could be no union between the Whigs and the Peelites on account of the latter, nor between the Peelites and the Protectionists on account of the former. Lord Stanley remarked that the Peelites, with all their ability and official aptitude, seemed to exercise their talents solely to render any Ministry impossible. A purely Protectionist Administration was out of the question, as it would have to contend against a large majority in the House of Commons. In this dilemma the Queen sent for the Duke of Wellington, and he advised her Majesty that the best course she could adopt in the circumstances was to recall her late advisers; and Lord John Russell's Cabinet resumed their offices accordingly in exactly the same position that they had been before the resignation. The year 1851 will be for ever memorable by reason of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. The idea is generally said to have originated with Prince Albert, who took a lively interest in everything that tended to promote industrial progress and to improve the public taste. As President of the Society of Arts, his attention had been attracted to the _Exposition_ at Paris, under the guidance of the Minister of the Department of Commerce and Industry; and his Royal Highness thought that a similar exhibition in London, open to competitors from all nations, would be useful in a variety of ways, especially in uniting together the people of various countries by the bonds of mutual interest and sympathy. The proposal, from whatever source it originated, was embraced with alacrity by the British public. On the 21st of March, 1850, the Lord Mayor of London gave a splendid banquet at the Mansion House to the chief magistrates of the cities, towns, and boroughs of the United Kingdom, to stimulate their combined interest in the proposed Exhibition. The banquet over, his Royal Highness addressed the guests in an admirable speech, in which the tendencies of the age, the modern developments of art and science, the rapid intercommunication of thought, all realising the unity of mankind, were strikingly presented. The Ministers, past and present, the foreign ambassadors, prelates, and peers, vied with each other in expressing the high value they attributed to the design for the Exhibition.