The Express.
London, England, 1858-01-26 00:00:00

TO OUR READERS.

A DOUBLE NUMBER of the EXPRESS will
be published on the FIRST SATURDAY in the
Parliamentary Se lion, and continued on such weeks
as the length of the Parliamentary Debates shall
render desirable.

To the various participants in the solemn ceremo-
nial which yesterday imparted such an extraordinary
interest to the little unpretending chapel in St.
James's Palace, the event, however brilliant and
exciting, was but the event of a day, to be super-
seded on the morrow by fresher incidents, and
speedily forgotten in the turbid and quickly running
torrent in which runs the civilised life of the nine-
teenth century. But some two centuries hence, to
the Macaulay of the day—it England should then
possess • worthy successor to the great pic-
torial Historian—the wedding of the Prin-
cess Royal, eldest daughter of Victoria the
Pint, Queen of England, will offer a theme
of marvellous attraction. He will then have all his
materials before him long cooled down from the fever
heat of their original vitality, he will have the re-
mits to which they had led, and he will also have the
softening influence of long historical retrospect to
assuage the asperities, to fuse the tones, and to give
mellowness to the picture, in which his skill will so
well know how to units the fidelity of history with the
fascination of romance. How may he not exultingly
dwell on the feet, which to-day passes comparatively
unnoticed, that the great Queen of the Islands,
while struggling for the maintenance of her benig-
nant rule in one great empire, and bravely casting
down the gauntlet of defiance to another, yet finds
time and composure for the domestic cares of royal
maternity, for marriage, and for giving in marriage
for the tranquil " settling in life " of her eldest
born child, and for the gorgeous details of the cere-
monial by which the happy event is made an accom-
plished fact. And then the time, the place, and the
personages—how they will teem with topics for
such a writer! The nineteenth century is yet but
half exhausted, and already it has exhibited results
far more wonderful than its far-off predesessor in
which Christian Europe poured into Palestine to revo-
lutionise the astern world, or the more recent epoch
in which the great discoverer added a new world to
the territory of the then most powerful Christian mo-
narch. We have now little more than half exhausted
the century of the power loom, the steam engine, and
the electric telegraph ; we in England have just
measured strength, and not unsuccessfully, with the
Leviathan of the North ; and now, whilst the soars of
that mighty struggle are scarcely healed, and while
we are rivetting our armour for fresh efforts, the
sound of marriage bells is heard, and a wedding rite
is solemnised, the details of which all Europe is
watching, and which is ratified by the joyful accla-
mations of thirty millions of brave and loyal
people. Surrounded by such a halo of contempo-
raneous associations, the old Palace of St.
James, and its modest little chapel expand
into vast historical proportions. They become the
theme of antiquaries, the pet subject of the architec-
tural critics, the cynosure of universal and eager
curiosity. We look back into the dim past, and con-
jure up the shadow of bluff King Harry, with his
famous decorator, old Holbein ; we remember the
austere Queen Mary, and gratefully contract with
that unpopular sovereign our present beloved Queen;
we drop • tear to the memory of royal Charles,
who, we know, spent within its walls the
night preceding that great catastrophe which at
the moment electrified and then paralysed all
Europe. But on the 26th of January, 1868,
an event takes place which banishes all lugu-
brious recollections, and the narrator feels a plea-
sant and genial influence steal over his thoughts
as he sits down to tell with affectionate circum-
stantiality how the garden entrance of fit.
James's Palace was at that wintry time green with
rare exotics, and brilliant with the many-coloured
Flora which the commerce of the world and the
skill of the Evelyn' of the day had placed at oar
command, irrespective of the seasons. The crimson
and gold, the draperies and the curtains, the bridal
apartments and the rooms of state, and, lastly, the
little chapel itself, are susceptible of the most minute
description, and every such detail is always greedily
read and relished by the lively curiosity of the
public. Of the personages, too, how much
may be said by the searching historian, when
he sits down far away from the turmoil of our party
politics to scan, and analyse, and weigh, and give
judgment on our Palmerston and Marinades, oar
Granville" and Breadalbanes, and the other person-
ages distinguished in politics, in war, or in letters,
who, either officially or as spectators, were permitted
to play a part in yesterday's pageant. And truly
it was an impressive and gorgeous picture. At the
earliest poseibie hour the court-yards of the palace
were filled with the equipage, of the great, and in a
moment its long and intricate corridors streamed
with life and beauty, and gay and splendid
empanel, the badge of office, the decoration
at heroism, the plumes, the rich tissues, the brilliants,
which add grace and dignity to aristocratic beauty,