verted into a chapel, and a ballroom was added as late as 1856. One of the first entertainments which were given at Buckingham Palace was a grand concert on 17 Aug. 1837, under the direction of Signor Costa. In honour of the occasion the queen ordered the court to go out of mourning for the day. The vocalists were Madame Grisi, Madame Albertazzi, Signor Lablache, and Signor Tamburini. The queen's first official appearance in public out of doors took place on 21 Aug., when she opened the new gate of Hyde Park on the Bayswater Road, and conferred on it the name of Victoria. On 22 Aug. she drove to Windsor to assume residence at the castle for the first time. On 28 Sept. she had her earliest experience of a military review, when the guards in Windsor garrison marched before her in the Home Park. After remaining at Windsor till 4 Oct. she made acquaintance with the third and last of the royal palaces then in existence, the pretentious Pavilion at Brighton, which George IV had erected in a foolish freak of fancy. Lord John Russell, the home secretary, together with his wife, stayed with her there. On 4 Nov. she returned to Buckingham Palace.
The queen took a girlish delight in the sense of proprietorship: she actively directed her domestic establishments, and the mode of life she adopted in Private life. her palaces was of her own devising. She exercised a constant and wide hospitality which had been long unknown in the royal circle. The entertainments were somewhat formal and monotonous ; but, although she was zealous for rules of etiquette, she was never indisposed to modify them if she was thereby the better able to indulge the kindly feeling that she invariably extended to her guests. Most of her mornings were spent at work with Melbourne. In the early afternoon when at Windsor she rode in the park or neighbouring country with a large cavalcade often numbering thirty persons. Later she romped with children, some of whom she usually contrived to include among her guests, or played at ball or battledore and shuttlecock with ladies of the court a practice which she continued till middle age or practised singing and pianoforte playing. Dining at half-past seven, she usually devoted the evening to round games of cards, chess, or draughts, while the Duchess of Kent played whist. One of her innovations was the institution of a court band, which played music during and after dinner. When she was settled at Buckingham Palace she gave a
small dance every Monday. She found time for a little serious historical reading, one of the earliest books through which she plodded as queen being Coxe's 'Life of Sir Robert Walpole' (Lady Lyttleton), and for the first time in her life she attempted novel-reading, making trial of three books by Sir Walter Scott, Fenimore Cooper, and Bulwer Lytton respectively (Bunsen, i. 296). A little later she struggled with Hallam's 'Constitutional History' and St. Simon's ' Memoirs.'
Relatives from the continent of Europe were in the first days of her reign very frequent guests. With them she always seemed most at ease, and she showed them marked attention. Vacant garters were bestowed on two of her German kinsmen, who came on early visits to her the first on her half-brother, the Prince of Leiningen, in July 1837, the next on her uncle. Prince Albert's father, in the year following. The king of the Belgians and his gentle Queen Louise spent three weeks with her at Windsor (August-September 1837), and the visit was repeated for years every autumn. Her first cousin Victoria, daughter of Duke Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who in 1840 married the Due de Nemours, was also often with her, and shared in her afternoon games. But she was not at the Attitude to her kinsfolk. same time neglectful of her kinsfolk at home. Nothing could exceed the tenderness with which she treated the Dowager Queen Adelaide. On the day of her accession she wrote a letter of condolence, addressing it to 'the Queen' and not to 'the Dowager Queen,' for fear of adding to her grief. A very few days later, before the late king's funeral, she visited the widowed lady at Windsor, and she forbade, of her own motion, the lifting of the royal standard, then at half-mast, to mast-high, as was customary on the arrival of the sovereign. When Queen Adelaide removed from Windsor Castle ultimately to settle at Marlborough I her royal niece bade her take from the castle any furniture that her residence there had especially endeared to her, and until the old queen's death the young queen never relaxed any of her attentions. To all her uncles and aunts she showed like consideration. She corresponded with them, entertained them, visited them, read to them, sang to them ; and she bore with little murmuring her uncles' displays of ill-temper. The Duchess of Cambridge, the last survivor of that generation, died as late as 1889, and no cares of family or state were ever permitted by the aueen to interfere with the due rendering of
