To give even an outline of all the events and all the wonderful progress made during the long reign of Queen Victoria would require many volumes, and in the limits of one small book it is possible to glance only at its principal events. Comparatively little can be said of the life of the Queen as a woman, and yet it is as a woman rather than as a Queen that her in?uence has been most in?uential over the people she ruled. Her domestic virtues, the purity of her life, her example as a wife and a mother, her sympathy with her people on all occasions of distress and suffering have given her a place in their hearts such as no monarch ever before possessed; and her death has been mourned, not only as that of a Queen, but of a woman privately and personally most dear to us all. Her virtues have gained for her the admiration and respect of people of all nations, and the outburst of sorrow universally exhibited upon the news of her death is a far higher recognition of her worth than any written tribute can be.