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

E11011413W

LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1851

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
to 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 representatives of
her empire. Through the splendour of the occur-
rence will be recognized the real meaning and ulterior
purpose 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
-.nd exalted aspirations, we feel satisfied that the day
now flacting fast away will prove in the end to have
da oiled 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-
tisfaction upon the ardour displayed by the masses in
regard to the royal ceremonies of inauguration.

it stranger, ignorant of the event about to be cele
brated would undoubtedly have been bewildered by
the spectacle visible in the streets of London this
morning from little after cockcrow. Since then, and
Increasing proportionately up to nearly the hour of
noon, when the MONARCH left her own Palace for that
of the Exhibiticn, 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
Flulborn, up Lang-acre, and along the northern side
if Leicester-square to the commencement of Picea-
filly, the road from eight o'clock and even earlier had
been very nearly impassable, exkending from that point
in one dense MISS of human beings up to the very gates
of the Crystal Palace. Elsewhere at every available
Spot from which the Royal procession could be seen
passing to or from Hyde-park, as, for example, along
"Jonstitution-hill, and extending for a considerable
distance up the Mall, the crowds collected with inde-

t'..tigable perseverance and waited with uncon-
querable patience, betraying in all this the
interest felt in the occasion by the great
mass of the population. In another portion of our
journal will be found, detailed with all desirable
minuteness, the ceremonies which followed imme-

diately upon the completion of these preparations.
It will there be observed that the occurrence, in
celebrating which England has called upon all con-
temporary powers throughout the world to partici-
pate, has, to the fullest possible extent, equalled even
the most sanguine expectations.

Reflecting fur a moment upon the event, the in-
auguration of which was this morning presided over
personally by our MINIt Gracious SOVEREIGN, it
cannot hut be felt by all intelligent observers that the
feelings of that 'exalted personage must have been
supreme and solemn in their earnestness. As the
gifted author of " Vanity Fair " said only yesterday
in his noble " Ode " in reference to these festi-
vities—

This moment round her empire's shores,
The winds of Austral winter sweep,
And thousands lie in midnight sicep
At rrst to day.
O! awful is that crown of yours,
Queen of innumerable realms,
Sitting beneath the budding 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 "—and some sense may be entertained
of the touching and splendid import of the whole
celebration. Those 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 imoked 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
the firing of cannon and a flourish of trumpets. To
others it is left only to conjecture the aspect of the
scene and
uu the accompaniments, aided in so doing by
the faithful
and minute narrative of the reporter.
Now that the occurrence so long anticipated has been
at last and Satisfactorilyt completed, we cannot but
exult that the sinister predictions of a minority have
been thus wonderfully
falsified we cannot but rejoice
that the hopes of a nujor.
Y h'
av eet b
beenanno thus
u t si
realized to the very uttermost, w
felicitate
those who have in spite of perpetual derision and count-
less impediments brought the crude
scheme of the
Exposition so soon to a ripened
maturity. With
his Royal Highness the PRINCE CONSORT rests the
incontestable glory of having first Suggested
the
project and first sketched out the broad outline
of this
unprecedented and magnificent enterprise
• To Mr.
'PAXTON belongs the credit of designing the Byrum,.
'deal edifice in which the specimens of the art and
industry of the nations of the earth have been gathered
together. Mesirs. Fox and HENDERSON, the con-
cractors, share between them the merit of having
with 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. OWEN JONES'S exquisite
theory of colouring,
as well as by the united skill
and activity of the very numerous exhibitors. Un-
der such auspices it
was but natural that the enterprise
should have been prosperously conducted to its com•