The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-12 00:00:00

HER 11AJESTY, &c.

WINDSOR CASTLE, April 11.
The Queen drove yesterday afternoon, accom-
panied by her Royal Highness Princess Christian.

his Royal Highness Prince Christian, attended
by Lieut.-Colonel G. Gordon, went out riding.
Her Majesty, accompanied by her Royal High-
ness Princess Beatrice, awl attended by Lady
Churchill, drove out this morning.
Their Royal Highaesses Prince and Princess
Christian took a drive.

Her Royal Highness Princess Louise walked in
the grounds of the Castle.

The Prince of Wales.

The Prince of Wales rode out yesterday, attended
by Captain Ellis.

The King of Denmark left Marlborough House
in the evening for Dover, en route for Copenhagen.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales accom-
panied his Majesty to the terminus of the South-
Eastern Railway at Charing-cross.

THE PARIS EXHIBITION.

Imperial Illustrated Catalogue of its

Contents.

The Art Journal—always an elegant and attrac-
tive periodical—is this month very considerably
enhanced in value by its numbering among its con-
tents for April (among its contents both literary
and artistic) the First Portion of a magnificent
Catalogue of the newly inaugurated Paris Exhibi-
tion. Like the Art Journal itself this Catalogue is
under the able editorship of Mr. S. C. Hall, an
art-critic pre-eminently qualified to preside over
any such responsible undertaking. It is, as if in
simple recognition of these pre-eminent qualifica-
tions appertaining expressly and almost exceptionally
to Mr. Hall, among art-critics and men of letters,
as an editor worthy of being entrusted with a task
of this particular character, a task requiring at the
hands of any such editorial supervisor a singular
aptitude for the most delicate discrimination, that
the imperial illustrated Catalogue, as we have called
it, of the Universal Exhibition now opening in
Paris —this Catalogue, the serial issue of which has
bat just now been commenced in the April number
of the Art Journal, has been inscribed or dedicated

" by Gracious Permission" to the Emperor of the
French. And already we can now recognise for our-
selves that there are good reasons enow why the
exceptional honour thus accorded to the Art Journal
Catalogue should have been vouchsafed to it by his
Imperial Niajesty. So far as it has yet gone it is
worthy of it—it is worthy of assuming its place among
the Exhibition Catalogues as the Illustrated Cata-

logue, or, according to our own definition of it, as
the Imperial Illustrated Catalogue. The embellish-
ments squandered among the letterpress are profuse
and elegant—besides being sagaciously selected and
admirably well executed. Fans and caskets, toilet
bottles and paper knives, tazzas and bonbounieres,
screens and brackets, mirrors and clocks, fruit
baskets and candelabra, bracelets and brooches,
drinking horns and flower stands, vases and chim-
ney pieces—all of which more or less elaborately
ornate designs, render the pages, as we turn them,
delightful to look at. We long for more—we look
forward to the next instalment—we begin to think
seriously of getting ready our valise, or at any rate
our sac-de-nuit, and taking a run across to Paris,
to look in ourselves and compare notes with the
Art Journal Editor and his staff of contributors, ill
regard to the contents of the Great Paris Exhibi-
tion. Although having nothing whatever to do
with the Catalogue itself, upon which more
especially we have been here desirous of cony
menting, three other con tribptions to the cur-
rent April number of the Art Jouirnal must in jus-
tice be particularised as especially worthy of note
before pasiing on from the particular subject
matter of our remarks—an excellent engraving of
Webster's delightful " Village Choir" full of chit'
racter—Couseu's graceful rendering with the
graver, of G. Smith's pretty meadow glimpse of the
" Sisters"—and another cf Mr. S. C. Hall's anec"
dotal recollections—this time a witheringly sarcastic
one of " Samuel Rogers, Poet and Banker."

BALLAD CONCERTS AT ST. JAMES'S

IIALL.

The first of a series of Ballad Concerts, under the
management of Mr. John Boosey, was given last
evening at St. James's Hall. The programme VritS
highly attractive, and included such popular
old English, Irish, and Scottish songs and ballads ae
" The Curly Headed Ploughboy," " Should he
upbraid," " The Meeting of the Waters," " Draif
the Sword, Scotland," " Rich and Rare were the
Gems she Wore," " My mother bids me bind reY
hair," " Flow thou regal purple stream," " Houle,
sweet Home," " Auld Robin Gray," and a dozao
others equally well known to all lovers of
our national music. When it is added that the
vocalists who endeavoured to do justice to these de'
served favourites, and fully suceeeded in the atternPtf
were such Queens of Song as Miss Louisa PYoe'
Madame Sainton-Dolby, and Madame Lemmene"
Sherrington, and such promising aspirants t°
the laurel crown of music as Miss Edith
Wynne and Madlle. Liebhart, with a mason"
line choir, including such names as those 4:4
%Ir. Weiss, Mr. Montem Smith, and 10
W. 11. Cummings, enough is said tt°
prove that the entertainment of the evenil
was of a character to deserve the patronage
the public. And that patronage was not
scantily bestowed. The hall was crowded in eyed
part with a fashionable assemblage, who justified,
by the heartiness of their applause, the belie,
;
that has of late been gradually extending, that
Italian and German music have not yet driven
out of the hearts of the British people
the love of their old and characteristic melodies,
and of the simple songs and ballads, many a olie
of which contains as much true music as a wh°l°
opera by Verdi and ether composers, who need
not be more particularly specified. Miss Louisa
Pyne was in excellent voice, and her beautiful 00;
dering of the beautiful Irish melody, to Wilic„
Thomas Moore wrote the" Meeting of the Waterer
would alone have made the concert a sue'
cess. The same lady was equally charming i°
" Home, sweet Home," and Madame Sainton-Dol
was beyond all praise, for the exquisite feeling kith
which she warbled the perennial and Illy
dying favourite " Auld Robin Gray." If we hal
any objection to make to the programme it
sulely that it was somewhat too long ; and that lw
length was unnecessarily increased by the e°11;
stant demand for encores ; encores which 'lre
cannot but think are dishonest on the part of W°
public to insist upon, and unfair towards t'
artistes, who aro both flattered and punished by
them. The second concert of the series is fixed f°
the 23d of April—Shakspere's birthday—when 0
selection of Shaksperian glees will be perform ,
as an appropriate memorial of the occasion.

The armoured iron frigate Bellerophon, Capt. 9;
Tatham, on Wednesday and yesterday weighed iiheo
anchor from Spithead and steamed out into tm
Channel, east of the Isle of Wight, for gunner;
practice, to test the iron carriages and slides for h
12i-ton guns. On Wednesday there was afr hesbe
south-west gale in the Channel, and yesterday
wind was stiff from the W.N.W., both days givi,ljbe
unusually favourable conditions for fully testing 'e
gun carriages and slides. The general results of the
two days' trials have been highly favourable for re
12k-ton gun broadside system of armament. Olea,
is but little doubt, at the same time, that the bro3o,
side system has reached its limit in the 12 ton gt/ip
Rear Admiral F. Warden, C. 8., her Majesty's s"he/
Minotaur, second in command of the Channel lived
for the present year, with the members of the Na
Gun Carriage Committee, were present at the tr
on both days.
LEIGH HUNT'S BOOK ON THE SONNETS 010£ yo,
it as the very microcosm of poetry. " You can," he 6:00
" make love in a sonnet ; you can laugh in a sonnet ; spy
can lament in it, can narrate or describe, can rebul‘el
admire, can pray."