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 Peelites, but the combination proved impracticable. Perplexed by the deadlock which the refusals of Derby and Aberdeen created, she turned for advice to the old Duke of Wellington. In agreement with the duke's counsel she recalled Russell after Prince Albert had sent him a memorandum of the recent negotiations. Lord John managed to get through the session in safety and secured the passage of his antipapal Ecclesiastical Titles Bill after completely emasculating it ; it received the royal assent on 29 July 1851.

Meanwhile the 'attention of the court and country had turned from party polemics to a demonstration of peace and good- will among the nations which excited the queen's highest hopes. It was the inauguration of the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace which was erected in Hyde Park. In origin and execution that design was due to Prince Albert ; and it had consequently encountered abundant opposition from high tories and all sections of society who disliked the prince. Abroad it was condemned by absolute monarchs and their ministers as an invitation to revolutionary conspiracy through the suggestion it offered to revolutionary agents in Europe to assemble in London on a speciously innocent pretext, and hatch nefarious designs against law and order. The result belied the prophets of evil. The queen flung herself with spirit into the enterprise. She interested herself in every detail, and she was rewarded for her energy by the knowledge that the realised scheme powerfully appealed to the imagination of the mass of her people. The brilliant opening ceremony over which she presided on 1 May 1851 evoked a marvellous outburst of loyalty. Her bearing was described on all hands as 'thoroughly regal' ( i. 424). Besides twenty-five thousand people in the building, seven hundred thousand cheered her outside as she passed them on her way from Buckingham Palace. It was, she said, the proudest and happiest day of her happy life. Her feelings were gratified both as queen and wife. ' The great event has taken place,' she wrote in her diary (1 May), 'a complete and beautiful triumph a glorious and touching sight, one which I shall ever be proud of for my beloved Albert and my country .... Yes ! it is a day which makes my heart swell with pride and glory and thankfulness ! ' In her eyes the great festival of peace was a thousand times more memorable than the thrilling scene of her coronation. In spite of their censorious fears foreign courts were well represented, and among the queen's guests were the prince and princess of Prussia. Tennyson, who had been appointed poet laureate in November 1850, in succession to Wordsworth, in the address ' To the Queen,' which he prefixed to the seventh edition of his ' Poems ' (March 1851), wrote of the Great Exhibition, in a stanza which was not reprinted : She brought a vast design to pass When Europe and the scatter'd ends Of our fierce world did meet as friends And brethren in her halls of glass.

The season of the Great Exhibition was exceptionally brilliant. On 13 June another balcostumt at Buckingham Palace illustrated the reign of Charles II. On 9 July the queen attended a ball at the Guildhall, which celebrated the success of the Exhibition. Everywhere her reception was admirably cordial. When at length festivities. sue temporarily left London for Osborne, she expressed pain that ' this brilliant and for ever memorable season should be past.' Of the continuous display of devotion to her in London she wrote to Stockmar : ' All this will be of a use not to be described : it identifies us with the people and gives them an additional cause for loyalty and attachment.' Early in August, when the queen came to Westminster to prorogue parliament, she visited the Exhibition for the last time. In October, on her removal to Balmoral, she made a formal progress through Liverpool and Manchester, and stayed for a few days with the Earl of Ellesmere at Worsley Hall. She manifested intelligent interest in the improvements which manufacturing processes were making in these great centres of industry. Her visit to Peel Park, Salford (10 Oct.), was commemorated by a statue of her, the cost of which was mainly defrayed by 80,000 Sunday school teachers and scholars; it was unveiled by Prince Albert 5 May 1857.

A month after the closing of the Exhibition the dream of happiness was fading. The death of her sour-tempered uncle, King Ernest of Hanover (18 Nov. 1851), was not a heavy blow, but Palmerston was again disturbing her equanimity. Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian revolution, had just arrived in England ; Palmerston openly avowed sympathy with him. Both the queen and Lord John remonstrated, and the queen begged the cabinet to censure his attitude unequivocally ; but her appeal was vain. Relief from the tormenting attitude of Palmerston was, however, at hand. It came at a moment when the queen despaired of any