people introduced to me, chattered French and English, exhausted every conceivable phrase about the weather, played the amiable-in short, have made "bonne mine à mauvais jeu." You know my passion for this sort of thing, and must therefore admire my strength of character, in that I have never excused myself, never returned home till 5 in the morning, in a word, that I have fairly drained the Carnival cup to the dregs.' This playful exaggeration of his sacrifices to the claims of fashionable life is well balanced by the ball-room incident recorded by Sir Francis Seymour (Early Years, p. 196). Seeing the Prince engaged in a warm discussion with the blind Marquis di Capponi, a man of distinguished attainments, the Grand Duke Leopold remarked to Lady Augusta Fox, 'Here is a Prince of whom we may be proud. Lovely partners wait for him, while he is occupied with the learned." Even his elderly and sage friend Stockmar rallied him on his disinclination to general society and backwardness in paying attention to the ladies; ascribing these peculiarities to the circumstance, that the Prince had unfortunately too little of the society and tending of a mother or other cultivated woman during his early years. They were probably quite as much the result of temperament. In these matters, at any rate, it is idle to fight against nature or confirmed habit. The Prince was too sincere to affect an interest or admiration which he did not feel, and was at no pains at any time of his 1839 IN ITALY. 37 life to dispense the small current coin of compliment or pleasantry, the ring of which, if agreeable, is too frequently false. From Florence the Prince went in March to Rome, where he spent three weeks, working hard from daybreak to sunset in seeing all that it offered of interest in Art ancient and modern, and in antiquities. He did not spare himself the tourist's accustomed penance of an interview with the Pope (Gregory XVI.). We conversed,' he writes, 'in Italian on the influence the Egyptians had had on Greek Art, and that again on Roman Art. The Pope asserted that the Greeks had taken their models from the Etruscans. In spite of his infallibility, I ventured to assert that they had derived their lessons in art from the Egyptians' (Early Years, p. 200). Naples was next visited, with all the surrounding places of interest; of which none struck him so much as Pompeii, the place which above all others stirs the imagination of the student of ancient life and manners. From this point the Prince_turned back to Milan, taking Rome, Tivoli, Viterbo, Sienna, Leghorn, Lucca and Genoa on the way. At Milan, where the Prince was met by his father, Baron Stockmar left him, and the Prince returned to Coburg, by way of Geneva. Here Sir Francis Seymour, with whom the Prince had become very intimate, took his leave, the last of the pleasant group, whose complete harmony had made their short sojourn together most agreeable. The Italian tour was acknowledged by the Prince to have been of great advantage to him, and 'the society of a man so highly distinguished as Baron Stockmar to have been most precious and valuable.' 'My range of observation has been doubled, and my power of forming a right judgment will be much increased by having seen for myself.' That he had already learned not only to think for himself, but to speak his thoughts, throwing off the cant of universal admiration which infects most young travellers, is very apparent from what follows. Italy is truly a most interesting country, and an inexhaustible source of knowledge. One contrives, however, to taste extraordinarily little of the enjoyment one promises oneself there. In many, many respects the country is far behind what one had expected. Climate, scenery, artistic feeling and skill, in all these one feels most disagreeably disappointed.' Soon after the Prince's return to Coburg, his brother's coming of age was celebrated (21st June, 1839) with the 38 RETURN TO COBURG. 1839 usual festivities; and by a special act of the legislature Prince Albert was at the same time declared to be of age. It was a source of deep gratification to him, that in this important step of their lives his brother and himself had still been allowed to go hand in hand. Now,' he writes, 'I am my own master, as I hope always to be, and under all circumstances.' 6 The return home had been looked forward to eagerly by the Prince, as enabling him to resume the studies interrupted by his Italian tour. Much to his chagrin, he had to accompany his father to Carlsbad-'a place that I hate mortally,'at the very time, as he remarks in a letter to Baron Stockmar (28th May, 1839), when he had formed the finest plans for the study of English language and history, for which the quiet of the Rosenau would have been particularly well suited.' These regrets were intensified, when a few months afterwards he found himself suddenly called to a position, in which it was of the highest moment to him that he should be thoroughly master of both. All he was able to secure was a short interval of quiet and regular occupation' at the Rosenau in September, soon, however, to be interrupted by the visit to England, which decided the future course of his life. CHAPTER III, Estimate by Baron Stockmar of the Prince's Character-State of Parties in EnglandPrince's Second Visit to England-Betrothal of Queen and Prince-Return of Prince to Germany-Letter by Prince Ernest of Saxe-Coburg to the Queen-Leave-takings at Coburg and Gotha, THE impressions of the Prince's character produced upon Baron Stockmar during the Italian tour have been preserved in a memorandum by the Baron, of which some portions are quoted in his Memoirs. over "The Prince,' he says (Denkwürdigkeiten, p. 331), 'bears a striking resemblance to his mother, and at the same time, though differing in much, takes after her in many respects, both physical and mental. He has the same mobility and readiness of mind, the same intelligence, the same ruling desire and talent for appearing kind and amiable to others, the same tendency to espièglerie, and to the treatment of men and things in a droll and consequently often pleasant fashion, the same habit of not dwelling long upon a subject. His constitution cannot be called strong; still I incline to think, that with proper dietetic management of himself, it may easily gain strength and stability. After any exertion he is apt to look pale and exhausted. Creat exertion is repugnant to him, and his tendency is to spare himself both. morally and physically. 'Full of the best intentions and the noblest resolutions, he often falls short in giving them effect. His judgment is in many things beyond his years; but hitherto at least he shows not the slightest interest in politics. Even while the most important occurrences are in progress, and their issues undecided, he does not care to look into a newspaper. He holds, moreover, all foreign journals in abhorrence; and while declaring that the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung is the only paper one wants, or that is worth reading, he does not even read that. 40 BARON STOCKMAR'S 1839 'As respects les belles manières, there is still room for improvement. This defect must be in a great measure ascribed to the fact, that his earliest years were passed without the advantage of the society or care of a mother or other cultivated woman.1 'On the whole, he will always have more success with men than with women, in whose society he shows too little empressement, and is too indifferent and retiring.' Such was the searching accuracy of Stockmar's powers of observation, that it is impossible to doubt the general truth of this sketch. The eye of the old physician was not more quick to detect the latent constitutional weakness, which was afterwards fatally developed, than to see the disinclination to sustained effort, which was probably in a great measure, if not wholly, the result of that weakness. At the same time it must not be forgotten that the standard by which Stockmar judged the Prince was no ordinary one. How few young men, even among the greatly gifted, could have borne so well a scrutiny so relentlessly severe ? Such it was, and could not fail to be, for no one could estimate more soundly how much would be required and expected of the future husband of the Queen of England. Without exceptional strength and elevation of character, exceptional clearness of aim and powers of work, disappointment could not fail to ensue. The Prince's indifference to politics, moreover, must have been a source of the greatest anxiety to Stockmar, knowing, as he did, how soon and how urgently the Prince might be called upon to deal with the most intricate problems, both political and social, which were then springing up on all sides. With such a prospect in view, the highest general accomplishments were not likely to satisfy this stern yet kindly critic. It has been already shown, however, that even in the Prince's boyhood and early youth the earnest tone of his mind, and the firmness and energy of his character, had impressed his brother and fellow-students with a sense of superiority to which they felt themselves compelled to bow. Whatever, therefore, Stockmar may have seen in him of a tendency 1 Stockmar was too subtle an observer not to have felt the truth of the opinion expressed by Goethe in the Torquato Tasso: Willst du genau erfahren was sich ziemt, Wouldst thou be eminent for courteous grace, |