been any doubt: and everybody gives him credit for seeing that it is not as the youth Alfred that he is chosen by a people who can know nothing about him, but as an English Prince. Yet, while we declare that all these things are quite clear and very certain, there is a warm and tender corner in our hearts in which we feel that the boy may have some natural dreams which it is hard to give up; possibly, some feeling that it is hard to be parted from a crown, and from such a devoted people, by the political ideas and consultations of foreign powers. We see how certainly and how soon the justification of such objections would be perceived by the boy himself: we only say that any sighs which may come from that source are natural at the moment,—that is all.
It is exceedingly likely that the whole business may seem to him and his shipmates a capital joke. Perhaps it would be best so; for it is certainly a spoiling process for any youth to go through,—be he as sensible as he may,—to have a whole people worshiping him at one moment and with one heart and mind. It is bad for each royal child at all times to be the object of the exclusive care of any grown person; and especially for a youth to be the sole charge of a governor. It is bad for him to have the movements of others determined by his interests, as when Prince Alfred’s captain and shipmates stay or go, and pass hither or thither for his sake; or when the ship remains at Baiae instead of going to Naples, that he may the better study for his examination. This moral mischief, inseparable from the conditions of royalty, is understood to be reduced to a low point in Prince Alfred’s case by his subjection to professional discipline. In a somewhat similar way we may hope that the hurtful effects of the homage of Greece may be diverted by the amusement it may excite among a set of young middies who suddenly find themselves with a chosen king in the midst of them. Without any ungracious levity, there may be a good deal of fun in the case, in the eyes of sailor boys.
There is another view of it. Prince Alfred is at the age when the moral sense is keen, and virtuous emotions are strong. It may be that he is deeply impressed by the steady, resolute, magnanimous conduct of his mother and her government in the affairs of Greece and the Ionian Islands. He may feel himself more honoured by the refusal of a crown on his behalf than he could be by wearing it, even by popular choice. It is possible that he may have seen, and may now remember, what was said of Lord Fairfax by the Duke of Buckingham; and, though the lines do not precisely apply to our young Prince’s part in the transaction with the Greeks, they may perhaps rest in his mind through some sympathy in the estimate of the true quality of greatness:
He might have been a king,
But that he understood
How much it is a meaner thing
To be unjustly great than honourably good.
In contemplating Prince Alfred’s story of to-day, we must remember what his prospects are. He, who is every inch a sailor now, is to be the sovereign of a country which has never smelt the sea. He is the presumptive heir of his uncle of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, and it does seem strange that this heir should be a sailor. Perhaps some of the Germans who are eager about a navy for the Fatherland are looking forward with satisfaction to a sailor becoming a German sovereign, though his territory lies inland. If he looks forward, it must be with some misgiving as to how the dullness of a small German Court will suit a man who has been roving the seas from boyhood upwards. His chief ambition, we may hope, is professional. If he is as fond of his calling as we hear he is, he need not look beyond professional aims. If he should advance the naval service of his country, and prove himself qualified for the rank which should be won only by desert, he need not look further, for he can attain no higher personal dignity, whatever may be his conventional rank.
This looking forward for our young princes brings in some very grave and very interesting considerations. Three out of the four eldest of the family will be Germans; and while their lot is cast there, beyond all doubt, Germany and its prospects are changing from day to day. When the Princess Royal became Prussian, there was every prospect of a growing sympathy and likeness between England and Prussia, and therefore Germany generally, as Prussia was likely to be the ruling genius of Germany. We should at that time have said that, with the husband of Princess Alice at another German Court, and Prince Alfred at a third, there was every prospect of an English growth of German liberties, and of a strengthening intimacy between the peoples, corresponding with the connections between the royal families. But a dreary change has already come over the prospect. We feel, by sympathy, that our Princess Royal and her husband must be very unhappy about public affairs; and the anxiety cannot but be shared by all her family,—as it is indeed by everybody in England who knows what is going on in Prussia. At this very time, when circumstances appeared singularly favourable to sound political progress in Prussia, and when political wisdom and virtue there were sure to act beneficially on all Germany, the infatuated king is putting everything to hazard,—the throne itself, the peace of the country, and the place of Prussia in Europe,—for nothing else whatever than the gratification of his extravagant notions of prerogative. The position of his son and his son’s wife is extremely hard. They see the fine promise of their lot all turned to menace, and their future throne endangered, when nothing would be easier than to make it a greater and happier sovereignty than it has ever been yet. They must be cruelly ashamed of the absurdities of the king, as well as indignant at his recklessness and faithlessness. They thought to be absent during the crisis, and to see their way by the time of their return; but the king has gone on from bad to worse, and is plunging deeper into difficulty every day. It is easy to say that while the nation is clear and resolute in its fidelity to the Constitution, and the Crown Prince is of the same way of thinking, it is certain that the king