"27 June, 1822.

"Yesterday morning my dear little boys came back from Gotha, and I was overjoyed. Ernest is very much grown. He is not as handsome as his father, but he will have his good figure. Albert is much smaller than his brother, and lovely as a little angel with his fair curls."

At the beginning of the following year the Dowager Duchess of Coburg again writes:

"14th February, 1823. "The little boys have interrupted me, for you know how little one can do during such a visit. A couple of boys always find means to be noisy, which, and the loud talking, calls for many a scolding from grandmamma. They are very good boys on the whole, very obedient, and easy to manage. Albert used to rebel sometimes, but a grave face brings the little fellow to submit. Now he obeys me at a look. Some weeks

Some weeks ago he alarmed us by an attack of croup, but leeches and a blister quickly relieved it. If any body complains now, he says, very wisely, 'You must put on a blister.'"

M. Florschütz, the tutor, to whose care it will be seen the boys were removed in the course of this year, says that Prince Albert at this time was very subject to attacks of croup.

Again, on the 10th of March of the same year, the duchess writes:

"Ernest's boys have got a picture-book. One of the pictures represents the carrying off of the Saxon princes. This interests them greatly, and Albert makes wonder

ful eyes in telling that one was called Albert, like himself."

It has been already mentioned that the young princes bore the same names as Ernest and Albert, the sons of the Elector Frederick the Mild, who gave their names to the two branches into which the Saxon family was thenceforward divided. The story represented in the picture above mentioned was, that these princes were stolen in infancy from the schloss of Altenburg by one Kunz of Kauffungen, chamberlain to the Elector, in revenge for having been compelled to restore property that, during some disturbances, had been trusted to his care.

"The boys are very wild"- the dowager duchess writes on the 9th of May-" and Ernest flies about like a swallow. One need not, therefore, be astonished at his catching cold during these few warm days, with the wind getting up in the evening.

"Florschütz, who has been with Mensdorff's boys, will come now to those of Ernest, of which I am glad. Do not yet tease your little puss with learning. She is so young still."

The Princess Victoria, who is thus alluded to, would not be four years old till the 24th of that month.

CHAPTER II.

1823-1826.

The Princes removed to the Care of a Tutor.-Prince Albert's first Journal and Letters.-Visits to Gotha.-Letters from the Dowager Duchess of Gotha.

PRINCE ERNEST was barely five years old, and Prince Albert not yet four, when the change alluded to at the end of the last chapter took place, and the young princes were removed from the care of the nurse to whom they had been hitherto intrusted to that of Herr Florschütz of Coburg.

It is generally a severe trial to a child to be separated for the first time from the nurse by whom it has been hitherto tended and cared for; but the Prince, even as a child, showed a great dislike to being in the charge of women, and rejoiced instead of sorrowing over the contemplated change.* His gentle and docile temper, too -his natural tenderness of heart and readiness to love those from whom he experienced kindness-soon led him to attach himself with all the warmth of a loving nature to his new instructor; and it was a source of just and honest pride to the tutor, that the attachment and friendship thus begun endured till the last moment of the Prince's life. Not that the Prince ever forgot-it was not in his nature to forget-her to whom his infancy * Memorandum by the Queen.

owed its earliest care; and Mr. Florschütz relates that many little acts of kindness in after years gave Mme. Müller the grateful assurance of his remembrance of her. From this time forward Mr. Florschütz had the sole direction of the young princes' education till they left Bonn, fifteen years later, at the close of their academical career; and admirably did he perform his task. Noth ing could exceed the patience and unintermitting zeal with which he gave himself up to his new duties; and the progress made by both princes—their varied attainments and extensive information, with the habits which they acquired of application, and of careful and accurate investigation of all subjects submitted to them-gave indisputable proof of the skill and judgment with which he directed their studies. The transfer of the children, however, from the care of their nurse to that of a tutor, alarmed their maternal grandmother at Gotha, and in her tender solicitude, fearing danger to their health from the change thus made, she wrote as follows to the duke on the 23d of November, 1823:

"That the precious children are well makes me very happy, and I long intensely to see them again. I am only sorry that they are now in the hands of the tutor. It is, no doubt, quite right, but I could have wished that, being so subject to attacks of croup, they should still have slept with Müller (their nurse); for a woman, accustomed as Müller has been for so many years to be with the children, naturally sleeps much less soundly than a man who is not used to be with little children.

"Should one of them be suddenly seized with a fit of croup, and he should not be awake, the consequences

might be serious. I could, therefore, have wished that their careful nurse should still have slept with the children till Alberinchen was seven years old. Forgive the anxiety of a grandmother."

When the Duchess of Gotha wrote thus, Prince Albert was still only four years and three months old-certainy rather an early age at which to remove a boy from the care of a nurse to that of a man who could have no experience in infantine disorders, and could know nothing of the many little cares and attentions on which the comfort and health of children so much depend.

Nothing was more remarkable, even in infancy, than the unselfish affection which united the two brothers. "Brought up together," says Mr. Florschütz, "they went hand-in-hand in all things, whether at work or at play. Engaging in the same pursuits, sharing the same joys and the same sorrows, they were bound to each other by no common feelings of mutual love." And this mutual love endured without interruption and without diminution through life.

"Even in infancy, however," their tutor continues, "a marked difference was observable in their characters and dispositions. This difference naturally became more apparent as years went on, and their separate paths in life were definitely marked out for them; yet, far from leading at any time to any, even momentary estrangement, it seems rather to have afforded a closer bond of union between them."

A striking proof of the warm affection which united them will be found in a touching letter from Prince Ernest to the Queen, written when his brother's marriage