Page:King Edward VII, his life & reign; the record of a noble career 1.djvu/38

 Queen", and "Prince Albert". The guests moved away after the banquet to the Waterloo Chamber, where the christening cake, eight feet round, was viewed and tasted; and the evening ended with a grand concert in the same apartment.

Of King Edward in his earliest life we have only occasional glimpses through mention by his mother and by some of her intimate friends. No royal personage, save Queen Victoria, has had features more familiar to British subjects in all parts of the Empire than those of King Edward the Seventh in his mature manhood as heir apparent and king. This fact is due to the development, as regards beauty, accuracy, and cheapness of reproduction, of the art of photography, during the later decades of the nineteenth century. For knowledge of his personal appearance in his earlier days we are mainly indebted to engravings of pictures representing him as an infant in his mother's lap; as playing with his toys; as holding the Queen's hand when she received Louis Philippe of France, in 1844, at Windsor Castle; as grouped with some of his brothers and sisters; as seated in a box with his father and mother and the Princess Royal, gazing at the equestrian performances in Astley's famous amphitheatre, near the Surrey-side foot of Westminster Bridge; in sailor's dress at the age of seven; and in Highland costume, seated on a pony's back, in a group composed of the Queen and Prince Albert and their attendants, including "gillies", with slaughtered deer lying on the ground beside a loch among the hills.

One of our earliest notices of the Prince is derived from that remarkable personage, Baron Stockmar, whose name is familiar to all readers of Sir Theodore Martin's excellent Life of the Prince Consort. This gentleman, of Swedish descent, born at Coburg in 1787, became physician there to Prince Leopold, afterwards husband of our Princess Charlotte. His mental abilities and high moral qualities soon made him chief secretary and the most confidential adviser of Leopold, before and after attainment of the new throne of Belgium. In 1834 he quitted the King's service for that of mentor to Prince Albert of Coburg, and he