The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-24 00:00:00

THE GUARDS' BALL.

great
Before the Princess of Wales gives her
ball, which is already spoken of as to be the Royal

fete of the season, she will have taken part in so
many entertainments of the some kind as to learn

exactly the rules which guide and govern the suc-
cess of these great assemblages in England. She has
honoured the gorgeous yet somewhat ponderous fes-
tivities of the city at Guildaall, the provincial
gaieties at Oxford, and on Friday evening next
will honour the ball given by the Brigade of
Guards to herself and her Royal husband—a ball
which, from the rank and position of those invited
to take part in it, will be the most select and bril-

liant entertainment of the kind that has been wit-

nessed for many year& It is, we believe, the first
time that the Brigade of Guards have, as a brigade,
ever entertained Royalty at a ball; and it may
easily be imagined, therefore, that no pains and
no expense will be spared to make this ball

as brilliant as it can be made, by a carefully

chosen list of visitors, and by making the spacious
apartments which are to serve as supper, ball, and

ante-rooms, as rich and striking in appearance as

the most perfect good taste and the most ample

expenditure can render them.
The ball, as our readers are aware, is to be given
in the picture galleries of the xhibition—that is
to say, in the eastern half of them ; the portion
which last year was devoted to the display of
_vmyks_oLthearitiitzSebooLois&-fteetl-stv nothing
more about the noble proportions of these galleries.
The most captious of the enemies of the Exhibition

never denied that they were the loftiest, hest pro

portioned, and best lighted picture galleries in
Europe, and we believe the experience of Friday
next will show that they will appear to equal ad-
vantage in their new festive capacity. At all events,
when the Guards' officers charged to carry out the

details of this fete cast about to find a suite o:

apartments suitable for the purpose, which should
be at once very large, very lofty, very well venti-
lated, and completely under their own control, they

'ound there were none in the metropolis which

offered these facilities in such perfection as the

Exhibition picture galleries. Of course a good dea

has had to be done to make even these fine rooms

suitable to a great State festival such as this is, in
fact, to be; but by the combined exertions of some
200 or 300 soldiers, aided by various corps of deco-
rators, trophy fitters, and carpenters, the rooms are
at last emerging out of their chaos of dust and
chip's, and assuming sufficiently the aspect of their
final decorated state to warrant us in giving some

outline of what they will be on Friday evening.
To begin at the very commencement, the entrance
for all visitors is to be in the Cromwell-road, where
the width of the approaches admits of such admi-
rable police arrangements that the whole of the
1,400 guests who are invited can set down in an
hour and a half, if they will only come within that
time. The wide, ample awning from Buckingham
Palace will make a sheltered porch over this
entrance—

" Where tender beauty, waiting for her coach,
Protrudes her gloveless hand and feels the shower,"
and where, if the shower does really come to make
the porch useful, all, either on arriving or departing,
will be under its cover. From this porch the wide
entrance which used to give ingress to the main
body of the Exhibition building has been screened
off with hangings of red, white, and blue, the colours
of the brigade. Oa the left a beautifnl cloak-room
will be fitted up for the Dachess and Princess Mary
of Cambridge and the ►adies of the late Royal family
of France, &c. The cloak-rooms for the general
visitors will be beyond this again, on the right and
left. From the porch lining the Entrance on both
sides and up the stairs leading to the ballroom will
be stationed a picked detachment of the Guards—
,the finest and most distinguished of the private sol-
diers in this magnificent brigade. The staircase
will be carpeted with the setae red, white, and blue,
and the walls draped with festoons of similar tints.
Along the gallery where the stained glass used to
be shown during the Exhibition will be hung
screens of the same kind, and this outer gallery will
be used as a sort of cool promenade and a place for
such light refreshments as ices, tea, coffee, &c. On
the right, just before the entrance to the rooms, an
octagon boudoir, in the form of a pavilion tent, is
being erected for the Princess of Wales. This
apartment is, it is said, to be a perfect gem of de-
corative art, Mr. Nosotti, to whose hands it has
been committed, having been required only to sue-

D
teed in making it supremely beautiful. The entrance
to the ballroom has been divided by lofty draped
screens which reach the roof into an apartment of
about 40 feet by 40, where the Duke of Cambridge
and all the chief officers of the Brigade will receive
the general company, their guests, before the arrival
of the guests of the evening. Their Royal High-
nesses the Prince and Princess of Wales will, of
course,
their alighting at the
entrance, atrleoceoiv,celd ponocku.
Passing
sg be
beyond this reception room, which is to be
exquisitely decorated, the remaining long length of
apartment which constitutes the gallery proper has
been divided into three portions; the first is called
the conservatory, the central portion is the ball-
room, and the last will be the supper-room. The
conservatory and the supper-room, the Alpha and
Omega of the fête, are to be the most charac-
teristic and the most beautiful salons, if we may
use such a term to a conservatory, ever seen of the
kind. In the first the walls, almost up to the very
ceiling, will be hidden with palms from Kew, with
banks of ferns, heaths, and rare exotics in full bloom,
and the background of wall, where it can be seen
between the tall stems, will be covered with mirrors
placed at opposite sides of the apartment so as to give
an endless perspective to the beautiful effect. Foun-
tains and statuary, too, will be interspersed among
the plants, and in the centre of the room will be one
large fountain, with its margin surrounded by
flowers.

From this beautiful apartment, in which also re
freshments will be served, a draped entrance leads to
the ballroom, a room having a dancing floor 200 feet
long by 38 wide, or rather more than double the size
of any known ballroom in London. Over the whole
extent, a pitch fine floor has been carefully laid,
smoothed down, and finely planed so as to make it
as level and as smooth as a sheet of satin wood. In
the centre of the room is a raised dais for the guests
of the evening and the members of the Royal family.
All round the room, except in the space fronting
this dais, there are raised seats for those who wish
to enjoy the brilliant scene without fatigue. The
background to these seats is scarlet drapery, the
walls above are tinted of a light maize colour with
the emblems of the brigade in wreaths and garlands.
The ceiling has simply been left as it used to be,
and immediately below the glass lights a kind of
ceiling is formed by a stretched screen of maize-
coloured cloth, At the west end of the gallery, about
midway up the wall, a spacious orchestra has been
built, and will be beautifully decorated. The whole
apartment is lit from above with triple rows of cir-
cular burners, and every pains has been taken to
make the ventilation as perfect and as ample as pos-
sible. This ballroom will afford sufficient space for
800 guests to dance at the same time. Beyond the
ballroom is the supper room, the brilliant glories of
which have yet in a great measure to be arranged
and developed. Just now they are only prefigured
by groaps of colours or by awnings on the walls,
which mark the place of massive trophies, in some
of which weapons sufficient to equip a regiment
have been made into glittering stars, and are care-
fully screened from the dust. Military accoutre-
ments of all kinds strew the floor as if a desperate
skirmish had just taken place, an idea which
is made more suggestive still by stiff-look-
ing human figures stitched up in blankets—figures
which must call up dismal memories to some of the
officers superintending the preparations: These
rather ghastly-looking objects, however, are only
the suits of armour from the Tower, which will, on

the night of the fete, shine forth cap-a-pie with
lance and halberd in hand. At the upper end of
the room, in the niche which all our readers will so
well remember as occupied last year by Foley's
noble statue of Caractacus, is to be the great mili-
tary trophy of all, the background star of which
I as already consumed some thousand ramroads in
its formation, and will absorb the martial equip-
ments of a respectable force of cavalry and infantry
before it is completed. The base of this, to a heig ht
of about eight feet, a ill be one broad and magni-
ficent display of gold plate. The show of gold and
silver is likely to be es rich and as rare and as
massive as it was at the Guildhall, a large number
of the principal nobility having on this occasion
placed their stores, without reserve, at the disposal
of the officers of the brigade. For the first time the
Duke of Wellington lends the whole of his famous
service of gold plate, including the renowned Flax-
man shield, which is on th'is evening to occupy the
place of honour in the centre of the buffet. What
with the plate, the military trophies, the brilliant
lighting, and the noble proportions of this supper
room, the scene during the banquet itself is likely
to be one of unprecedented splendour and magni-
ficence.

As some misapprehension seems to have arisen as
to whether gentlemen are to wear uniform or Court
dress on this occasion, we have been requested to
state that all gentlemen, whether in the service or
not, are expected to appear in plain evening dress.
The naly4txceptianAa...thia rule milLbe the officers
of the Brigade of Guards, who as hosts and enter-
tainers, appear in uniform ; but all guests, even his
Royal Highness, will, as we have said, wear even-
ing dress. Of course, all of the company who are
honoured with invitations are expected to assemble
in the ball-room to receive their Royal Highnesses,
who are to arrive at 10 o'clock. Not a single in-
vitation beyond the 1,400 originally invited has
been issued for this splendid fete.