Victoria lacked Elizabeth's high intellectual qualities, though she was sensible, if somewhat stubborn. Perhaps her most distinctive contribution was the restoration of the crown to a position of respect which it had lost under the Georges. Victoria was the personification of respectability, and the term "mid-Victorian" now connotes the ultrapropriety of "middle-class morality" in that period when legs were "limbs" and many other things were unmentionable. Later generations might sneer at such extremes, but they were a decided improvement over the coarseness which reflected the character of her uncle George IV.
(from A History of England and the British Empire)
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