The Queen’s affectionate desires could not be gratified. The business of organising the Great Exhibition of 1851 proved more engrossing than had been anticipated, not merely because the idea at the bottom of it was her husband’s, but because he was found to be the only man in England who thoroughly understood the scheme. As Lord Granville, in a letter to Prince Albert’s secretary, remarked, his Royal Highness seemed to be almost the only person who had considered the subject as a whole and in details. “The whole thing,” said Lord Granville, “would fall to pieces if he left it to itself.” On the 21st of February a brilliant meeting in support of the undertaking was held at Willis’s Rooms, which was attended by the diplomatic representatives of the leading nations. This was followed up by a grand banquet at the Mansion House, which was attended by the great dignitaries of State, the Foreign Ambassadors, the Royal Commissioners for the Exhibition, and the heads of the county and municipal magistracy. After the Royal Commission had been appointed, the questions of site, space, and finance were those which pressed for settlement, and without doubt the last gave the Queen the utmost anxiety. The public, she saw, must be induced to support the scheme, and meetings be organised for the purpose of making its advantages known. Prince Albert’s speech at this banquet, however, struck the key-note of all the subsequent advocacy which the Exhibition received. The age, said he, was advancing towards the realisation of a unity of mankind, to be attained as the result and product, and not by the destruction, of national characteristics. Science, by abridging distance, was increasing the communicability of ideas. The principle of the division of labour was gradually being applied everywhere, giving rise to specialism, but specialism practised in publicity, and under the stimulus of competition and capital. Thus was Man winning new powers in fulfilling his mission in the world--the discovery of Natural Laws and the conquest of Nature by compliance with them. The central idea of this Exhibition of 1851 was to give a true test, and a living picture of the point at which civilised Man had arrived in carrying out his mission, and to serve as a base of operations for further efforts which might carry Humanity upwards and onwards to a larger and loftier stage. Such, in a brief paraphrase, were the views of Prince Albert, and they ran through the country amidst a chorus of approval. The whole nation responded to the appeal of his Royal Highness, despite the metaphysics and mysticism which slightly tinged it, and the delight of the Queen was correspondingly great. We can easily understand that King Leopold was at first under the impression that a speech of such stately but restrained eloquence, rich in thought and fruitful in suggestion, must have been read. The Queen, however, informed him that he was mistaken. It was, she