I admire her also for the respect and delicate consideration which she has always had for the royalty of intellect, for the pride and sensitiveness of genius. This peculiarity dates far back to when, as the young Princess Victoria, she timidly asked that such men as the poets Moore and Rogers, and the actors Charles Kemble and Macready might be presented to her. Thomas Campbell used to relate an incident showing what charming compliments she knew how to pay to poets. Wishing to witness the coronation, he wrote to the Earl Marshal, saying: "There is a place in the Abbey called 'The Poets' Corner,' which suggests the possibility of there being room in it for living poets also." This brought him a ticket of admission. His admiration of the young Queen's behavior was unbounded, and he says: "On returning home, I resolved out of pure esteem and veneration, to send her a copy of all say works. Accordingly I had them, bound up and went personally with them to Sir Henry Wheatley, who, when he understood my errand, told me that Her Majesty made it a rule to decline presents of this kind, as it placed her under obligations which were not pleasant to her. 'Say to Her Majesty, Sir Henry,' I replied, 'that there is nothing which the Queen can touch with her sceptre in any of her dominions which I covet; and I therefore entreat you to present them with my devotion as a subject.' But the next day they were returned. I hesitated to open the parcel, but on doing so I found to my inexpressible joy a note enclosed, desiring my autograph on them. Having complied with this wish, I again transmitted the books to Her Majesty, and in the course of a day or two, received in return this elegant portrait engraving, with Her Majesty's autograph, as you see, below."
The Queen was the friend of Charles Kingsley, and of Charles Dickens, in his later days. In presenting the latter with her. book, "_Leaves from a Journal of Our Life in the Highlands_" she spoke of herself as "the humblest of writers," and as almost ashamed to offer it, even with her priceless autograph, to "one of the greatest." Mr. Tennyson she delights to honor with her friendship. I have read a little story of her calling on him at his place, on the Isle of Wight. It seems he had not received due notice, or that, absorbed in writing, he had forgotten the hour. At all events, he was taken by surprise, and was obliged to run out to receive Her Majesty in his dressing-gown and slippers, and with his hair disheveled, as it had become in the fine frenzy of composition. Just think of Mr. Tennyson with his hair more than usually disheveled! Of course it was all right, as far as the Queen was concerned,--but then the footmen!