At length in 1849, Prince Albert, who, as President of the Society of Arts, had known and sanctioned all these proceedings, took the project under his own personal superintendence, enlarged upon the original design by proposing to invite the co-operation and competition of all foreign nations, and proceeded to settle the principles upon which the enterprise, thus modified, should be conducted, and the mode in which it should be carried out. The first steps toward the realization of this new plan, were made in the name, and under the auspices of the Society of Arts; but so universal was the interest which this noble project called forth throughout the country, that it was thought advisable to make it a national concern, by taking it out of the hands of the Society, and intrusting its execution to a body of royal commissioners, appointed for that purpose by the Government, with Prince Albert as its President; the Government, meantime, giving its sanction only to the undertaking, and merely lending its aid when it was absolutely indispensable, as in correspondence with foreign countries, providing a site for the building, organization of police, and the cost of such assistance whenever it entailed expense, being defrayed from the funds of the Exhibition, thus leaving all the responsibility of the attempt, pecuniary or other, with the commissioners themselves. The subsequent history of the "rise and progress" of the undertaking; the promptitude with which the requisite funds were subscribed by private generosity; the selection of Hyde Park as the site of the projected Industrial Palace; the various plans proposed for the building, and the final adoption of the design of Mr. Paxton, after the model of a conservatory by him erected for the Duke of Devonshire; the admirable manner in which this design has been carried out by the architects, Messrs. Fox & Henderson; the cordial response with which England's friendly challenge has been answered by all the peoples of the globe, from her next-door neighbors across the channel, to the far-off denizens of Orient, and remote islands of sunny southern seas; the imposing ceremonial which, on the appointed day, threw open the vast Museum to the gaze of an impatient public; the crowds of titled dames and potent seigneurs, of the "wealth, beauty and fashion" of the aristocratic world, that fill, day after day, the immense area, wandering from one magnificent display to another, and marvelling at the richness, perfection, and variety of the countless objects that meet their eyes at every turn; the probability of a somewhat formidable thronging of less elegant, but equally interested visitors, when the "shilling days" begin; the fabulous wealth flowing, week after week, into the treasury of the royal commissioners at the various entrances of the buildings; and the growing desire on the part of the public, that the funds, thus arising from the Exhibition itself, should be