Minister
Adams happened on a political interregnum owing to Lord
Palmerston's personal influence from 1860 to 1865; but this
political interregnum was less marked than the social still-stand
during the same years. The Prince Consort was dead; the Queen had
retired; the Prince of Wales was still a boy. In its best days,
Victorian society had never been "smart." During the forties,
under the influence of Louis Philippe, Courts affected to be
simple, serious and middle class; and they succeeded. The taste
of Louis Philippe was bourgeois beyond any taste except that of
Queen Victoria. Style lingered in the background with the
powdered footman behind the yellow chariot, but speaking socially
the Queen had no style save what she inherited. Balmoral was a
startling revelation of royal taste. Nothing could be worse than
the toilettes at Court unless it were the way they were worn.
One's eyes might be dazzled by jewels, but they were heirlooms,
and if any lady appeared well dressed, she was either a foreigner
or "fast." Fashion was not fashionable in London until the
Americans and the Jews were let loose. The style of London
toilette universal in 1864 was grotesque, like Monckton Milnes on
horseback in Rotten Row.
Society of this sort might fit a young man in some degree for
editing Shakespeare or Swift, but had little relation with the
society of 1870, and none with that of 1900.
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