adaptations of steam-power had already been conducted, the steam itself being generated outside. An army of carpenters and other artisans had been some weeks at work on the fixtures and decorations of the several departments, so that, when the eagerly expected opening day at length arrived, although the whole visible area had an unmistakable aspect of haste and rawness—an odor born of green boards and fresh paint,—and although an infinity of carpenters’ work still remained undone, especially in the galleries or upper story, yet the Exhibition was plainly there, and only needed time to perfect its huge proportions, and stand forth the acknowledged wonder of the world. The first of May, 1851, was a happy day for London. Her skies had relaxed something of their habitual sullenness to usher in the pageant whereby the Sovereign of the Realm, surrounded by her chief councilors and grandees, was to inaugurate the first grand Exhibition of All Nations’ Industry. The rain, which had dripped or pattered almost or quite daily for weeks, held up the evening before and promised not to return for this whole May-day—a promise which was only broken by a slight shower at noon, too late to mar the interest or pleasure of the festival. At an early morning hour, a strong current of human life set westward from the city proper toward Hyde Park, and long before the doors of the House of Glass were opened, they were surrounded by eager groups, though no admission was purchasable save at the cost of a season ticket—over fifteen dollars. Even thus, some thirty thousand enjoyed and swelled the in-door pageant; while perhaps ten times as many gazed from the parks and streets at the meagre procession out-doors which escorted the Queen from her palace of St. James to the airier, richer palace of the working millions, the hall of vastest prophecy. They arrived, a robed and jeweled procession of Princes and Embassadors—of noble Ladies and noble Workers—the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Paxton—the Master of the Buckhounds, Groom of the Stole, Gentleman Usher of Sword and State, Gold Stick in Waiting, Silver Stick in Waiting, and other such antediluvian absurdities—attended Her Majesty, along with the Foreign Commissioners, Architects of the edifice, her older children, and some other living verities, on her slow and measured progress from side to side and end to end of the mighty convocation. This strange mingling of the real with the shadowy, the apposite with the obsolete, gave additional piquancy and zest to the spectacle. Had the courtly symbols of an out-worn, out-grown feudal age appeared by themselves, we might have taken them for some fanciful creation of a mind diseased by reading Froisart and Walter Scott, and watched to see them exhale like ghosts at cock-crowing; but here they are so mixed up and blended with undeniable entities; with the solid and practical Prince Albert; with our own portly and palpable Embassador; with that