explanations," and the person to whom you must explain yourself is always a person of influence on your counsels. The mere fact that explanation is obligatory implies deference in those who explain, and when the person to be convinced is clear-headed, is very familiar with affairs, and knows how to main tain a kind of unapproachable dignity, that deference is certain to be paid, if only to avoid the rebuke of which an outspoken sovereign, such as all the members of this dynasty have been, would not be sparing. The queen, therefore, has been, at all events ever since her marriage, a most important councillor of state, knowing everything, discussing everything, and not infrequently exerting her much dreaded reserved power-that of asking whether the advice tendered her was that of a unanimous Cabinet, or had only been arrived at by suppressing serious differences of opinion. There is no power, in the strict sense, in this right to be consulted, but there is enormous influence, and that influence has been always exerted, as is known to many politicians, to keep the march of the Monarchy steady, to make policy continuous, and to avoid capricious or even hastily-advised action. That the two great parties in the State have never paralyzed each others' action, a danger to which party government is peculiarly exposed, that personal jealousies have been well kept down, and that the great machine has never, at all events, been seen to leave the rails, is due in no small measure to steady pressure from a queen who, from the first, accepted the constitutional system, who has never been captured by any politician, and who has never betrayed any reluctance to work with any party in the State. As the queen is intensely interested in politics, and has definite and strong opinions of her own, it is difficult to exaggerate the amount of selfsuppression which such an attitude requires, or the effect which the consciousness of that self-suppression must have had upon the minds of successive ministers. It is an easy thing to say that the "Queen takes advice," but so to take it as not to embarrass the min of istry which gives it when it is unwelcome, requires tact, solid sense, and above all, a power of convincing able men, made suspicious by the party warfare, that the sovereign is immutably loyal - incapable, for example, stimulating a growing disaffection by circulating her own opinion that ministers are in error. There have been bitter critics of the queen from time to time both in Parliament and the press, but there has never been so much as a hint given yet that the queen was undermining a ministry. The service thus rendered to the State in steadying and clarifying counsel has been greatly increased by the secrecy which her Majesty has to the most singular degree succeeded in maintaining. Outside a most limited circle, the public has never known the queen's opinions. Many will consider that a trifle. but it reveals the possession by the sovereign of very exceptional judgment. Princes have usually much confidence in themselves, they by no means like to hide their light, and they enjoy showing that they are constituent and important parts of the machine of gov ernment. The queen has never put herself forward so as either to shield or to thwart a minister; has, on the contrary. while working steadily for six or seven hours a day, suffered herself to be considered by the majority of her people rather as an ornamental figure-head, than as one of the propellers in the great ship. There is a great absence not only of vanity, but of selfishness, in that line of conduct, which is one that very competent statesmen have repeatedly shown themselves unable to follow. They must make a fuss with themselves instead of leaving it to time to reveal the parts they have played and the judgments they have formeda weakness from which the queen has shown herself to be entirely free. She has been silent, sometimes under strong provocation-as, for instance, in regard to all the preposterous libels as to her habit of accumulation-and has left it to her life to reveal her to her people. She has, in fact, throughout life played in a supreme position the part of a woman of strong sense, much reticence, the tocsin bell of Ghent's belfry, which through centuries of turbulent history acted as guide, philosopher, and friend to the citizens. Or a vision of Nuremburg in its mediæval beauty, with its watch-towers upon the city walls; Lucerne with its Nine on the fortifications, sentinels of eternity over some of Nature's fairest work; Rome, with its Capitoline Hill and its strangely garbed watchmen; and the old Swiss canton of Tessino, where the antiquity and inveteracy of old customs is proved by the night-watch call being still given in old German, although the common language of the people has, for centuries, been Italian. and a clear realization of what that po- on the walls of Babylon, and listen to sition required and what it forbade. The result has been that warm appreciation of the utility as well as of the character of the sovereign which has made the throne distinctly stronger than it was when she ascended it, and his developed loyalty so strongly that its expression tends sometimes to a little fulsomeness. The queen has not been the cause of the wonderful prosperity which has hitherto marked her reign, but her sound sense has been one of the causes why successive ministries have been so little carried away by that prosperity, but have helped to remove obstacles out of the way. That the queen throughout her long and successful reign has advanced steadily with her people till the United Kingdom though still a Monarchy is also the most perfect Democracy now existing, is a feat which reveals either a judgment, or, as we have said, a self-suppression, which deserves at the hands of all classes more credit than it receives. The queen has received this week many compliments and many felicitations; we prefer to consider her as one who through an extraordinary period of time has carried on the business of reigning with dignity over a free people with unsurpassed judgment and good sense. If she had been a Tudor she could not have managed better, and would not have managed half so well. From Good Words. The idea of watchmen and watch To come nearer home, we have the watch-towers of York and Chester; and at Knutsford, in Cheshire, the bellman is still an important man, and concludes his perorations with "God save the queen, and the lord of this manor." It was in 1253 that Henry III. established night watchmen, and these, and later the bellmen, continued as guardians until 1830, when Sir Robert Peel's Police Act was passed. Cambridge, however, retained its bellman for six years longer, and his services were then transferred to the lamplighter. The watchmen are still to be met with in certain parts of Europe, in Germany, in Switzerland, in Poland, in Italy, and in some of the Ardennes districts, where the watchman's horn-blasts, one for each hour, are not heard with unmitigated satisfaction by the drowsy tourist. At Predazzo in the Tyrol, an addition is made to the telling of the hour, "Vigilate sopra il fuoca. Sia lodato Jesu Christo" (Watch against fire. Praised be Jesus Christ), aud then again at Bregenz there is a charm towers seems to be surrounded with ing custom of eulogizing a bygone her romance, and to teem with historical associations. From the dazzling brilliancy of electric-lighted streets, alive with traffic throughout the night hours, we look back through the long vista of ages to the times when the watch tower and the watchmen were essential features of life. We hear the solemn purport of the night guardian of Jerusalem, can see the ancient tower oine, one Hergutha or Gutha, who in the thirteenth century saved the little town from falling into the hands of the men of Appenzell, during a siege of nine weeks in the winter of 1408. In stead of the hour at midnight they cry, And when to guard old Bregenz, The warden paces all night long, Thus has Adelaide Anna Procter ren- All you that in bed doe lye, Leave off your sins, repentance crave; O Harke, O harke, my masters all, The belman like the wakefull morning Doth warne you to be vigilant and wise; Looke to your fire, your candle, and your locke, Thy selfe and servants more and lesse, FOR GOOD FRIDAY. All you that now in bed do lie, Would make us weep, lament, and mourn. A very extraordinary sound woke up I am no Welchman, but yet to show The First of March is Saint David's Day. New Year, Christmas, ran: All you that doe the bel-man heere Finally, I quote one which seems to incorporate the whole relations of bellman and sleepers: Sicke men complaine, they cannot sleepe, Yet to the sicke that draw short breath, Prevent what may through negligence And all this while like silly worme arise. So may you sleepe with peace, And wake with joy, And no mischances shall Your state annoy. For certain days of the week the bellman had certain verses: FOR SUNDAY. Let labor passe, let prayer be, This day the chiefest worke for thee; He doth his office but performe. One of the most tragic of bellman's songs was that of the parish of St. Sepulchre's, where the practice was on the eve of an execution for the bellman to go under the window of the condemned cell at Newgate, to ring his bell, and to repeat these verses: pear. Examine well yourselves, in time repent, That you may not to eternal flames be sent. And when St. Sepulchre's bell to-morrow tolls, The Lord have mercy on your souls! According to a note in Stowe's "Survey of London" (1618), the repetition of the verse should be by a clergyman, one Robert Done, citizen and merchant tailor of London, having given to the parish of St. Sepulchre the sum of £50 for that purpose. The beadle of Merchant Taylors' Hall had a similar stipend, to see that it was duly done. Rather quaint is this city bellman's song: Maides to bed and cover coale, The church-bells used to serve the purposes of clocks before the latter became common. In 1536 the Corporation of Shrewsbury made an order for the payment of the clerk of St. Alkmunds for ringing the watch-bell at 4 A.M., so that the watchmen might know their duties were over. Amongst the Volkslieder of the German Fatherland, there are numerous specimens of watchmen's songs, which, like many others of the songs of the people, have been solely preserved by oral transmission. Contrasted with the more modern watchmen's songs, these old German lieder seem to us most elaborate; but it must be remembered that time was of less value in the romantic Middle Ages than it is in this prosaic and most cursory nineteenth century. I have only been able to give a few verses out of each of these songs, which are calculated by their length "to last out a night in Russia." OLD GERMAN WATCH SONG. Listen, townsmen, hear me tell God will watch, and God will ward us; At the beginning of this century the watchmen at Herrnhuth, an old German town, used to intimate the hour in There is a the following quaint lines. simple piety and vividness of diction about some of the verses which appeal It very strongly to the imagination. is, in truth, an epitome of the Christian's duty, and a supplication which it would be difficult to forget. The sixth verse is impregnated with brief humor, doubtless the good Wächter, like other servants, was not sorry to see his term of office expire, and having done as much as he could for the souls of his sleeping fellow-citizens, he feels he may safely commit them to their own guardianship during their waking hours. VIII. Past eight o'clock! O, Herrnhuth, do thou ponder, Eight souls in Noah's ark were living yonder? IX. 'Tis nine o'clock! Ye brethren, hear it striking? Keep hearts and houses clean, to our Saviour's liking. X. Now, brethren, hear the clock is ten and passing, Now rest but such as wait for Christ embracing. XI. Eleven is past! Still at his hour eleven, The Lord is calling us from earth to heaven. The following is an interesting speci men of the watchmen's songs in use in Germany at the present day: Hört ihr, herren, und lasst euch sagen, Lobt Gott den Herrn. (Translation.) Listen, gentlemen, hear me tell, It is interesting to compare with this Longfellow's "Song of the Curfew," with its injunction: Cover the embers And put out the lights. Toil comes with the morning, A physician travelling in Switzerland some years ago thus alludes to the songs of the watchmen who disturbed his nocturnal slumbers at Chur, a town in the canton of the Grisons: "We had very indifferent rest in our inn, owing to the over-zeal of the Chur watchmen, whose practice it is to perambulate the town through the whole night-twelve in number-and who, on the present occasion, certainly displayed a most energetic state of vigilance. They not only called, but sang out every hour in the most sonorous strains, and even sang a long string of verses on the striking of some. The song which follows is a very good specimen of these nightly lyrics, which are of ancient origin, and have their counterparts in various parts of Germany." WATCH CHANT AT CHUR. Hear ye Christians, let me tell you, Get up in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, For the day has appeared. The sun comes down over the mountains, The clock has struck four. The towns of Neuchatel and Zurich used to have their choral watchmen, but, like many other ancient and interesting features and relics, these have passed away with the legions of the bygones. The following stanza in the Swiss patois may occasionally be heard in the outlying districts of the Zurich canton: Now stand I on the evening watch. An interesting story accounts for the watch-cry dating from the fourteenth century, and still used in the old Rhine Both story and song are hereditary oral possessions of the Grant Lord that there be no falling off. town of Stein. Eleven! |