502 Right Hon. Viscount Esher [March 5, 



gave the child a small octavo volume, half -bound in red morocco, 

 with the words " Princess Victoria " stamped on the side. The first 

 entry is as follows : — 



" This book Mama gave me, that I might write the journal of 

 my journey to Wales in it. Yictoeia." 



From this time forward, in volumes which, as years rolled on, 

 varied much in shape, but w^ere uniform in so far as the pages were 

 invariably plain and unruled, the Princess and Queen wrote the 

 account of every day until within a few weeks of her death. Of the 

 Queen's journals there are altogether over a hundred volumes, all 

 closely written in her small running hand. The last entry is dictated 

 and dated the 12th of January, and the Queen died on the 22nd of 

 January, 1901. When Louis XIII. of France was born the medical 

 attendant of Queen Marie of Medicis began to keep a journal, in 

 which he recorded day by day for years — until, indeed, the hour of 

 the King's death — his master's life. That journal, the most minute 

 I know of, is a poor and meagre record compared with the journals 

 of Queen Victoria. 



Perhaps it is well here to mention that these journals will never 

 be seen hereafter in their entirety. By the Queen's express wish, they 

 have been carefully examined by her youngest daughter, who with 

 infinite labour has copied in her own hand many volumes of them, 

 excising the passages which the Queen desired should not be seen by 

 any eye but hers. Still, when this pious work is complete, the story 

 of a Eoyal and noble life will be without any parallel. All the 

 earlier journals, certainly up to the date of the Queen's marriage, and 

 during that year she began her 24th volume, are untouched and 

 remain in her own handwriting. 



Imagine the small fair child, fatherless and companionless, except 

 for her devoted mother and her " Faithful Lehzen," as she always 

 called the lady who watched over her youth, sitting at the window of 

 a rather plain room in Kensington Palace on those June days in 

 1832. The echoes of the great reform controversy raging out of 

 doors failed to penetrate those quiet precincts as she wrote her first 

 entries in these journals. 



A Day of her Life. 



Here is the account she gives of a day of her life. As I have 

 said, I am allowed to quote by permission of his Gracious Majesty the 

 King :— 



"Thursday, 21st February, 1833. I awoke at 7 and got up at 8. 

 At 9 we breakfasted. At J past 9 came the Dean till J past 11. At 

 10 minutes to 12 we went to pay a visit to Aunt G-loucester. At J 

 past 1 we lunched. At 2 came the Duchess of Northumberland. At 



