Doing away with monarchy's monuments would be madness - even for a republic.
WHEN the Queen arrives this morning on her visit to the state named in honour of her great-great grandmother, it is worth recalling Queen Victoria's profound influence on a place she never visited, but probably thought of occasionally.
India may have been her jewel in the crown - this at a time when the crown was clustered with imperial gems - but I am sure little old Melbourne, tucked down among the garnets, below the diamonds and sapphires, warranted an occasional look through the royal loupe.
Melbourne is really Queen Victoria's town. Not perhaps as much personally - even if her majesty had visited, it would have been hard to imagine her taking the No. 8 tram down St Kilda Road - but more in terms of civic heritage and the very formation of this great city. Melbourne's beginnings were more or less contemporaneous with Queen Victoria's: our settlement began two years before she ascended the throne in 1837. Our inner-suburban terrace housing, along with the parks and gardens that allow the city breathing space, evolved with stately enterprise and care, providing grace and dignity.
The apogee of Victorian Melbourne was William Wardell's Government House, which surmounts the Royal Botanic Gardens like the topmost tier of a wedding cake. I think of William Delafield Cook's painting of the house's belvedere tower poking up through the foliage of the surrounding gardens - a view now destroyed, in modern actuality, by the Eureka building, whose erectile presence would not have amused Queen Victoria.
The present Queen will be at Government House today for lunch. Although the menu, fashion and guest list might have changed, the architecture itself remains absolutely of its period. Even though it is Italianate in style, the house is a prime example of mid-Victorian splendour, as outrageously dignified in its own sedate way as the Royal Albert Hall, in London's Kensington, is a monument to the more adventurous realm of arts and sciences. The difference is that while the hall is a public venue, frequently jammed up to the last letter on its rooftop frieze, Government House is still a vice-regal citadel; it should, as I have said before, be open more to the public.
Royals Visit Australia: Hail Victoria! Long May Melbourne's Royal Reminders Reign
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