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. 24, 1863.] sort of work,—the boys building a dairy with their own hands, and their sisters afterwards serving the dairy as real milkmaids. They have set their butter and cream before the Queen; they have made the stirabout in Highland cabins; and there is no member of the family who does not know that the moon is not made of green cheese. Thus, any one of them whom Fortune addresses as she has now greeted Prince Alfred is pretty safe from the dreamy selfishness which would be found in a pampered and spoiled boy of some royal houses, and in our own—some hundred years ago! Still, the thought recurs, that our young Prince is at the very age when the offer of a throne is most tempting, and when the prospect of difficulty is least discouraging. So, if there has been some struggle, nobody would think the worse of him for it.

No doubt he knows the story of the ex-queen of Greece. If he had sat on that throne he would have felt some touches of compassion for her, notwithstanding her disrepute and her unpardonable offences. For the sake of her dreams and her fate he would have pitied her: but, as it is, her story must be an impressive warning to him. She, a daughter of the Grand Duke of Oldenberg, was no more warranted in forming visions of being a great Eastern Queen than any other young lady in the school-room: but she set her heart upon Greece as the country she was to restore to greatness. She had, I believe, met Prince Otho as a boy at some German watering-place; and she so met him again when he was talked of for the throne of Greece. Her mind was now made up to be Queen of Greece, and to revive its greatness in the form of the most brilliant of modern empires. Her ambition, vanity, and want of sense operated to show how much more is necessary to such a work than grand ideas and strong passions and a stubborn will. She took the power out of her husband’s hands presently; but she could do nothing with it. She did nothing for the substantial interests of the country; she let herself be made a tool of by rapacious German courtiers; she offered to the Czar to betray, as far as she could contrive to do so, the other protecting powers, and was intriguing with Russia against England, France, and Sardinia during the Crimean war: and she has ever since had to endure the burden of the contempt and vigilant dislike of the Emperor of the French. Her friend, the late Czar, shook his head, and said she “began too soon.” When she boasted of the great Hellenic empire she was founding, and pointed to the great palace the unborn emperors were to occupy, the agricultural country of Greece had only 100,000 men employed in cultivating the soil. There were only 12,000,000 acres altogether; and only one ninth part was private property; and this busy ruler saw with indifference the private estates crushed under the burden of taxes, and the rest lying unretrieved, in swamp or drought. Here there was an expanse of marshes, spreading in all directions from year to year; and elsewhere there was a desert where the streams were perpetually shrinking, and the water-springs had long been dried up. The Bavarians at court flourished like the green bay-tree: but nothing else throve. As the soil grew barren, the boast was of commerce as a means of Greek greatness; but there were only 18,000 seamen in the country; and the Emperor Nicholas smiled in his cabinet at the idea of a nation consisting of 1,000,000, when Otho became king, without means to develop the private estates, and without a government which would set about saving the public lands,—a people actually importing corn, and without prospect of sufficient bread,—proposing to turn the Turks out of Europe, and to reign at Constantinople under the smile of approving Czars. She “began too soon,” he said; and he is understood to have foreseen that, unless she speedily changed her course, she would find herself once more seated behind her embroidery-frame in an old German castle, wiping away her ceaseless tears of mortification at the loss of such a chance for greatness as has very rarely fallen to the lot of woman. The Emperor Nicholas was in his tomb many years before the catastrophe arrived, and the humiliation of the dreamer is greater in proportion. She has not mended her aims or her ways; the country has not improved; and the unworthy sovereigns are discrowned, not on the complaint of betrayed protectors, but by a disgusted and indignant people. Not allowed to land, on their return from an excursion, they humbled themselves painfully and unavailingly. The King would make any concessions, but “it was too late;” and the Queen sat passionately weeping,—remembering, possibly, that other reproach of being “too soon,” and seeing, possibly, at last that both rebukes were deserved by rulers who had neglected the primary duties of government to revel in wild dreams of empire. There she is at last in the old German castle, without a single comforting thought to rest on, as she bends over her embroidery-frame! She rides out daily, we are told, with such appearance of court attendance as she can muster; but the familiar scenery must be painful to her, not only because it is not Greece, but because it must revive many of the notions of her youth, now turned to shame and despair.

How much wiser may we assume Prince Alfred to be than she was at his age? If he has felt any stir of enthusiasm under the actual offer of the Crown, we may be sure that it was about a very different object. He may think that it would be a fine thing to retrieve that little kingdom, like a neglected estate. He may think that it would be delightful to drain those marshes, and fill the old river beds, and irrigate those barren public lands. He may have heard, and may believe, that nothing but good government is wanted to set the prosperity of Greece growing from hour to hour: and he may feel what a noble task it would be to do this. But, if he has had anything of a political education, he must be aware of the embarrassments and mortifications he must inevitably undergo from without, and of the frequent disturbance, or perpetual turmoil, that he must be liable to within his little kingdom. If he has not had a political training which would satisfy him of this, he must, of course, commit the decision of the affair without reserve to others. Of his perfect readiness to be disposed of as was judged best, there has never