James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

[430] of royalty. At first, he was not present at the interviews between the queen and her ministers, unless specially invited, but after a year or two he was present as a matter of course, and the queen invariably acted in accordance with his advice. He was, in fact, as much King of England as though he had been born to the title. He said himself, in a letter. to the Duke of Wellington, declining the command of the army, that his principle of action was “to sink his own individual existence in that of his wife,--to aim at no power by himself or for himself,--to shun all ostentation,--to assume no separate responsibility before the public.” Desiring, he added, to make his position a part of the queen's, he considered it his duty “continually and anxiously to watch every part of the public business, in order to be able to advise and assist her at any moment in any of the multifarious and difficult questions brought before her,--sometimes political, or social, or personal,--as the natural head of her family, superintendent of her household, manager of her private affairs; her sole confidential adviser in politics, and only assistant in her communications with the officers of the government.”

To his father, he wrote, a few months after his marriage: “Victoria allows me to take much part in foreign affairs, and I think I have already done some good. I always commit my views to paper, and then communicate them to Lord Melbourne. He seldom answers me, but I have often had the satisfaction of seeing him act entirely in accordance with what I have said.”

And again, in the following year: “I study the politics of the day with great industry, and resolutely hold myself aloof from all parties. I take active interest in all national institutions and associations. I speak quite openly with the ministers on all subjects, so as to obtain information, and meet on all sides with much kindness. . . . I endeavor ”