He understood so little of the manners at court that, when presented to the Queen, after speaking to her a few minutes, being tired, he said, "Let us sit down, madam;" whereat the courtiers were ready to faint.

But she was great enough, and gave a gesture that seated all her puppets in a moment.

The Queen's courteous suspension of the rules of etiquette, and what it may have cost her, can be better understood from what an acquaintance of Carlyle said of him when he saw him for the first time.

"His presence, in some unaccountable manner, rasped the nerves.

I expected to meet a rare being, and I left him feeling as if I had drunk sour wine, or had had an attack of seasickness." Some persons wield a scepter before which others seem to bow in glad obedience.