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Speech at the Bicentenary Festival of the Sons of the Clergy.

yet, when you read it attentively, you find that enough has been said to make up what would have been a long and telling speech in Parliament. Happily the Prince's absence from the parliamentary arena freed him from that tendency to needless amplification which is the besetting sin even of the best speakers in the present day.

The sympathetic nature of the Prince, which enabled him to feel so largely and deeply for all classes of men, visible throughout his speeches, is nowhere better seen than in his speech at the Bicentenary Festival of the Sons of the Clergy. How rarely, by any one, has a just tenderness for the Clergy been shown in ampler and in nobler terms than in the following extract :

"Gentlemen, the appellation of a 'money"making parson' is not only a reproach "but a condemnation for a clergyman, de

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priving him at once of all influence over "his congregation; yet this man, who has "to shun opportunities for acquiring wealth

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open to most of us, and who has himself

only an often scanty life income allotted "to him for his services, has a wife and

"children like ourselves; and we wish him "to have the same solicitude for their "welfare which we feel for our own."

In estimating the Prince Consort's speeches, it is to be recollected that for the most part they treat of topics of an abstract character, and seldom take up what is merely personal as their subject, which, however, is always the most interesting to mankind.

This could not be avoided from the position of the Prince; but it is much to be regretted, for whenever he did speak of something personal, he was particularly successful.

For instance, if we were called upon to furnish for history the main characteristics of Sir Robert Peel's mind, we could not refer to any description of that eminent statesman which would at all compete with that given by the Prince Consort in the speech that he made at the dinner to which he was invited by the Lord Mayor of York. "There is but one alloy," the Prince said, "to my feelings of satisfaction and pleasure "in seeing you here assembled again, and

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"that is, the painful remembrance that one "is missing from amongst us who felt so "warm an interest in our scheme and took

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so active a part in promoting its success, "the last act of whose public life was attend

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ing at the Royal Commission: my admi"ration for whose talents and character, "and gratitude for whose devotion to the Queen and private friendship towards

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myself, I feel a consolation in having this public opportunity to express.

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Only at our last meeting we were still admiring his eloquence and the earnestness with which he appealed to you to

uphold, by your exertions and personal "sacrifices, what was to him the highest object, the honour of his country; he "met you the following day together with "other commissioners, to confer with you

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upon the details of our undertaking; and

you must have been struck, as everybody "has been who has had the benefit of his "advice upon practical points, with the “attention, care, and sagacity with which "he treated the minutest details, proving "that to a great mind nothing is little, "from the knowledge that in the moral

"and intellectual as in the physical world "the smallest point is only a link in that

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great chain, and holds its appointed place "in that great whole which is governed by "the Divine Wisdom.

"The constitution of Sir Robert Peel's "mind was peculiarly that of a statesman, "and of an English statesman he was "liberal from feeling, but conservative

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upon principle; whilst his impulse drove "him to foster progress, his sagacious mind "and great experience showed him how

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easily the whole machinery of a state and "of society is deranged, and how important, "but how difficult also, it is to direct its "further development in accordance with "its fundamental principles, like organic growth in nature. It was peculiar to

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him, that, in great things as in small, all "the difficulties and objections occurred to "him first; he would anxiously consider "them, pause, and warn against rash re"solutions; but, having convinced himself, "after a long and careful investigation, "that a step was not only right to be taken, but of the practical mode also of

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safely taking it, it became to him a

The Prince's careful preparation of his speeches.

The Prince's

speech at the

June 9, 1855.

"necessity and a duty to take it all his "caution and apparent timidity changed "into courage and power of action, and "at the same time readiness cheerfully to "make any personal sacrifice which its "execution might demand."

The foregoing are some of the principal characteristics of the Prince's speeches. It remains only to be said that he thought over them with the greatest care and anxiety. His respect for his audience, and also for his own position, made him always endeavour to give the best thought he could to whatever subject he was treating. He looked upon every occasion he had for speaking as affording him an opportunity of saying something that might be useful for his fellow-countrymen; and he toiled to make that something worthy of him, and worthy of them.

The Editor of these Speeches has thought Trinity House, it best to give them without any introductory comments or explanations. One speech, however, brought forth so much misrepresentation, that, in reference to that circum

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