won the respect of thoughtful men; and all this she achieved by methods which to her predecessors would have seemed impracticable—methods which it required no less shrewdness to discover than force of character and honesty of heart to adopt steadfastly. Whilst all who approached the queen bore witness to her candour and reasonableness in relation to her ministers, all likewise proclaimed how anxiously she considered advice that was submitted to her before letting herself be persuaded that she must accept it for the good of her people.
Though richly endowed with saving common sense, the queen was not specially remarkable for high development of any specialized intellectual force. Her whole life, public and private, was an abiding lesson in the paramount importance of character. John Bright said of her that what specially struck him was her absolute truthfulness. The extent of her family connexions, and the correspondence she maintained with foreign sovereigns, together with the confidence inspired by her personal character, often enabled her to smooth the rugged places of international relations; and she gradually became in later years the link between all parts of a democratic empire, the citizens of which felt a passionate loyalty for their venerable queen.
By her long reign and unblemished record her name had become associated inseparably with British institutions and imperial solidarity. Her own life was by choice, and as far as her position would admit, one of almost austere simplicity and homeliness; and her subjects were proud of a royalty which involved none of the mischiefs of caprice or ostentation, but set an example alike of motherly sympathy and of queenly dignity. She was mourned at her death not by her own country only, nor even by all English-speaking people, but by the whole world. The funeral in London on the 1st and 2nd of February, including first the passage of the coffin from the Isle of Wight to Gosport between lines of warships, and secondly a military procession from London to Windsor, was a memorable solemnity: the greatest of English sovereigns, whose name would in history mark an age, had gone to her rest.
There is a good bibliographical note at the end of Mr Sidney Lee’s article in the National Dictionary of Biography. See also the Letters of Queen Victoria (1907), and the obituary published by The Times, from which some passages have been borrowed above. (H. Ch.)
VICTORIA (or Vittoria), TOMMASSO LUDOVICO DA (c. 1540–c. 1613), Spanish musical composer, was born at Avila (unless, as Haberl conjectures, his title of Presbyter Abulensis refers not to his birthplace but to his parish as priest, so that his name would indicate that he was born at Vittoria). In 1573 he was appointed as Maestro di Cappella to the Collegium Germanicum at Rome, where he had probably been trained. Victoria left Rome in 1589, being then appointed vice-master of the Royal Chapel at Madrid, a post which he held until 1602. In 1603 he composed for the funeral of the empress Maria the greatest requiem of the Golden Age, which is his last known work, though in 1613 a contemporary speaks of him as still living. He was not ostensibly Palestrina’s pupil; but Palestrina had the main influence upon his art, and the personal relations between the two were as intimate as were the artistic. The work begun by Morales and perfected by Palestrina left no stumbling-blocks in Victoria’s path and he was able from the outset to express the purity of his ideals of religious music without having to sift the good from the bad in that Flemish tradition which had entangled Palestrina’s path while it enlarged his style. From Victoria’s first publication in 1572 to his last requiem (the Officium Defunctorum of 1605) there is practically no change of style, all being pure church music of unswerving loftiness and showing no inequality except in concentration of thought. Like his countryman and predecessor Morales, he wrote no secular music;[1] yet he differs from Morales, perhaps more than can be accounted for by his later date, in that his devotional spirit is impulsive rather than ascetic. His work is the crown of Spanish music: music which has been regarded as not constituting a special school, since it absorbed itself so thoroughly in the Rome of Palestrina. Yet, as has been aptly pointed out in the admirable article “Vittoria” in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Roman music owes so much to that Spanish school which produced Guerrero, Morales and Victoria, that it might fairly be called the Hispano-Roman school. In spite of the comparative smallness of Victoria’s output as compared with that of many of his contemporaries, there is no mistaking his claim to rank with Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso in the triad of supreme 16th-century masters. In any extensive anthology of liturgical polyphony such as the Musica Divina of Proske, his work stands out as impressively as Palestrina’s and Lasso’s; and the style, in spite of a resemblance to Palestrina which amounts to imitation, is as individual as only a successful imitator of Palestrina can be. That is to say, Victoria’s individuality is strong enough to assert itself by the very act of following Palestrina’s path. When he is below his best his style does not become crabbed or harsh, but over-facile and thin, though never failing in euphony. If he seldom displays an elaborate technique it is not because he conceals it, or lacks it. His mastery is unfailing, but his methods are those of direct emotional effect; and the intellectual qualities that strengthen and deepen this emotion are themselves innate and not sought out. The emotion is reasonable and lofty, not because he has trained himself to think correctly, but because he does not know that any one can think otherwise.
His works fill eight volumes in the complete edition of Messrs Breitkopf and Härtel. (D. F. T.)
VICTORIA, a British colonial state, occupying the south-eastern corner of Australia. Its western boundary is in 140° 58′ E.; on the east it runs out to a point at Cape Howe, in 150° E. long., being thus rudely triangular in shape; the river Murray constitutes nearly the whole of the northern boundary, its most northerly point being in 34° S. lat.; the southern boundary is the coast-line of the Southern Ocean and of Bass Strait, the most southerly point is Wilson’s Promontory in 39° S. lat. The greatest length east and west is about 480 m.; the greatest width, in the west, is about 250 m. The area is officially stated to be 87,884 sq. m.
The coast-line may be estimated at about 800 m. It begins about the 141st meridian with bold but not lofty sandstone cliffs, worn into deep caves and capped by grassy undulations, which extend inland to pleasant park-like lands. Capes Bridgewater and Nelson form a peninsula of forest lands, broken by patches of meadow. To the east of Cape Nelson lies the moderately sheltered inlet of Portland Bay, consisting of a sweep of sandy beach flanked by bold granite rocks. Then comes a long unbroken stretch of high cliffs, which, owing to insetting currents, have been the scene of many calamitous wrecks. Cape Otway is the termination of a wild mountain range that here abuts on the coast. Its brown cliffs rise vertically from the water; and the steep slopes above are covered with dense forests of exceedingly tall timber and tree-ferns. Eastwards from this cape the line of cliffs gradually diminishes in height to about 20 to 40 ft. at the entrance to Port Phillip. Next comes Port Phillip Bay, at the head of which stands the city of Melbourne. When the tide recedes from this bay through the narrow entrance it often encounters a strong current just outside; the broken and somewhat dangerous sea thus caused is called “the Rip.” East of Port Phillip Bay the shores consist for 15 m. of a line of sandbanks; but at Cape Schanck they suddenly become high and bold. East of this comes Western Port, a deep inlet more than half occupied by French Island and Phillip Island. Its shores are flat and uninteresting, in some parts swampy. The bay is shallow and of little use for navigation. The coast continues rocky round Cape Liptrap. Wilson’s Promontory is a great rounded mass of granite hills, with wild and striking scenery, tree-fern gullies and gigantic gum-trees, connected with the mainland by a narrow sandy isthmus. At its extremity lie a multitude of rocky islets, with steep granite edges. North of this cape, and
- ↑ One French song is mentioned by Hawkins, but no secular music appears in the prospectus of the modern complete edition of his works published by Breitkopf and Härtel.
