On the 1st of May the Academy opened with Millais's "Rescue of children from a burning house," and with a remarkable picture by a young painter who has long since vindicated the reception it met with. It was Mr. F. Leighton's "Procession conveying Cimabue's Madonna through the streets of Florence." On the 18th of May her Majesty distributed medals to some of the heroes of the war still raging. The scene was both picturesque and pathetic, since many of the recipients of the honour were barely recovered from their wounds. The presentation took place in the centre of the parade of the Horse Guards, where a dais was erected for the ceremony, while galleries had been fitted up in the neighbouring public offices for the accommodation of members of the royal family and nobility. Barriers shut off the actors in the scene, and a great gathering of officers, from the crowd which filled every inch of open space and flowed over into St. James's Park. The Queen, the Prince, with many of the royal family, the Court, the Commander-in-Chief, the Secretary for War, and "a host of generals and admirals," arrived about eleven o'clock. The soldiers who kept the ground formed four deep, making three sides of a square, and the men to be decorated passed up the open space, until "the Queen stood face to face with a mass of men who had suffered and bled in her cause." The Deputy-Adjutant-General read over the list of names, and each person, answering to the call, presented to an officer a card on which was inscribed his name, rank, wounds, and battles. As the soldiers passed in single file before the Queen, Lord Panmure handed to her Majesty the medal, which she gave in turn to the medal-holder. He saluted and passed to the rear, where friends and strangers gathered round him to inspect his trophy. The first to receive the medal were the Queen's cousin and contemporary, the Duke of Cambridge, Lords Lucan, Cardigan, Major- General Scarlett, Sir John Burgoyne, Sir De Lacy Evans, and Major- General Torrens. It is needless to say how keenly the public were moved by the sight of their brave defenders, several of them scarred and mutilated, many tottering from weakness, some wearing on their sleeves bands of crape, tokens of mourning for kinsmen lying in Russian earth. To every wounded man, officer or private, her Majesty spoke, some of those addressed blushing like girls under their bronze, and the tears coming into their eyes. The idea of personally presenting the medals to the soldiers was the Queen's own, and she must have been amply rewarded by the gratification she bestowed.