He noticed, while at the fair, how well the Crystal Palace was suited for large gatherings (it is mostly of iron and glass--with two immense, glittering towers) and decided he would give a big dinner on the Fourth of July to all the Americans in London. This dinner proved a grand affair. The Duke of Wellington and many famous English people were present. It was such a success that ever after, as long as he lived, George Peabody gave a Fourth of July dinner in Crystal Palace. Queen Victoria so deeply esteemed Mr. Peabody that she sent a message to him that she wished to make him a baronet, and confer the Order of the Bath upon him. And what word do you suppose he sent back? Why, he said: "I am going over to America pretty soon to visit the town where I was born, and as I do not care one bit about titles and such things, but do value your interest and friendship, I wish you would just write me a letter which I may read to my friends in America, who love you as I do!" The queen wrote a long, affectionate letter to him, saying what a blessing he had been to England, and asked him to accept her portrait. So when Danvers, a part of which had been set off into a new town by itself and named Peabody (for the faithful grocer boy, who had become the rich banker) was to have its hundredth birthday, George Peabody crossed the ocean to be there. He gave to his native town a free library and lecture hall and the portrait of Queen Victoria. This miniature was so set with gold and jewels as to cost fifty thousand dollars! The queen's letter is kept there to this day. Mr. Peabody gave money for museums at Yale and Harvard, an Academy of Science at Salem, a memorial church at Georgetown, the birthplace of his mother, and large sums of money for schools in the South, because he realized that after the Civil War there would be much disorder and poverty. Some men could not have kept perfectly friendly with two countries, but Mr. Peabody loved both England and America and in all he did and said tried to bind the two nations together. The very last time he spoke in public was at the National Peace Jubilee in Boston. When George Peabody died, the queen wanted him buried in Westminster Abbey, and when she found he had left a request to be taken to America, she sent a ship, the _Monarch_, across the Atlantic Ocean with his body. A good many lives and stories have been written about George Peabody, and he has earned several names like The Great Philanthropist--The Merchant Prince--the Ambassador of Peace--the Friend of the Poor--and so forth, but none fit him any better than the saying: "He was a comfortable man to have round!" DANIEL WEBSTER