Page:King Edward VII, his life & reign; the record of a noble career 1.djvu/41

 was for many years the trusted friend of the Prince and Queen Victoria, spending much time at the British Court. The Baron writes of the Prince of Wales, at one year old, as "strong upon his legs, with a calm, clear, bright expression of face". In the diary of Lady Bloomfield, who, until her marriage with a gentleman who became distinguished in the Queen's service as a diplomatist, was a "maid-of-honour in waiting" as the Hon. Miss Georgiana Liddell, we read, under date of December 15, 1843, "We had a pleasant interview with the royal children in Lady Lyttelton's room yesterday, and almost a romp with the little Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales. They had got a round ivory counter, which I spun for them, and they went into such fits of laughter it did my heart good to hear them." A few days later she writes of trying a German ballad of Prince Albert's composing and says: 'The Prince of Wales stayed some time in the room while we were practising. He was very attentive, and both he and the Princess Royal seem to have a decided taste for music." We read elsewhere of "Vicky and Bertie" (their home names) coming to the Queen's room, in the early years of her married life, when she had left town for Claremont, in the height of the season, to enjoy a few days of repose with her husband and children, to wish her many happy returns of her birthday. They were dressed, as planned, for a surprise, by Prince Albert and the Duchess of Kent, in Tyrolese fashion, and, as the Queen wrote, "looked such sweet little foreigners that their mother hardly knew them". At six years of age the Prince was a very pretty boy, with his mother's fine blue eyes and beautiful hair, with a shy manner, and yet full of mischief and fun. We read of his having, at eight years old, a bad fall on an iron-barred gate, which caused two black eyes and a badly cut nose.

Sir Charles Lyell, the eminent geologist, when he was visiting at Balmoral, described him as "a pleasing, lively boy", who gave him an animated account of the tricks performed before the Court by "' Professor Anderson", the "Wizard of the North"; of his firing a pistol, and sending several watches through the head of a footman, in regard to which the Prince said: "Papa knows how all