[IT has been deemed advisable to admit several speeches of the late Prince Consort into this collection; for though His Royal Highness was not to be ranked amongst the greatest orators, yet as a practised and accomplished speaker, considering all the circumstances in which he was placed, he has perhaps never been surpassed. The chief characteristics of his style may be pronounced to have been earnestness, clearness, and exhaustiveness -a desire to aim at great principles of action, and to preach first and foremost the true beauty of usefulness, seemed ever uppermost in his mind. Moreover, his large and generous sympathies with the wants and wishes of the labouring classes of his adopted country, and his hearty co-operation and support in all schemes for the amelioration of their condition, will, it is hoped, cause his words to find always a cherished place in the recollections of Englishmen, though, to estimate his speeches with fairness, the position in which he spoke them must also be remembered. In the language of one who has paid the most graceful tribute to his memory, "It may be said of the Prince's speeches as of much of his life, that the movement of them was graceful, noble, and dignified; but yet it was like the movements of a man in chain armour, which, even with the strongest and most agile person, must ever have been a movement somewhat fettered by restraint. The principal elements that go to compose a great oration had often to be modified largely in the speeches of the Prince.

Wit was

not to be jubilant, passion not predominant, dialectic skill not triumphant. There remained then nothing as the secure staple of the speech but supreme common sense. Looked at in this way, it is wonderful that the Prince contrived to introduce into his speeches so much that was new and interesting." (See Introduction to "Prince Consort's Speeches and Addresses," published by Mr. Murray.) The specimen given below is fairly representative of his style; and as having been delivered at the time of the opening of that great Palace of Art with which his name and genius are so inseparably associated, it has been deemed the most appropriate first extract for this collection.]

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THE EXHIBITION OF 1851.

| ENTLEMEN,—I conceive it to be the duty of every educated person closely to watch and study the time in which he lives, and, as far as in him lies, to add his humble mite of individual exertion to further the accomplishment of what he believes Providence to have ordained.

Nobody, however, who has paid any attention to the peculiar features of our present era, will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end to which, indeed, all history points-the realization of the unity of mankind. Not a unity which No. I.

breaks down the limits and levels the peculiar characteristics of the different nations of the earth, but rather a unity, the result and product of those very national varieties and antagonistic qualities.

The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe are rapidly vanishing before the achievements of modern invention, and we can traverse them with incredible ease; the languages of all nations are known, and their acquirement placed within the reach of everybody; thought is communicated with the rapidity, and even by the power, of lightning. On the other hand, the great principle of division of labour, which may be called the moving power of civilization, is being extended to all branches of science, industry, and art.

Whilst formerly the greatest mental energies strove at universal knowledge, and that knowledge was confined to the few, now they are directed on specialities, and in these, again, even to the minutest points; but the knowledge acquired becomes at once the property of the community at large; for, whilst formerly discovery was wrapped in secrecy, the publicity of the present day causes that no sooner is a discovery or invention made than it is already improved upon and surpassed by competing efforts. The products of all quarters of the globe are placed at our disposal, and we have only to choose which is the best and the cheapest for our purposes, and the powers of production are entrusted to the stimulus of competition and capital.

So man is approaching a more complete fulfilment of that great and sacred mission which he has to perform in this world. His reason being created after the image of God, he has to use it to discover the laws by which the Almighty governs His creation, and, by making these laws his standard of action, to conquer nature to his use; himself a divine instrument.

Science discovers these laws of power, motion, and transformation; industry applies them to the raw matter, which the earth yields us in

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