Page:King Edward VII, his life & reign; the record of a noble career 1.djvu/20

10 of men and women; versatility in tastes, occupations, and recreations; unfailing memory for faces and names, and for the personal associations, predilections, and habits of those who are encountered in social functions; graceful and cordial demeanour, allied with dignified self-respect and with the will and capacity to check presumptions and intrusive advances—these are valuable qualities of heart and head in princes—and the sovereign now under review, both as heir apparent and as monarch, proved himself to be their possessor. Not only did these qualities render him, during the very long period of life which preceded his accession, the most popular of all heirs to a throne in modern history, but to the possession and the exercise of some of them the nation and the Empire, in political affairs, were deeply indebted. Succeeding to a throne held for an unequalled period by one of the most able, beloved, and venerated of queens, he had no cause to fear comparison even with such a predecessor. Regarded in the metropolis of the Empire, and in his native land, with the greatest liking, he was always highly esteemed in the French capital, and this fact, at a particular time, had a most important influence in drawing closer two great nations which, after a long period of cordiality, had somewhat drifted apart.

In his long career as Prince of Wales, nothing is more remarkable than the manner in which, according to the testimony of a great Prime Minister who was anything but a servile courtier, he devotedly and honourably met every call of public duty laid upon him; under special circumstances, to an unusual extent. The Prince, thus hardly tried, rose to every occasion, and won for himself his own position with every class of the community, without ceasing for a moment to be his mother's respectful and devoted subject, without raising the slightest suspicion of selfseeking for sinister ends, such as some of his predecessors had justly incurred. Both as prince and as king, he always acted on the assumption that, in this age and this empire, royalty can only win its right to public esteem by a frank and full acceptance of the responsibilities of that exalted rank, and by the conscientious discharge of public duties.