The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JANUARY 23, 1858.

seat near the altar, the Lord Chamberlain will return
to the Queen's retiring room to conduct to the Chapel
Royal the bride, who will be supported by her father
and the King of Belgians, and whose train will
be borne by eight unmarried daughters of dukes,
marquises, and earls:—The Lady Susan Pelham
Clinton, the Lady Emma Stanley, the Lady Susan
Murray, tue Lady Victoria Noel, the Lady Cecilia
Gordon Lennox, the Lady Katherine Hamilton, the
Lady Constance Villiers, the Lady Cecilia Molyneux.
On arriving at the chapel the bride will be con-
ducted to her seat in the chapel, on the left side of
the haut pas leading to the altar, near her Majesty's
chair of state, and his Royal Highness the Prince
Consort and his Majesty the King of the Belgians
will he conducted to their seats on the haut pas, near
the bride. The Lord Chamberlain and Vice-Cham

berlain will stand near her Majesty.
As each procession enters the chapel a march will
be played.
When the bride has taken her place near the
altar, a hymn will be sung and the service will com-

The service will be performed by his Grace the
Archbisbop of Canterbury ; the Lord Bishop of
London, Dean of her Majesty's Chapels Royal ; the
Bishop of Oxford, Lord High Almoner; the Bishop
of Chester, Clerk of the Closet; the Hon. and Very
Rev. the Dean of Windsor, Domestic Chaplain to the
Queen ; and the Rev. Dr. Wesley, Sub• Dean of her
Majesty's Chapels Royal.
The bride will be given away by her father, the
Prince Consort. At the conclusion of the service,
which will last about forty minutes, Handel's
Hallelujah Chorus will be sung, and Mendelssohn's
Wedding March will be played as the procession of
the b ide and bridegroom is leaving the chapel.
In consequence of the great inconvenience felt
on the occasion of her Majesty's marriage, when
signing the registry in the vestry of the Chapel
Royal, which is excessively small, it has been de-
termined to alter that arrangement on the present
occasion. The registry, tha..elore, will not be signed
in the chapel at all, but in the Throne-room, when
the high contracting parties shall have returned
there.

The dejeuner, which takes place afterwards at
Buckingham Palace, will only include the royal
guests, the bridesmaids, and one or two of the chief
officers of State and foreign Ministers.
For the concert, which takes place at the Palace in
the evening, a large number of invitations have been
issued. _

The Chapel Royal will be thrown open to the
public, and will remain open for some days, with the
state apartments in St. James's, after the con-
gratulatory Drawing-room of the 30th inst., and not
on the 27th and 28th insts., as previously an-
nounced. _ _

The preparations within St. James's Palace and
the Chapel Royal are now concluded. The principal
staircase leading direct from the Palace to the
Colourcourt has been quite redecorated. The
railings and balustrade are richly gilded, and on all
the landings of the stairs immense draped mirrors
have been fixed, so as to give a most brilliant aspect
to the whole place, especially during the passage of
the various processions, which will be multiplied by
the mirrors to an apparently indefinite extent. The
seats, which have been erected so as to inclose the
side of the corridor formerly open towards the
Colour-court, with the columns of the corridor, have
all been draped and finished so as to resemble in all
respects the interior of the Palace, and their effect ►s
rich and striking.
In the Chapel Royal itself, the carved oak galleries
on either side, relieved with gilding, exhibit a
decided improvement on the old high sleeping pews
which formerly disfigured the Chapel Royal. A very
rich communion-table and rails are erected. The
communion-table is richly draped with crimson
velvet and gold, and adorned with the plate of the
Chapel Royal. Most of the pieces of this are of pure
gold, and of Queen Anne's time, hut there are some
noble salvers and flagons with the crest and cipher
of Charles I. The royal pew, over the entrance
porch, has been draped with curtains and fittings of
crimson velvet and gold, and this is designed to
accommodate the corps diplomatique, more than
thirty of whom will be present on this occasion.
But, with all the care and economy of space which
can be exercised, the number which can be present
at the ceremony in the chapel is limited in the ex-
treme; and, indeed, we believe we are within the
mark when we say that not more than 1,500 or so
can witness either the ceremony or procession from
any point of view inside the Palace. The tickets
which will admit the fortunate few to these places
have already been given among the Ministers and
the great officers of State in certain proportions, and
they will again distribute them among their personal
friends. Her Majesty, however, with much kind
feeling, has, we believe, specially recommended that
the tickets shall eventually reach those who may be
supposed to feel the strongest interest in the Princess
Royal—viz., young ladies of her own age. The

visitors, therefore, who will occupy seats in the
saloons of St. James's, being nearly all young ladies,
and in full Court dress, will form, perhaps, the most.
brilliant and beautiful portion of the whole spectacle.
Visitors admitted to the covered seats in the Colour.
court will nut be required to attend in Court dress,
though no person in mourning of any description
will be admitted. It has been stated that peers
having seats in the Chapel Royal will wear their
robes of state, but this is an error, as peers cannot
wear their robes out of the House of Lords except
at a coronation. All gentlemen present in the
chapel will be required to wear full uniform, and the
ladies Court dress, and all must be in their places by
half-past eleven o'clock. After that hour none will
be allowed to enter.. His Royal Highness the Prince
of Prussia, with his suite, will arrive at the chapel at
twelve o'clock. The procession of her Majesty will
follow next, the bride elect, with her bridesmaids
and ladies, arriving a few minutes before half-past
twelve.

The wedding rings that are to be used at the
approaching nuptials are of Silesian gold, and have
been made in Breslau. The maker of them—who
has also a large gold refining establishment in that

town—has bad the two ringi mounted on a skin of
parchment, on which is engrossed, with every atten-
tion to esligraphy, a short history of his gold works
in Reichenstein, from which we learn that in
former days Silesia was a California on a small
scale ; gold was not ouly obtained by mining, but
also by washing the sands of certain rivers (the
same is still in the recollection of old people as
having been the case with the Rhine). In this
form of the heading to an historical document the
two wedding rings have lately been forwarded to the
Royal bridegroom.
The marriage gifts of her Royal Highness the
Princess Royal are exceedingly beautiful. The
dressing-case is presented by the Queen and the
Prince Consort. It is of ebony, surmounted with
gift ornaments, the design of which is the crown and
royal arms. The interior is of blue silk velvet. The
fittings are of gold. The dressing-case is eighteen
inches long and about twelve inches high. It is a
most beautiful specimen of workmanship. Among
the presents intended to be given to the Princess
Royal are mentioned a beautiful bracelet which Lady
Grosvenor is to preeent. The device is two horse-
shoes, sot with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds in
massive gold. The Earl and Countess of Fife
present a very beautiful casket of Cairngorm.
The bridesmaids are each to be presented with a
locket, which is considered the most appropriate
souvenir. The shape will be oval, the size about
three quarters of an inch in width and an inch in
length, very beautifully worked in massive gold, the
ciphers of the Princess being introduced in turquoise
and diamonds.
The preparations at the Castle for the reception of
the Royal bride and bridegroom are completed, and
the rooms appropriated to their use are those which
were occupied by the Queen in her younger days, at
the time when she was the guest of William IV.—
namely, those called the Duchess of Kent's apart-
ments, in the Lancaster rower. The Royal couple
are expected to arrive at Windsor on the evening of
the 25th, at five o'clock, and to travel by the Great
Western Railway from Paddington to George-street,
from whence they will proceed to the Castle under
an escort of the Royal Horse Guards (Blue).
On the 27th her Majesty and the Prince Consort,
accompanied by their Royal Highnesses the Duke
and Duchess of Saxe Coburg and the Duke of Cam-
bridge, will come to the Castle to attend the in-
stallation of the Prince of Prussia as a Knight of the
Garter, when about sixteen of the knights will also
be in attendance. In the evening a grand banquet
will take place in the Waterloo Chamber; and on
the following day a banquet upon an extensive and
magnificent scale will be given in St. George's-ball.
On Saturday, the 30th, the Drawing-room will be
held, and on the Tuesday following the Royal couple
will embark from Gravesend for their future home.
The embarkation will take place from the Town
Pier, off which the royal yacht, escorted by a
squadron of men.of-war, will be moored.
It remains for us only to state that the bridal
dress of silken tissue, woven by the bands of our
own Spitalfields weavers, is of white and gold, and
a perfect marvel of flexibility and lustre; indeed,
considering the quantity of real bullion employed in
its fabrication, the ingenuity and delicacy of mani-
pulation exhibited by our Spitalfields artisans can
hardly be too much commended. The same obser-
vation applies to her Majesty's dress, the only
difference being in the colour and metal employed,
which in the latter case are, the first, a tint which
the French call maure, and the metal silver. The
learned in these matters call the material on which
both dresses are brocaded moire antique, and we are
informed that in its production the looms of
Spitalfields far surpass even their celebrated com-
petitors of Lyons. The velvet of which her Majesty's
train is made is foreign, it not being possible to
obtain the colour in England, otherwise it was her