ROYAL COMMISSION OF 1851.--In 1850 Sir Charles was appointed as a member of the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851. The scheme of the building was discussed, and his pencil was immediately busy. He thought of a great building, a polygon of many sides. In the centre was to be a great hall for the larger objects, crowned by a gigantic dome, and surrounded by concentric ranges of rooms for the exhibition of the smaller objects. This, and many other schemes, were all put aside by Sir J. Paxton’s Crystal Palace; and Sir Charles then ventured to offer some suggestions for the improvement of the “grand conservatory.” The chief was to do away with the proposed flat ceilings, and vault both transepts and nave. The recommendation was adopted for the transept only. As to the nave, certain practical difficulties were raised (which have been since disproved by experience at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham), and there the flat ceiling was retained to the great detriment of the internal appearance of the building.[116] He could not share the popular enthusiasm as to its general effect, though he recognised fully its practical convenience and the ingenuity of its contrivance, and confessed it to be adapted most excellently to a temporary construction. His work as a Royal Commissioner led him to form a judgment on the schemes, which were formed for disposing of the surplus gained by the Exhibition, and so to conceive the designs which have been described in the last chapter. It probably also led to his appointment, in conjunction with his friend Mr. Cockerell, to represent English architecture on the juries of the Exposition Universelle. Being now somewhat less absorbed in professional work, he was able to give considerable time to the work, and spent more than two months in Paris. On this occasion he received the Gold Medal of honour for Architecture, and had an opportunity, which he highly valued, of making or renewing acquaintance with the leading continental architects. This was the only occasion which gave him any opportunity of acting abroad for the furtherance of his art. But his position, as a leader in his profession, had long been recognised by foreign artistic bodies. In 1842 he received his first foreign honour in being elected into the Academy of St. Luke at Rome; and after this followed a succession of elections to the Academy of St. Petersburg in 1845, of Belgium in 1847, of Prussia in 1849, of Sweden in 1850. Subsequently he was elected into the Academy of Denmark, and into the American Institute. Of these affiliations he was able to avail himself but little, for his days of foreign travel were over. But the honours he could not but value highly. Perhaps he valued them the more, when attacks began to be made upon him at home; for from them, as well as from intercourse with distinguished foreigners in England, he found abundant evidence of the high position which his works occupied in the estimation of continental critics.