The Academicians had severally arrived in their badges; there were gentlemen in the splendid Windsor uniform—officers glittering in epaulettes and gold lace—collars and grand crosses of knighthood—ladies in coronets and plumes. The music played, and the festival was begun. The _élite_ of England’s ennobled by birth and ennobled by mind were there, and mingled in conversation—some in animated groups round the pictures and statuary—some promenading the halls, when suddenly the buzz of conversation ceased, and an expression of eagerness pervaded the assembly, greater than that which had greeted the entrance of royalty itself, and there entered through the yielding crowds, conducted by a gentlemanly looking person in the badge of the Academy, a young slender girl—a child indeed no more, but still retaining the chestnut ringlets and glorious black eyes of Angelica Kauffmann. Conducting the young Academician, and the first woman ever invested with such a distinction, toward the pavilion, Sir Joshua Reynolds presented her to their majesties; when the peasant girl of the Alps, as she knelt before them, told that high-born and high-bred throng of a grace derived from the sense of the beautiful in the soul, and which the atmosphere of a court could neither add to nor bestow. Raising her hastily, George the Third, after a few words addressed to her, and graciously made in German by his queen, conducted her, leaning on his arm, through the saloons, rendering her the envied of all the envious. “Such amiable condescension! But his majesty has such a passion for foreigners—beside his patronage of the Fine Arts—quite indeed auspicious of their restoration to the age.” “It is whispered,” said another, “that she has been commanded to paint the royal family.” “By no means,” interposed a gentleman in plain clothes. “My information came from an individual who had it from a high quarter, that such a report is incorrect. I understood that this honor was in contemplation for the signora, but no positive orders have been yet issued on the subject.” It is to be doubted whether the object of these remarks was so highly sensible of these distinctions as a refined education would have taught her; and we have even a suspicion that she might have gone so far as to wish to escape from the gracious condescension of the conversation with which George honored her, as promenading round the hall she found herself obliged to stand _answer_ to the abrupt and sometimes ridiculous questions originating in the royal mind, after the catechumenical method of conversation then in vogue in intercourse with majesty. But higher honors awaited the young artist. Sir Joshua Reynolds, then President of the Academy, having mounted the chair, proceeded to descant upon the excellencies of the several productions distinguished by the Society’s prizes—but there was one, he said, which he could not pass over without some more especial notice.