At the levee which he attended the day following, he was still more astounded and perplexed. He thought its presentations and other paraphernalia "a long and monotonous ceremony." Yet it inspired this keen and philosophic student of men and manners with "real interest." We shall allow M. Guizot, ere we finally leave his companionship, to express his views on this peculiarly English institution in his own words:--"I regarded with excited esteem the profound respect of that vast assembly--courtiers, citizens, lawyers, churchmen, officers, military and naval, passing before the Queen, the greater portion bending the knee to kiss her hand, all perfectly solemn, sincere, and awkward. The sincerity and seriousness were both needed to prevent those antiquated habits, wigs, and bags, those costumes which no one in England now wears except on such occasions, from appearing somewhat ridiculous. But I am little sensible to the outward appearance of absurdity when the substance partakes not of that character." [Sidenote: FANCY BALL AT COURT.] As a companion picture of the Queen at home at this epoch of her reign, for the lineaments of which we have acknowledged our indebtedness to M. Guizot, we present these recollections of the Queen in her young married days, which we condense from a gossiping work by Lord William Lennox. The Queen had a splendid new ballroom built in Buckingham Palace, and nothing could exceed the brilliancy of the entertainments which she gave there. To one of these, in 1842, Lord Lennox received an invitation. It was a _bal costume_, the first, he believed, which had ever been given in England by a Prince of the House of Brunswick. A second ball, in which, unlike the former, the dresses were confined to the reigns of George II. and III., was given in the same year. All had to appear in powder--a somewhat trying ordeal to such ladies and gentlemen as did not possess fine features. [Sidenote: A STATE BANQUET AT WINDSOR.]