Page:The New England tour of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales (1860) .djvu/12

8 men of countries " and place them around a table on which a chef d'oeuvre of the culinary art is set forth ; let formality be banished and pedantry be pitched out of the window; let delicate wine warm the heart, and wit and genial humor enliven the scene, and you have an entertainment which has no parallel. Nothing that is good comes amiss ; the traveller gives his most picturesque descriptions, the savant his newest discovery, the professor his most sparkling epigrams, the raconteur his best anecdotes, the poet crowns all with his brilliant sallies and graceful turns of fancy; and you have a result which a king might envy if he could only appreciate.

But in a hurried tour such an entertainment is impracticable. A large dinner party, with the formality which is inseparable from it, with the tedious speeches of eminent gravity and the platitudes of official station, is an undisguisable bore. For a statesman or orator a public meeting would be appropriate, because those who assembled to do him honor would be best pleased with the exhibition of his powers in a speech. The Prince is neither a wit nor a declaimer, but an agreeable young man, fond of society and of pleasure ; and nothing could be so acceptable as an assembly of citizens, the most eminent in their various spheres, together with their wives and daughters, enjoying a feast of music and the exhilaration of the dance. In this way the city puts on its holiday costume, shows to the best advantage its beauty, its social graces, its taste in dress, ornament, and all the resources for pleasure which a refined people enjoy.

The tour of the Prince of Wales and suite through New England was one of the most memorable events in our festive annals ; and this whether we regard the brilliant, hearty, and generous ovations that attended it, or the distinguished individuals of which the party was composed. Apart from our own appreciation of what took place, there is another which is worthy of note, i. e. the views taken by Englishmen who happened to be present during the Prince's visit to our city. In conversing with some of them, well informed upon all matters pertaining to Europe generally, we find there is but one opinion, and that one flattering to our self-esteem ; as it proves beyond cavil that, in the eyes of strangers to us, we have received the Prince in a manner, not only in perfect good taste, but so as to make every true English heart swell with gratified pride, when they witnessed the graceful, gentlemanly son of their beloved Queen, so honored, so feted by a people who freed themselves from the domination of his great-grandfather and established a form of government which repudiates, as inimical to the true interests of man, that one which gives him his very position in this world. They look upon his reception as the American appreciation of the many virtues, public and private, of their Queen, his mother. Another very noticable feature in the proceedings has been pointed out to us by a travelled Englishman. He says that, in no country he had ever visited, was he so forcibly struck as by the peculiarity of our New England crowds. A more good humored, tractable, well-dressed assemblage, it would be impossible to find in any other land, — the women predominating, all well dressed ; no poverty to be seen in the streets ; no signs even of work suggested by shirt-sleeves, aprons, paper caps, appeared amongst the congregated tens of thousands. This state of things would be apt to strike a foreigner ; and our friend seized upon it as a sign of self-respect which could hardly be found in any other than a self-reliant republican country. No one cared to appear before the guest, he left his work to honor, but habited in his best ; each one felt he was a host, and thus bound to add his mite to the happy and successful issue of the celebration. At every point the people, with a zeal which showed affection as well as respect to the representatives of the English nation, poured forth their heartfelt honors. The daughter was rejoiced to welcome with its kindest words and its most jubilant deeds, the still beloved mother. A more cheering spectacle, — or, more properly, a series of more cheering spectacles, — have not been witnessed in our day. But all these demonstrations and ovations, general and generous as they were, was but a shadow of the deeper significance they typified in the sentiment of friendship and esteem, of affection and a true loyalty, which suffused all hearts. It was an occasion which all will remember with pride and pleasure, and from which we feel sure will date an era of still closer alliance between the people of New and of Old England. Fit was it, indeed, that the honors on the American continent should have been rounded to a close in the manner and at the place in which they occurred.