The portrait which your Majesty is graciously pleased
to bestow on me I shall value as the most gracious heirloom that I
can leave in the land of my birth; where, together with the letter
which your Majesty has addressed to me, it will ever be regarded as
an evidence of the kindly feeling of the Queen of the United Kingdom
toward a citizen of the United States.
I have the honour to be
Your Majesty's most obedient servant,
GEORGE PEABODY.
This miniature of the Queen is mounted in an elaborate and massive chased
gold frame, surmounted by the royal crown; is a half-length, fourteen
inches long and ten wide, done in enamel, by Tilb, a London artist, and is
the largest miniature of the kind ever attempted in England. It has been
deposited, along with the gold box containing the freedom of the city of
London, in a vault in the Institute at Peabody; also the gold box from the
Fishmongers' Association, London; a book of autographs; a presentation
copy of the Queen's first published book, with her autograph; and a cane
which belonged to Benjamin Franklin.
We have only tried to draw within a small canvas a portrait of her as
'mother, wife, and queen.' She has herself told the story of her happy
days in her Highland home, to which we have already alluded; nor has she
shrunk from letting her people see her when she went there after all was
changed, when the view was so fine, the day so bright--and the heather so
beautifully pink--but no pleasure, no joy! all dead!' But she found help
and sympathy among her beloved Scottish peasantry, with whom she could
form human friendships, unchilled by politics and unchecked by court
jealousies.
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