The 1st of May had been fixed for the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1862, and the ceremony was a somewhat mournful one. The sable liveries of the lackeys who appeared in the grand procession served to remind the people of the late Prince Consort, who had been the life and soul of the project. His place was taken by the Duke of Cambridge and the Crown Prince of Prussia, who was associated with him by the special request of the Queen, as one of her representatives. South Kensington was crowded with sightseers, and it was admitted that the ceremonial was one of the most imposing pageants that had ever been witnessed. To the daïs, where the formal business of inauguration was transacted, none but persons in uniform were admitted, and the scene was therefore bright with rich masses of colour, glittering with the flashing jewels of knightly Orders and military decorations. When the Duke of Cambridge and the other Special Commissioners had taken their seats, the National Anthem was sung, and Earl Granville, as the representative of the Exhibition Commissioners, placed an address to the Queen in the hands of his Royal Highness. To this the Duke replied, alluding in touching terms to the death of the Prince Consort, and to the affliction which had prostrated the Queen with sorrow. The brilliant procession then slowly filed down from the daïs to the eastern dome, where Meyerbeer’s _Overture en forme de Marche_, written for the occasion, was performed, and Tennyson’s fine ode, set to music by Professor Sterndale Bennett, was given. Its allusions to Prince Albert went home to every heart:-- “O silent father of our Kings to be, Mourn’d in this golden hour of jubilee, For this, for all, we weep our thanks to thee! The world-compelling plan was thine, And lo! the long laborious miles Of Palace: lo! the giant aisles, Rich in model and design”-- were lines that gave expression to the feeling of the country with rare felicity and power. It was admitted on all hands that the building of the new Exhibition was far grander and far larger than that of 1851. But on the other hand the witchery of the Palace, with its walls of crystal and its strong flood of diffused light, had vanished. The roof and walls of the new building were solid, and these and the windows “factory-patterned,” as a singer in _Punch_ called them, destroyed the sensation of unconfined space which one felt on entering the Crystal Palace of 1851, and which gave to that structure its magical charm. [Illustration: THE EXHIBITION BUILDING OF 1862.]