Victoria & Albert: Art & Love opens on March 19th at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace. This Sunday the BBC airs Fiona Bruce's documentary, A Royal Love Story.

The documentary reveals intimate details of the love Victoria and Albert held for each other. Somehow we doubt their passionate views on the constitution will receive as much attention, though they are vital to us.

Victoria and Albert were the diametric opposites of previous monarchs who had been by-words for lechery and dalliances with extensive numbers of mistresses. Victoria and Albert liked to do many things together, including viewing exhibitions and buying art.

'Cimabue's Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession' by Frederic Leighton. National Art Gallery, London. Wikimedia.

The Queen and Prince Albert attended the annual shows of the Royal Academy and bought many works of art. Frederic Leighton’s painting, which depicts Cimabue’s Madonna being carried from his house to a Florentine church, was exhibited in 1855 and was their most spectacular purchase. They wanted to help a promising artist at the beginning of his career.

Interest in the British Constitution

They were also intensely interested in the British Constitution. The Oxford DNB reports -

The constitution, according to Baron Stockmar, gave ‘the Sovereign in his functions a deliberative part’ (Letters, 1st ser., 1.352–3), that is to say, the queen's constitutional role was to reflect on the policies, persons, and practices of her ministers, and after due consideration to give her opinion to her ministers, expecting it to be heard and heeded. Her prerogatives were to be observed rigorously, and in return she would support her ministers publicly and endorse their decisions.

Since the political information which the Queen received came almost entirely from the ministers of whichever political party was in power, Prince Albert became her 'confidential adviser in politics', providing much needed balance. Interestingly, in Albert's and Stockmar's formulation, the monarchy was to be politically neutral.

'Neutrality' meant promoting the interest of Britain and her people

Neutrality meant not taking sides in party-political disputes; it meant considering a question from all sides and promoting the national interest, not the short-term interests of political parties bent on gaining and retaining power. It did not mean forgoing a political function for the monarchy. If anything, it elevated the importance of the monarch's political voice: ‘Is the sovereign not the natural guardian of the honour of his country, is he not necessarily a politician?’, Albert reflected (Connell, 142; Oxford DNB).

'Politics, government, and foreign affairs dominated Victoria's and Albert's official, but largely unobserved, life'. They worked hard to prevent Britain being drawn into a war with Italy, put Britain on firm terms of friendship with France, insisted that when India came under direct British rule a strong message of religious toleration be sent to the people of India and supported Prime Minister Peel's efforts to overturn the Corn Laws. They were never merely defenders of monarchy.

"The royal prerogative of appointing ministers had not yet fallen into abeyance" so Victoria and Albert were involved in the formation of Cabinets. Why did that prerogative fall into abeyance? Surely the capabilities and ethics of Cabinet ministers, their impartial dedication to doing what is best for the country as opposed to what is best for themselves, have seen a decline since the Sovereign is no longer involved in appointing them? And sadly the balance of power has all swung to MPs, eager to get the best 'second house' deals for themselves and to ignore the plight of their country?

As you remember, Elisabeth Beckett believed that the Queen retrained certain prerogatives, which could and should be used to protect her people's liberties.

A real love story

In the 19th century, public perceptions of the royal couple focused on their life as a family. In our century it appears to be their love story, a starry reflection of tabloid romances.

How daring it would be if a documentary showed Victoria's and Albert's passion for defending their country, people and constitution. That would be an exciting love story. We can hope.

Thanks to Instapundit for the link.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him (Christopher Smart, Jubilate Agno). Image: Cat in Wells, Howard Maunders, Beautiful Britain

You either walk away from Christopher Smart or, like me, are drawn deep into his life.

In the eyes of his father-in-law and wife, who committed him to an insane asylum, Christopher Smart was embarrassing. He had no head for business, he was extravagant and he was far too enthusiastic about God. In the eyes of his friends, including Dr Johnson, Smart was a scholar and genius, a friend and writer, witty, extravagantly generous, childlike in joy and fragile in health with a golden-haired wife who detested literature and despised him.

'The way to Paradise'

Born in 1722, Christopher Smart wandered the meadows, brooks and hills of his father's small estate until, when he was eleven, his father died 'in embarrassed circumstances'. Lack of embarrassment over bankruptcy seems to be a modern attitude, but when he grew up, Christopher Smart may have shared it.

The house was sold, and Smart went to live with an uncle. There he found another natural Paradise, fell in love at age thirteen and wrote his first verse -

Happy verses! that were pressed
In fair Ethelinda's breast!
Happy Muse, that didst embrace
The sweet the heav'nly-fragrant place!
Tell me, is the omen true,
Shall the bard arrive there too? . . .

'An Eagle Confined in a College-Court'

In fact the young bard arrived at Cambridge. He won scholarships and prizes and "seemed to be on course for a steady university career" (Oxford DNB). Unfortunately he felt like 'an Eagle Confined in a College-Court’.

He began spending time in London, in the company of actors, artists, and musicians. His poems were set to music for London pleasure gardens - William Boyce composed the music for 'Idleness'. He began to drink and spend money. In 1747 when he was 25, he had to go into hiding to avoid arrest for debts. He was briefly reinstalled at university when his college fellows paid tradesmen the money he owed, but soon after Smart left Cambridge for good.

A stroke of insight

The next ten years saw him marry and become the affectionate father of two daughters. He wrote poetry, prize-winning theological essays, the complete translation of Horace's works (a standard schoolbook for two centuries), pieces for magazines, songs and skits for variety shows and rafts of hack work for his father-in-law, a publisher. But Smart could not make ends meet. His wife attacked him for irresponsibility while his health began to break from overwork.

Around the age of thirty-three, he became ill almost to death -

. . .death stood o'er me with his threa'ning lance. . .reason left me in the time of need. . .sense was lost in terror or in trance, my sinking soul was with my blood inflam'd. . .

His near-death experience was followed by a vision of Christ - 'glow, glow, my soul, with pure seraphic fire'. In his regret for past follies he reawakened to faith and spiritual values, and was united with his childhood's love of nature.

He appears to have had what neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor called 'a stroke of insight'. After she experienced the stroke that almost killed her, she woke to the oneness, love and beauty of creation.

Smart took from his experience a simple instruction - 'To love, to praise, to bless, to wonder and adore'. Incensed by his public loving, praising and blessing, his wife and father-in-law had him committed to an asylum.

In Bedlam with his cat

Surrounded by the insane, who constantly mocked him, stared at by gawkers and with almost no privacy, Smart at first had only his cat Jeoffry for comfort and company. Eventually he was allowed to work in the garden, read books and newspapers, write and receive visits from friends, including Dr Johnson and David Garrick.

I should add that he had his faith, which was comfort and consolation and inspiration to him, as it has been to many thousands who have been and who are in prison. With the insight of faith he saw all Earth in the light of the Creator God.

In the asylum Smart wrote Jubilate Agno. It is a strange, original and brilliant work which disappeared for almost two hundred years until it was discovered in a private library in 1939. It has found many modern appreciators, including Benjamin Britten, who set it to music. Smart filled Jubilate with detail about animals in praise of the Creator God and asked for mercy 'for all my brethren and sisters in these houses'.

He also inserted an ode to his cat, now its most famous and popular section -

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his fore-paws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the fore-paws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incompleat without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually - Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in musick.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is affraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadrupede.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the musick.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.

'The hope of his pilgrimage'

His wife had moved to Dublin and had sent their children to school in France. His friends sprang Smart from the asylum by the simple expedient of taking him out to dinner and not returning him. Once released, his output was "prodigious" (DNB). He wrote librettos, A Song to David and the Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the Fasts and Festivals of the Church of England. But nothing he did made money, and he was committed to prison for debt. He was not unhappy. He remained jubilant.

Friends gave him money for food and for the 'Rules' (freedom to walk in St George's Fields). While in prison he wrote Hymns for the Amusement of Children, including one which begged for their kindness to animals. He died in 1771, either of liver failure or pneumonia, at the age of forty-nine.

For a man cannot have publick spirit, who is void of private benevolence.
. . . God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

Incentives matter. We are offering a £500 cash prize and other goodies to the winner of their 2010 Young Writer on Liberty competition. To win, you have to be under 20 on the entry deadline of April 30, and you need to write three short blog-style articles – up to 400 words each – on the topic 'WAYS TO ADVANCE LIBERTY.' Articles from the top three winners will be published on the Adam Smith Institute blog. Simply email entries to charlotte@adamsmith.org along with contact details and DOB.

Great theme. We'll be interested in reading them.

British forces in Afghanistan are courageous on a daily basis. Unfortunately we don't always hear about their bravery.

Robin Hood helps the bankrupt knight with a loan. The knight insists on paying the money back "in a year and a day, either to thee or to the Lord Bishop of Hereford", whose money Robin had taken. Illustration by Howard Pyle

"Brilliant, new" interpretations of Robin Hood make me cross.

20th and 21st century re-distributors of other people's money like to refer to Robin Hood as "stealing from the rich and giving to the poor" when in fact he stole from tax-men - the sheriffs and abbots who despoiled the poor and the middle class, taxing them into penury. Robin gave the money back to their rightful owners.

Does it sound as if taking money back from the tax-men might have application today? Perhaps that's why you don't hear about it in modern interpretations of Robin Hood.

The other day, we were treated to the revisionist notion that Robin Hood was supposed to be a loan shark because he loaned a knight money.

Please.

Tim Burton has taken the characters from Lewis Carroll's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, and mixed them together in a new film. There is something irresistible about Carroll's characters - fabulous, yet utterly realistic and reminiscent of people we know - and some we dread.

In the Burton production, Alice is nineteen. She returns to Wonderland when, fleeing from an unwelcome marriage proposal, she again finds herself hurtling down a rabbit hole. (That Alice could fall into a hole twice cannot be viewed as unlikely in a story of this kind.) She will become involved in an attempt to overthrow the Red Queen and restore the White Queen, but only if she can slay the Jabberwock on the Frabjous Day.

That Burton has decided to direct a film of Alice speaks to the power of words and to Carroll's masterpiece, which has never been out-of-print and has been adapted for theatre and film hundreds of times.

The plot has left some reviewers up in the air. But not the acting. Helena Bonham Carter plays a fierce and petulant Red Queen. Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter. Stephen Fry is the "charming, witty and surprisingly nonchalant" Cheshire Cat.

Surprisingly, but somehow appropriately, Burton's ending (spoiler alert), is entrepreneurial.

Not so, Carroll's. He was implored by Alice Pleasance Liddell, "seven and a half exactly", to give her a written copy of the story he had related to her and her two sisters while he rowed them upstream on the Thames. Years later, Carroll ended Through A Looking-Glass with an untitled poem whose first letters spell her name -

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July -

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear -

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream -
Lingering in the golden gleam -
Life, what is it but a dream?

Last year, Lord Pearson and Baroness Cox invited Geert Wilders, of the Dutch Freedom Party, to show his film Fitna in Parliament. When he arrived in London, he was detained at Heathrow and forced to return to Holland.

However, the decision by Jacqui Smith, the then-home secretary, to ban him from the United Kingdom was overturned by the United Kingdom's Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, which noted the vital importance of free speech to society.

Lord Pearson and Baroness Cox are cheerful and persistent defenders of freedom of speech. They again invited Wilders to the House of Lords. On Friday, Wilders showed his film, which compares the teachings of the Koran with Islamist violence.

In a report filed by the BBC, "Lady Cox said the visit was a victory for free speech, saying, 'You don't have to agree but it is important to debate sensibly in a responsible and very democratic way'".

Wilders, who may be the next Dutch Prime Minister, spoke about the attacks on European and British democracy by violent Islamists and the incompatibility of totalitarianism and democracy.

Who am I if I cannot freely say what I think?

UPDATE: The text of the remarks made by Geert Wilders in Parliament

Up.

We let St David's Day pass by despite admiring the people of Wales as defenders of freedom - and despite the fact one of us is named David.

In 1212 and 1215, Welsh rebellions helped to undermine the power of King John and establish Magna Carta, which returned to the Welsh their lands and liberties. All those who love Magna Carta owe the Welsh a debt.

In 1284, after a series of bitter winter campaigns, Edward I conquered gallant Prince Llywelyn and Wales.

Over the next seven hundred and fifty years, the Cymry helped to fight and win important battles for Britain and for freedom.

View across Cardiff Bay. Outside London, Cardiff is the United Kingdom's largest media centre.

Brecon Beacons Image: UK Holiday Trips/Wales

The Welsh are famous for their singers, and for their love of home. Here is Bryn Terfel singing a Welsh lullaby and love song -

To all those who call Wales their home, may every day be a fine day for you.

Just when you think house training is over, it's not.

That was one reason I didn't post yesterday. (David was with patients and on the road.)

Today we are happy to say that Oxford University has published a book about all the books that were successfully completed. Norman Lebrecht, reviewing The Oxford Companion to the Book in the Wall Street Journal, writes -

At a million words, divided into two volumes, the "Companion" sacrifices lightness for a weight of authority more commonly associated with Gothic cathedrals and sumo wrestlers, but there is no mistaking the levity of spirit that went into its making.

It was "a 15-year project, written by 398 scholars from 27 countries", but unusually the scholars and editors "set out to give as much pleasure as knowledge and to have some fun of their own along the way". . .

A personal memory

Before I went to university, I wandered into Oxford dressed in jeans and shirt and without a penny on me. My wallet had been taken by an enterprising rogue, and I was not sure where I was going to sleep or how I was going to eat. Miraculously, an English lady stopped me on the street, and asked me if I were Czech - she saw in my face a resemblance to Czech pilots who had flown with the RAF in the Second World War. I replied that my mother was Czech and was immediately given a place to sleep and dinner.

The next day, still penniless, I wandered into Blackwell's.

In the basement of the bookstore is the largest room of books in Britain and Europe.
Image: Soham Banerjee / Creative Commons

I spent several happy hours looking at books and reading until I was gently interrupted by a salesperson who told me the shop would be closing for the night and did I wish to purchase any books? Oh, yes, I did, but unfortunately I didn't have any money.

That won't be a problem, he said, and swept me up to the register. He added the sums for three books, packaged them, put them in my arms and asked me to send payment 'when it was convenient'.

I left Blackwell's with a warmth of heart that lingers with me still. I would have walked over coals to pay the bill, and posted payment several weeks later.

Those were the days.

Blackstone saves the press

Wikipedia has a fascinating account of jurist and defender of freedom William Blackstone riding to the rescue of Oxford University Press. In the mid-18th century, the press was run by academic Delegates, as it still is today, but after early successes, rot had set in -

The Press suffered from the absence of any figure comparable to Fell, and its history was marked by ineffectual or fractious individuals such as the Architypographus and antiquary Thomas Hearne, and the flawed project of Baskett's first bible, a gorgeously designed volume strewn with misprints, and known as the Vinegar Bible after a glaring typographical error in St. Luke. Other printing during this period included Richard Allestree's contemplative texts, and Thomas Hanmer's 6-volume edition of Shakespeare, (1743-4). In retrospect, these proved relatively minor triumphs. They were products of a university press that had come to embody increasing muddle, decay, and corrupt practice, and which relied more and more on the leasing of its bible and prayer book work to survive.

The business was rescued by the intervention of a single Delegate, William Blackstone. Disgusted by the chaotic state of the Press, and antagonized by the Vice-Chancellor, George Huddesford, Blackstone subjected the print shop to close scrutiny, but his findings on its confused organization and sly procedures met with only "gloomy and contemptuous silence" from his colleagues, or "at best with a languid indifference." In disgust, Blackstone forced the university to confront its responsibilities by publishing a lengthy letter he had written to Huddesford's successor, Thomas Randolph, in May 1757. Here, Blackstone characterized the Press as an inbred institution that had given up all pretence of serving scholarship, "languishing in a lazy obscurity ... a nest of imposing mechanics." To cure this disgraceful state of affairs, Blackstone called for sweeping reforms which would firmly set out the Delegates' powers and obligations, officially record their deliberations and accounting, and put the print shop on an efficient footing. None the less, Randolph ignored this document, and it was not until Blackstone threatened legal action that changes began. The university had moved to adopt all of Blackstone's reforms by 1760.

James Baxendale tells me that today Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world, and has published more books than all the university presses in America, and Cambridge, combined.

Loss and despair followed by a happy ending. That is the kind of story I like.