But he remained, indeed, the _facile princeps_ in maturing, as he had been in designing, the scheme. This is no mere language of eulogy, for the records of the Commissioners of the Exhibition have placed in print undoubted proofs that equally the completion with the progress, and the progress quite as much as the origin, of the Exhibition of 1851, were mainly due to the large conception and wise foresight of the Prince Consort. The public at the time knew but little, and many of its constituent atoms know but little to this day, of the amount of anxious thought and labour which he devoted to the success of the great undertaking that made the year 1851 memorable as a new starting-point in the industrial and social history of the world. One important point, apart altogether from his personal merits, must never be lost sight of. His own high name and his close relation to the Sovereign, added a lustre to the Royal Commission which would otherwise have been totally lacking, and gave ground for that confidence to foreign powers which they displayed so signally and with so little stint. [Sidenote: PRINCE ALBERT AT YORK.] At a banquet held at York about six months before the Exhibition opened, the Prince in a long address, in which he replied to the toast of his health, indicated, though most modestly and unconsciously, at once the arduous nature of his preliminary labours and the zeal with which he pursued them. In the name of the Commissioners, who had been invited to the banquet _en masse_, he thanked his hosts for the proof thereby made plain of their earnest and combined zeal in the cause of the approaching Exhibition. He rejoiced that it was not a mere impulse of momentary enthusiasm which they evinced, but a spirit of steady perseverance and sustained effort, and he assured his auditors that the spirit of active preparation and hopeful faith was abroad in the country. Of this, he said, he was confident, on the ground of information which reached him from all quarters. And he added, and the event proved him to be right, his own personal conviction that the works in preparation would be such as to dispel any apprehension about the position which British industry would maintain. Of his brother Commissioners he spoke with loyal and chivalrous fervour. He thanked, in their name, the public for their uninterrupted confidence in those who were responsible for the management of the scheme; and stated that there had been no difference of opinion between the central and the local committees, which had not, upon personal consultation and open discussion vanished, and given way to agreement and identity of purpose. So much for hope: the test of fruition had yet to come.