fix themselves upon John Brown.

Eventually, the "simple mountaineer" became almost a state personage. The



influence which he wielded was not to be overlooked. Lord Beaconsfield was

careful, from time to time, to send courteous messages to "Mr. Brown" in his



letters to the Queen, and the French Government took particular pains to

provide for his comfort during the visits of the English Sovereign to France.



It was only natural that among the elder members of the royal family he should

not have been popular, and that his failings--for failings he had, though



Victoria would never notice his too acute appreciation of Scotch

whisky--should have been the subject of acrimonious comment at Court. But he



served his mistressfaithfully" target="_blank" title="ad.忠实地；诚恳地">faithfully, and to ignore him would be a sign of

disrespect to her biographer. For the Queen, far from making a secret of her



affectionate friendship, took care to publish it to the world. By her orders

two gold medals were struck in his honour; on his death, in 1883, a long and



eulogistic obituary notice of him appeared in the Court Circular; and a Brown

memorial brooch--of gold, with the late gillie's head on one side and the



royal monogram on the other--was designed by Her Majesty for presentation to

her Highland servants and cottagers, to be worn by them on the anniversary of



his death, with a mourning scarf and pins. In the second series of extracts

from the Queen's Highland Journal, published in 1884, her "devoted personal



attendant and faithful friend" appears upon almost every page, and is in

effect the hero of the book. With an absence of reticence remarkable in royal



persons, Victoria seemed to demand, in this private and delicate matter, the

sympathy of the whole nation; and yet--such is the world--there were those who



actually treated the relations between their Sovereign and her servant as a

theme for ribald jests.



II

The busy years hastened away; the traces of Time's unimaginable touch grew



manifest; and old age, approaching, laid a gentle hold upon Victoria. The grey

hair whitened; the mature features mellowed; the short firm figure amplified



and moved more slowly, supported by a stick. And, simultaneously, in the whole

tenour of the Queen's existence an extraordinarytransformation came to pass.



The nation's attitude towards her, critical and even hostile as it had been

for so many years, altogether changed; while there was a corresponding



alteration in the temper of--Victoria's own mind.

Many causes led to this result. Among them were the repeated strokes of



personal misfortune which befell the Queen during a cruelly short space of

years. In 1878 the Princess Alice, who had married in 1862 the Prince Louis of



HesseDarmstadt, died in tragic circumstances. In the following year the Prince

Imperial, the only son of the Empress Eugenie, to whom Victoria, since the



catastrophe of 1870, had become devotedly attached, was killed in the Zulu

War. Two years later, in 1881, the Queen lost Lord Beaconsfield, and, in 1883,



John Brown. In 1884 the Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, who had been an

invalid from birth, died prematurely, shortly after his marriage. Victoria's



cup of sorrows was indeed overflowing; and the public, as it watched the

widowed mother weeping for her children and her friends, displayed a



constantly increasing sympathy.

An event which occurred in 1882 revealed and accentuated the feelings of the



nation. As the Queen, at Windsor, was walking from the train to her carriage,

a youth named Roderick Maclean fired a pistol at her from a distance of a few



yards. An Eton boy struck up Maclean's arm with an umbrella before the pistol

went off; no damage was done, and the culprit was at once arrested. This was



the last of a series of seven attempts upon the Queen--attempts which, taking

place at sporadic intervals over a period of forty years, resembled one



another in a curious manner. All, with a single exception, were perpetrated by

adolescents, whose motives were apparently not murderous, since, save in the



case of Maclean, none of their pistols was loaded. These unhappy youths, who,

after buying their cheap weapons, stuffed them with gunpowder and paper, and



then went off, with the certainty of immediate detection, to click them in the

face of royalty, present a strange problem to the psychologist. But, though in



each case their actions and their purposes seemed to be so similar, their

fates were remarkablyvaried. The first of them, Edward Oxford, who fired at



Victoria within a few months of her marriage, was tried for high treason,

declared to be insane, and sent to an asylum for life. It appears, however,



that this sentence did not commend itself to Albert, for when, two years

later, John Francis committed the same of fence, and was tried upon the same



charge, the Prince propounced that there was no insanity in the matter. "The

wretched creature," he told his father, was "not out of his mind, but a



thorough scamp." "I hope," he added, "his trial will be conducted with the

greatest strictness." Apparently it was; at any rate, the jury shared the view



of the Prince, the plea of insanity was, set aside, and Francis was found

guilty of high treason and condemned to death; but, as there was no proof of



an intent to kill or even to wound, this sentence, after a lengthened

deliberation between the Home Secretary and the Judges, was commuted for one



of transportation for life. As the law stood, these assaults, futile as they

were, could only be treated as high treason; the discrepancy between the



actual deed and the tremendous penalties involved was obviouslygrotesque; and

it was, besides, clear that a jury, knowing that a verdict of guilty implied a



sentence of death, would tend to the alternative course, and find the prisoner

not guilty but insane--a conclusion which, on the face of it, would have



appeared to be the more reasonable. In 1842, therefore, an Act was passed

making any attempt to hurt the Queen a misdemeanor, punishable by



transportation for seven years, or imprisonment, with or without hard labour,

for a term not exceeding three years--the misdemeanant, at the discretion of



the Court, "to be publicly or privately whipped, as often, and in such manner

and form, as the Court shall direct, not exceeding thrice." The four



subsequent attempts were all dealt with under this new law; William Bean, in

1842, was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment; William Hamilton, in



1849, was transported for seven years; and, in 1850, the same sentence was

passed upon Lieutenant Robert Pate, who struck the Queen on the head with his



cane in Piccadilly. Pate, alone among these delinquents, was of mature years;

he had held a commission in the Army, dressed himself as a dandy, and was, the



Prince declared, "manifestly deranged." In 1872 Arthur O'Connor, a youth of

seventeen, fired an unloaded pistol at the Queen outside Buckingham Palace; he



was immediately seized by John Brown, and sentenced to one year's imprisonment

and twenty strokes of the birch rod. It was for his bravery upon this occasion

• circle [´sə:kəl] n.圆圈 v.环绕；盘旋 (初中英语单词)


• multitude [´mʌltitju:d] n.大群(批)；众多 (初中英语单词)


• domestic [də´mestik] a.家庭的；本国的 (初中英语单词)


• sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)


• generation [,dʒenə´reiʃən] n.发生；世代；同龄人 (初中英语单词)


• enormous [i´nɔ:məs] a.巨大地，很，极 (初中英语单词)


• affection [ə´fekʃən] n.友爱；慈爱 (初中英语单词)


• severe [si´viə] a.严厉的；苛刻的 (初中英语单词)


• grandmother [´græn,mʌðə] n.(外)祖母 (初中英语单词)


• beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)


• witness [´witnis] n.见证人 vt.目击 (初中英语单词)