Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/568

 Walmer Castle (Nov. 1842), and several times in infancy at the Brighton Pavilion, the royal residence which was abandoned by the queen in 1845, owing to the pertinacity of sight-seers. In the same year Osborne House in the Isle of Wight became the regular seaside home of the royal family, and was thenceforth constantly visited by the prince.

In 1846 he and the rest of the family made a first yachting excursion from Osborne, paying a first visit to Cornwall, which was his own appanage. Next year he made a tour through Wales, the principality which gave him his chief title. In the autumn of 1848 he paid his first visit to Scotland, staying at Balmoral House, then a hired shooting lodge. The Scottish visit was thenceforth an annual experience. The future Archbishop Benson saw the royal party at their first Braemar gathering (15 Sept. 1848), and described the little prince as 'a fair little lad of rather a slender make with an intelligent expression.' A like impression was made on all observers. 'Pretty but delicate looking' was Macaulay's description of him when the child caught the historian's eye as he stood shyly holding the middle finger of his father's hand at the christening of his third sister, Princess Helena, at Windsor on 26 July 1846 ({{sc|Lord Broughton's Recollections, vi. 181).

In 1849 he made his first acquaintance with another part of his future dominions. He accompanied his parents on their first visit to Ireland. Queen Victoria on her return commemorated the Irish people's {{PT Shoulder Heading|First visits to Ireland, 1849-53.}} friendly reception of her and her family by creating her eldest son by letters patent under the great seal, Earl of Dublin (10 Sept. 1849). Her father had borne the same title, and its revival in the person of the heir-apparent was a politic compliment to the Irish capital. The visit to Ireland was repeated four years later, when the royal family went to Dublin to inspect an exhibition of Irish industries (Aug. 1853). In later life no member of the royal family crossed St. George's Channel more frequently than the prince.

Meanwhile his education was progressing on strict lines. In the spring of {{PT Shoulder Heading|A tutor appointed, 1849.}} 1849 Henry Birch, an under-master of Eton, 'a young, good-looking, amiable man,' according to Prince Albert, was after careful inquiry appointed his first tutor. Birch held office for two years, and was succeeded by Frederick W. Gibbs, a barrister, who was recommended to Prince Albert by Sir James Stephen, then professor of history at Cambridge. Gibbs filled his post till 1858. Other instructors taught special subjects, and with M. Brasseur, his French teacher, the prince long maintained a cordial intimacy.

Endowed with an affectionate disposition, which was readily moved by those about him, he formed with most of his associates in youth of whatever age or position attachments which lasted for life. Very typical of his fidelity to his earliest acquaintances in all ranks was his lifelong relation with (Sir) David Welch (1820-1912), captain of the Fairy and Alberta, Queen Victoria's earliest royal yachts. The prince made his first sea voyage in Welch's charge when little more than seven, and thenceforth until the prince's death Welch belonged to his inner circle of friends. They constantly exchanged hospitalities until the last year of the prince's life, nearly sixty years after their first meeting.

The prince's chief tutors performed their functions under the close surveillance {{PT Shoulder Heading|Prince Albert's vigilance.}} of Prince Albert, who not only drafted elaborate regulations for glance and made almost daily comments on their action, but in the name of the queen and himself directly addressed to his son long written exhortations on minutest matters of conduct. To his religious training especial care was attached, and a sense of religion, if of a rather formal strain, soon developed in permanence. But to his father's disappointment, it was early apparent that the prince was not studious, that books {{PT Shoulder Heading|Impatience of study}} bored him, and that, apart from progress in speaking French and German, he was slow to learn. It was difficult to interest him in his lessons. The narrow range of books at his disposal may partly explain the defect. History, the chief subject of study, was carefully confined to bare facts and dates. Fiction was withheld as demoralising, and even Sir Walter Scott came under the parental ban. In the result the prince never acquired a habit of reading. Apart from the newspapers he practically read nothing in mature years. He wrote with facility and soon corresponded voluminously in a simple style. By his parents' orders he kept a diary from an early age, and maintained the habit till his death, but the entries were invariably brief and bald. At the same time he was as a boy observant, was quick at gathering information from talk, and developed a retentive memory for facts outside school study.