Page:Speeches and addresses of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales.djvu/31

Rh Prince, the President, and all the party stood uncovered. It is easy moralizing on this visit, for there is something grandly suggestive of historical retribution in the reverential awe of the Prince of Wales, the great-grandson of George III, standing bareheaded at the foot of the coffin of Washington. For a few moments the party stood mute and motionless, and the Prince then proceeded to plant a chestnut by the side of the tomb. It seemed when the Royal youth closed in the earth around the little germ, that he was burying the last faint trace of discord between us and our great brethren in the West."

The Prince left Washington for Bichmond on the following day, and closed his American tour at Boston, after having had a magnificent welcome at New York from the vast population of that city. In an American paper of the day it was said, "All our reminiscences, the history, the poetry, the romance of England for ten centuries, are concentrated in the huzzahs with which we greet the Prince of Wales." The Prince landed at Plymouth on the 13th of November and the same evening arrived at Windsor. On the 18th of January he went to Cambridge for his first term, and resumed his studies, under his preceptors, at Madingley Hall. At the end of his second term he went to the camp of the Curragh of Kildare during the summer vacation.

In the autumn of 1861 he went to Germany, with the intention of meeting the Princess Alexandra of Denmark, with the view to marriage, if the meeting should result in mutual attachment. The meeting, which took place at Speier and at Heidelberg, led to their engagement. The Prince returned to Madingley Hall, from whence he was summoned to Windsor on the day before his beloved father's death, on the 14th of December, 1861.

It is not our purpose to encroach further on the office of the future biographer of the Prince of Wales. In the 'Life of the Prince Consort' the sad incidents of that December are described with touching pathos. Neither do we propose to narrate the events that occurred between the death of the Prince Consort and the marriage of the Prince of Wales, to the Princess Alexandra, on the 10th of March, 1863. These events are fresh in the recollection of many to whom the incidents of the earlier life of the Prince are less known. It is enough to say as to these years, that he continued to be diligent in the acquirement of varied knowledge; that he carefully attended to his military duties; that he took active part in the volunteer movement; and in town and country was alike popular, from his love of manly sport as well as of the pursuits of art.

The coming of age of the Prince was not celebrated with great ceremony, for he was abroad at the time, and the shadow of sorrow was still over the Royal household. But when the Prince brought his bride to England the joy of the nation was unbounded. The passage of the Prince and Princess through the streets of London