Loyal Ulster was next visited, and, as might have been expected, the reception of the Queen in this busy hive of industry was exceptionally effusive, even for Ireland. Belfast was _en fête_ when the Royal visitors landed, and old folk still speak of the scene on the quay as marking a red letter day in their lives. Bunting was streaming everywhere in the air. Dense crowds cheering and shouting, and waving hats and handkerchiefs, occupied every coign of vantage, and though the Queen had only four hours to spend in the city, she contrived, under competent guidance, to see many of the more interesting places and institutions which illustrate the strong character of the mixed race whose energy, ability, pertinacity, and industry have made Ulster, with her unkindly soil and climate, the richest province in Ireland. Ulster commands the bulk of the linen trade of the world, and, naturally, the institutions and factories connected with that industry arrested the Queen’s attention during her flying visit to the commercial capital of Ireland. An alarming gale detained her the next day in Belfast Lough, but after it blew over the Royal party steamed away to the Scottish shore. The Royal visit to Ireland had two good results. It brought home to the minds of the Irish people the fact that their country, and their interests, were of great personal concern to the Queen and her husband. It demonstrated to the rest of the United Kingdom the fact that the personal attachment of the Irish people to the Monarchy was as strong as could be desired, and that if they were rebels at heart it was not the Queen, but the Viceregal Bureaucracy in Dublin Castle, who had soured their blood. Everybody who had observed the effect of the Queen’s progress through Ireland was charmed with the success of the expedition. “I saw Lord Lansdowne last night,” writes Mr. Greville in his Journal (14th August), “just returned from Ireland, having had an escape on the railroad, for the train ran off the rails. He said nothing could surpass the success of the Queen’s visit in every respect; every circumstance favourable, no drawbacks or mistakes, all persons and parties pleased, much owing to the tact of Lord Clarendon, and the care he had bestowed on all the arrangements and details, which made it all go off so admirably. The Queen herself was delighted, and appears to have played her part uncommonly well. Clarendon, of course, was overjoyed at the complete success of what was his own plan,[5] and satisfied with the graciousness and attention of the Court to him. In the beginning, and while the details were in preparation, he was considerably disgusted at the petty difficulties that were made, but he is satisfied now. Lord Lansdowne says the departure was quite affecting, and he could not see it without being moved; and he thinks beyond doubt that this visit will produce permanent good effects in Ireland.”[6] Clarendon himself was