Harriet Martineau has preserved some of the splendours and "humours" of the coronation with her usual clever power of observation and occasional caustic commentary. "The maids called me at half-past two that June morning, mistaking the clock. I slept no more, and rose at half-past three. As I began to dress the twenty-one guns were fired, which must have awakened all the sleepers in London. When the maid came to dress me she said numbers of ladies were already hurrying to the Abbey. I saw the grey old Abbey from the window as I dressed, and thought what would have gone forward within it before the sun set upon it. My mother had laid out her pearl ornaments for me. The feeling was very strange of dressing in crape, blonde, and pearls at five in the morning.... The sight of the rapidly filling Abbey was enough to go for. The stone architecture contrasted finely with the gay colours of the multitude. From my high seat I commanded the whole north transept, the area with the throne, and many portions of galleries, and the balconies which were called the vaultings. Except a mere sprinkling of oddities, everybody was in full dress. In the whole assemblage I counted six bonnets. The scarlet of the military officers mixed in well, and the groups of the clergy were dignified; but to an unaccustomed eye the prevalence of Court dresses had a curious effect. I was perpetually taking whole groups of gentlemen for Quakers till I recollected myself. The Earl-Marshal's assistants, called Gold Sticks, looked well from above, lightly fluttering about in white breeches, silk stockings, blue laced frocks, and white sashes. The throne--an arm-chair with a round back, covered, as was its footstool, with cloth of gold--stood on an elevation of four steps in the centre of the area. The first peeress took her seat in the north transept opposite, at a quarter before seven, and three of the bishops came next. From that time the peers and their ladies arrived faster and faster. Each peeress was conducted by two Gold Sticks, one of whom handed her to her seat, and the other bore and arranged her train on her lap, and saw that her coronet, footstool, and book were comfortably placed. I never saw anywhere so remarkable a contrast between youth and age as in these noble ladies." Miss Martineau proceeds to remark in the strongest and plainest terms on the unbecoming effect of full dress, with "hair drawn to the top of the head, to allow the putting on of the coronet" on these venerable matrons. She goes on to express her admiration of a later generation of peeresses. "The younger were as lovely as the aged were haggard.... About nine the first gleams of the sun slanted into the Abbey and presently travelled down to the peeresses. I had never before seen the full effect of diamonds. As the light travelled each peeress shone like a rainbow. The brightness, vastness, and dreamy magnificence of the scene produced a strange effect of exhaustion and sleepiness.... The great