In the dedication of _Idylls of the King_ to the memory of Prince
Albert, Tennyson, the poet-laureate, wrote:
Break not, O woman's-heart, but still endure;
Break not, for thou art Royal, but endure,
Remembering all the beauty of that star
Which shone so close beside Thee that ye made
One light together, but has past and leaves
The Crown a lonely splendour.
When one looks over the vista of years which have passed since that
mournful day, it is with sadness mingled with regret. For it is too
true that "a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country."
'Albert the Good' was, like many other great men, in advance of his
times, and not until he was dead did the nation as a whole realize
the blank he had left behind him.
Even so late as 1854 Greville writes in his Diary of the extraordinary
attacks which were made upon the Prince in the public Press. Letter
after letter, he noted, appeared "full of the bitterest abuse and
all sorts of lies. . . . The charges against him are principally to
this effect, that he has been in the habit of meddling improperly
in public affairs, and has used his influence to promote objects of
his own and the interests of his own family at the expense of the
interests of this country; that he is German and not English in his
sentiments and principles; that he corresponds with foreign princes
and with British Ministers abroad without the knowledge of the
Government, and that he thwarts the foreign policy of the Ministers
when it does not coincide with his own ideas and purposes.
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