Page:Australian views of England.djvu/42

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30
AUSTRALIAN VIEWS
[Let.

force and manly simplicity, was winning to himself the love and pride of the English people. It has been said that England has lost in Prince Albert the most valuable life in all the gifted ranks of her widespread population. Surely that cannot be the true estimate of the nation's loss. But she has lost the one man of rare judgment, rare sagacity, and rare humanity, whose place can never be supplied. She has lost him in the prime of life, in the summer of his splendid intellect, before his calm spirit of practical wisdom had reached its maturity.


"The hope of unaccomplished years
Was large and lucid round his brow."


Prince Albert died an hour before midnight, on the 14th of this month, after an illness which had lengthened through eighteen days from the first attack, but which had not been regarded with apprehension until the last forty-eight hours, even by those immediately around the Royal household. The following day being the Sabbath, when the ordinary means of communication were for the most part closed, the sad intelligence was some time before it impressed its certainty upon the