marble and gold: but we did what art and genius could never attempt to do—what nothing but love could accomplish; we draped and festooned and clustered over every shabby line of architecture with a living illumination of English faces, all glowing and eager not only to see the new-comer, but to show the new-comer, what no words could ever tell her, that she came welcome as a daughter to that heart of England in which, without any doubt or controversy, the Mother-Monarch held a place more absolute than could be conquered by might or won by fame. Let us not attempt to read moral lessons to the princely lovers, who, it is to be hoped, were thinking of something else than moralities in that moment of their meeting, and were for the time inaccessible to instruction; but without any moral meaning, the sentiment which swayed the enthusiastic multitude on the day of the Princess Alexandra’s arrival was more like that of a vast household, acting upon the personal wish of its head, than a national demonstration coldly planned by official hands. The Queen, who sat at her palace window in the soft-falling twilight, looking out like any tender mother for the coming of her son and his bride, till the darkness hid her from the spectators outside, gave the last climax of truth and tenderness to that welcome, which was no affair of ceremony, but a genuine universal utterance of the unanimous heart. Loyalty seems an inherent quality in our race; but it has been a loyalty of sections up to the present time, whenever it has been at all fervent or passionate. It has been reserved for Queen Victoria to make of it a sentiment as warm as in days of tumult, as broad as in times of peace. So thoroughly has she conquered the heart of the nation, that it seems about time to give up explaining why. To those who have been born under her rule, and even to her own contemporaries, a pure Court and a spotless royal life appear no exceptional glories, but the natural and blessed order of things; and we love her, not consciously because of her goodness, but only for love’s own royal reason, because we love her. Nothing can happen of any moment in those royal rooms where so very small a number of her people can ever dream of entering as guests, without moving the entire mass of her people with a sentiment only second, as we have already said, to immediate personal joy or grief. It is this alone that can explain the extraordinary rejoicings of this day. We keep the feast not by sympathy in another’s joy, but by positive appropriation of a joy which is our own. The wedding has, in fact, been celebrated in the presence of all England, with unanimous consent and acclamation of the same. With blessings and tears, with immeasurable good wishes, hopes, and joyful auguries, we have waited at the princely gates to send the Bride and Bridegroom upon their way. Speak it in audible words, oh Princes and Poets! Echo it in mighty tones of power,