"We felt alternately proud, elated, and deeply moved during the ceremony as _in turn_ we cast a glance at the illustrious witnesses to the solemnity. There was our gracious Queen, beaming with youth and beauty, _through which is ever discernible the eagle glance_ and the imposing air of command so well suited to her high station. Next to the Queen, the Royal Consort, _one of the handsomest Princes of the age_, in whom the spirit of youth is so remarkably tempered by the _judgment and wisdom of age_. The Queen Adelaide, living model of every Virtue which can adorn a Woman either in private life or on a throne."
So far the _Morning Post_. What says (perhaps?) an equal authority, _The Times_?
"The Queen Dowager was prevented from being present at the Ceremony in consequence of indisposition."
The old Duke Adolphus Frederick of Cambridge was another target of never-ending ridicule. He was a great diner-out, and his fatuous after-dinner speeches are cruelly parodied. He was also "the Duke who thinks aloud," whether at the play or at the Chapel Royal:--
A few Sundays ago, the Minister and the Duke proceeded as follows:
_Minister._ From all evil and mischief; from sin, from the crafts of the devil----
(_Duke._ To be sure; very proper--very proper.)
_Minister._ From all sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion----
(_Duke._ Certainly; very right--very right.)
And thus Parson and Duke proceeded together almost to the end. However, the worthy clergyman had to offer a prayer for the sick. Proceeding in this pious task, he thus commenced:
_Minister._ The prayers of this congregation are earnestly desired for----
One certainly does not gather from _Punch's_ pages what was none the less a fact, that the Duke was extremely popular, that he was charitable and benevolent, and an enlightened patron of science and art, or that he was emphatically recognized as "a connecting link between the throne and the people."
On the Duke's death in 1850, _Punch_, with his usual vigour, attacked the grant of £12,000 a year to his son, the late and last Duke of Cambridge, at a time when the claims of Horatia (Nelson's daughter) and Mrs. Waghorn, widow of the pioneer of the Overland Route, were neglected. The immediate sequel led to further caustic remarks:--