The Sun.
London, England, 1851-05-01 00:00:00

i 4 Ant

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 1, 185

VICTORIA, at once the most powerful and the most
popular Sovereign in Christendom, has this day in-
augurated the Great Industrial Exhibition with cere-
monies of more than regal magnificence. It will
remain hereafter for the future MACAULAY to revert
fo an occasion of such novel importance when re-
counting the incidents which marked the peaceful
reign of her present MAJESTY, and, in doing so, to
characterise this morning as perhaps in some respects
the most memorable in the annals of our country.
Looking back to that period from the distance of a
remote posterity, the historian cannot fail to dis-
cern in the pomps and pageantries attendant
upon the opening of the Crystal Palace some-
thing nobler than an idle festivity, something
grander than a Court gala-day, something sublimer
even than the manifestation of loyalty to the Queen
Of ENGLAND from the accumulated representwives of
her empire. Through the splendour of the occur-
rence will be recognized the real meaning and ulterior
purpole of the demonstration, the gratitude of man-
kind at large for the progress already made in the
onward movement of civilization, and the hopes
cherished by the majority that through the medium
of these elevating and humanizing influences the
amity of nations may at length be securely established.
With such lofty projects in view, with such divine
and exalted aspirations, we feel satisfied that the day
now fleeting fast away will prove in the end to have
fawned not altogether in vain, but that
from it will be dated by annalists yet un-
born the commencement of a new era of
human advancement. From our earnest conviction
upon this head it is that we look with no common sa-
asfaction upon the ardour displayed by the masses in
regard to the royal ceremonies of inauguration.
A stranger, ignorant of the event about to he cele-

orated would undoubtedly have been bewildered by
:he spectacle viiible in the streets of London this
inorning from little after cockcrow. Since then, and

increasing proportionately up to nearly the hour of
noon, when the Mosuacu left her own Palace for that
of the Exhibition, a flood of holiday folks streamed
through the principal thoroughfares on foot and in car-
riages, eager to obtain some tolerably good position
from which to witness some portion at least of the
regal pageantry. From the furthest extremity of
fiulborn, up Long-acre, and along the northern side
)f Leicester-square to the commencement of Picea-
filly, the road from eight o'clock and even earlier had
been verynearly impassable, extending from that point
in one dense mass of human beings up to the very gates
)1 the Crystal Palace. Elsewhere at every available
spot from which the Royal procession could be seen
?using to or from Hyde-park, a 4, for example, along
constitution-hill, and extending for a considerable
distance up the Mali, the crowds collected with inde-
fatigable perseverance and waited with uncon-

querable patience, betraying*, in all this the
interest felt in the occasion by the great
na,,s of the population. In another portion of our
journal will be found, detailed with all desirable
ninuteness, the ceremonies which followed imme-

liately upon the co►npletion of these preparations.
[t will there be observed that the occurrence, in
ielebrating which England has called upon all con-
etnporary powers throughout the world to partici-
,ate, has, to the fullest pos.ible extent, equalled even

most sanguine expectations.
R'•flecting for a moment upon the event, the in-
,uguration of which was this morning. presided over
~rsotially by our Most Gracious SovEREIGN, it
annut but be felt by all intelligent observers that the

'eelings of that e-xilteci p,rsoaage mu,t have been
,uprerne and solemn in the-ir earnestness. As the
lifted author of " Vanity Fair" said only yesterday
tn his noble " Ode " in reference to these festi-
vities—

" This moment round her empire's shores,
The winds of Austral winter sweep,
And thousands he in midnight sleep
At rest to day.
01 awful is that crown of yours,
Queen of innumerable realms,
'Sitting beneath the buddihq elms
Of English May ! "
Couple, moreover, with that beautiful thought the
unusual glory by which, with a rapidity almost
magical, those trees were surrounded, and the various
And costly treasures which had been heaped together
upon what was recently the green sward, but is now a
structure scarcely less gorgeous and fantastic than
those described in the " Arabian Nights' Enter-
tainments "—sod some sense may be entertained
of the touching and splendid import of the whole
celebration. Tnose alone could to the full appreciate
it who themselves witnessed the courtly procession
traversing each nave and transept of the Crystal
Palace, who listened to the organs taking up in suc•
cession the triumphal march with which the progress
of Queen VICTORIA through the edifice was indi-
cated, who heard the solemn tones in which the
Archbishop of CANTERBURY in\ oked the blessing of
the Unseen DIVINITY upon the enterprise, and who
subsequently hearkened to the silver accents in
which the MONARCH announced to her lieges the close
of the inauguration—an announcement received with
'he firing of cannon and a flourish of trumpets. To
others
,ee it is left only to conjecture the aspect of the
the f.ne si
trihdfutiheand
minute accompaniments,herre tiaviede de
finthsoe doing by
Now that the occurrence so long anticipated has been
it last and satisfactorily completed, we cannot but
exult that the sinister
predictions of a minority have
been thus wonderfully falsified, we cannot but rejoice
bat the hopes of a
majority been thus signally
realized to the very utterm
haveoat We cannot
but felicitate
those who have in spite of perpetual derisionhe ned o
f th
count-
less impeditnents brought the crude
e
ExpObitiOil so soon to a ripened maturity. With
his Royal Highness 'the PRINCE CONSORT
rests the
incontestable glory of having first suggested the
;inject and first sketched out the broad outline of this
unprecedented and magnificent enterprise. To Mr.
PAvroN belongs the credit of designing the symni,.
rical edifice in which the specimens of the art and
industry of the nations of the earth have been gathered
"gether. Messrs. Fox and HENDERSON, the CM-
tractors, share between them the merit of having
'Vith such marvellous swiftness built up the edifice of
glass and iron from that ingenious design, aided in
their labours by the assiduous co-operation of the
Committee, and enabled to complete the decorations
of the interior by Mr. 0 NEN JoNEs's exquisite
nd activity theoryof_ of colouring, as well as by the united skill
athe very numerous exhibitors. Un-
der such auspices it was but natural that the enterprise
should have been prosperously conducted to its com-