As the royal carriage passed, I observed the Queen to be apparently uneasy, and apprehensive. The glass was up, and she was giving herself that constant motion which was Louis Philippe’s art of safety on like occasions. Without any distrust of her people, she may have remembered the attempt of the madman, Oxford, and she knew that any similar desperado must have a better chance of success on a day like this. I saw the little princes, and the royal head, therefore, to great disadvantage; but fortune favored me with a fuller satisfaction on their return. While everybody was pressing towards the Crystal Palace, I now turned against the tide, and gradually extricating myself from the Park, passed down Constitution Hill, and finally arrived at Buckingham Palace just in time to get a full view. The crowd here was very light, and I saw everything to great advantage. The Queen was evidently in high spirits, the glass down, and she bowing most maternally. I was within a few feet of her, and lifted my hat in homage to the broad, good-humoured smile with which she seemed to regard her enthusiastic subjects. The grand-daughter of George the Third looks exceedingly like her venerable ancestor, and a glance suggested to me what must have been his appearance in his younger days. Her features are by no means unfeminine, though far from delicate; she was a little flushed, and hence less fair than she is painted; but her exhilaration at the happy conclusion of her morning, gave an attractiveness to her expression which she lacked when I afterwards saw her, on more splendid occasions, languid with the routine of a drawing-room at St. James’s, and sick enough, I dare say, of its heartlessness and formality. After the Queen passed into her residence, I supposed the pageant ended, but shortly after there arose a shout, which convinced me I was mistaken. I turned, and saw her exhibiting herself to the people in the balcony of the palace, in the centre of a very splendid group, and with the little Prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal, at her side. The Princess Alice, the Crown Prince of Prussia, and the Duchess of Sutherland, were in the splendid circle, but the Prince Consort I did not discover. The shouts of the people were not so vociferous as I should have anticipated; and the royal party soon withdrew. I afterwards learned that this was a novel proceeding, and was meant by her Majesty as an act of most gracious and particular condescension. I trust my republican interest in the spectacle was none the worse, however, for being wholly unsuspicious of the gratitude with which it should have been mingled. I looked not without reverence, at the Sovereign Lady, and not without solemn thoughts of futurity at her lovely little family of children. But the influence of my country was so far upon me, that I never conceived at the time, that her Majesty was doing more than might have been expected of her, in honour of her loyal and most decorous people.