The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-31 00:00:00

ST. JAMES'S PALACE.

(Prom. the Tim ea )
There are two parties to all pomps, c-remonials,
and State exhibitions—those that are seen and
those that see. The latter party, we believe, takes
as warm an interest in these scenes as ever. The
world of spectators still loves ceremonial dearly,
and keeps the sacred flame alive. To this day
nine-tenths of the English public will willingly
undergo a kind of martyrdom in the process. There
are no inconveniences and fatigues too great for
them ; hours and hours will they wait in slow ex-
pectation ; they will stand counting the minutes
till their legs s lmost give way, all to see a pageant
of some 20 minutes. But, while the outside party
keeps up its full interest in the scene, the inside
party is rather losing it. Those who form the
spectacle care a good deal less about it than the
spectators. Why should they ? "It is only our
noble selves that are exhibiting, with whom we
are tolerably familiar. You and lof the same set
are very poor heroes to each other. We see or may
see each other most days. We see nothing parti-
cularly wonderful in each other. We are a very
poor ceremonial, then, to each other." Such is the
cold reasoning of modern times. How different
from the glowing atmosphere of a golden ceremo-
nial in Froissart, where majestic heralds precede
rows of prim knights with pointed shoon, who step
daintily before rows of demure, white-robed, au-
burn-haired damsels, who precede awful crowned
personages, walking solemnly beneath canopies of
cloth of gold, supported by officers of State, and
shaded by pennons and insignia ! Are they in-
different to the scene and to their own position in
it—those prim knights, those auburn-haired
maidens, and those august personages in crowns ?
What set ene enjoyment, what balmy satisfaction is
expressed in their looks—what serious sympathy
with the pageant and appreciation of its deep
reality ! What a ceremonial elysium are they in
How sadly have the present elements of spectacles
degenerated and cooled down ! These occasions
have actually now come to bs considered rather as
bores ; they are hurried, curtailed, squeezed,
abridged, jammed up into corners, hemmed in at
the. aides, boxed in all round, boarded over, ro)fed
in ; tbey are twisted about ant split into sections
to suit local angularities ; and, finally, they are
got over as soon as possible, and almost before the
lucky spectator has got his glimpse of the scene
through a crack in the timber.

The marriage of the Princess Royal is to be
celebrated in the Chapel Royal. The precedent of
a century is iu favour of this, but such a precedent
is more honoured in the breach than in the ob-
servance. It was ineeed always protested against.
Lord Hervey finds all kinds of fault with this choice
in the case of the marriage of the Princess Royal of
his day—the daughter of George 11., the lady from
whose name Sir Cornewall Lewis began the line of
precedents wnich inaugurated his Annuity Bill.
Lord Hervey, we say, notices with much humour
the difficulties and awkwardness of St. James's as
the scene of such a ceremonial—awkwarduesses
which were increased on the occasion of her present
Majesty's marriage, when so much more national
interest was excited, and when the numbers whose
loyalty wished to be accommodated with a sight of
the ceremonial was so much greater. The Chapel
Royal cannot, in fact, hold much more than 200
persons properly, though we are told that the
temporary gallery is to hold 200, minus the hoops
of the ladie., which are to be left behind, in con-
sideration of the appalling squeeze prepared for
them. With the exception, then, of the Royal
personages themselves and their suites, and th-
foreign guests, literally nobody will s. e the actual
ceremony of the marriage. We might know this
by measurement, even if we had not been told by
authority that the Chapel Royal will be almost
filled by the suites of the Queen, the Princess
Royal, and the bridegroom, and the royal guests
that have been invited to this great gathering."
The Chapel will not, indeed, hold nearly all even of
the Royal guests, who, we are infom-d, are to fill
three hotels in Sr. James's-street ; and as for Eng-
lish faces, what room there will be for them is easily
inferred. So much for the actual ceremony of the
marriage, which it would appear no Englishman who
is not in a suite is to see. But, besides the cere-
mony of the marriage, we are to have " three dis-
tinct processions—" t hat of the Queen as Sovereian.
—that of the Bride, and that of the Royal Bride-
groom." How and by whom are these processions
to be seen ? The narrow intricacies of St. James's
are fatal to the effect of processions ; they will be
cut into fragments, one part will be lost in one cor-
ner while the other is emerging from another. And
even thus spoiled, how many wilt see them I We
are told that seats will beerected in the area where
the band plays to accommodate five or six hundred
persons ; that a gallery will be erected on the stair-
case in the area leading to the front of the Chapel
to hold two hundred persons ; that seats will be
provided near the corridor where her Majesty will
alight; and that in all some fifteen hundred per-
sons will be able to see the processions. Fifteen
kundred ! What a nualur ! And that only to se•
the bare externals of the scene ! Fifteen hundred
to be all that are even to have outside places ! Fif-
teen hundred out of all England ! As for the in-
side and kernel of the cereinouial—that, as we have
said, not a single Englishman who is not in one of
the suites will see.

Now pomps and processions may, as we say, be
great nuisances to those who compose them ; it
may be true that in this 19th century persons
have no great taste for walking solemnly in full
costume in the presence of thousands of spectators
riveting all eyes—it may be true that the Eng-
lish taste especially is not at all for this sort of
thing—i. e , for composing a ceremonial ; still the
world of spectators is to be regarded, we think, ou
these occasions as well as the great world that is
looked at and that constitutes the rageant. The
world at large still likes a pageant, and in the
capacity of lookers-on we have by no means lost our
taste for these exhibitions. Why not, then, show
a little more liberality and indulgence to the
natural wish of the public for a sight of the cere-
monial connected with this Royal marriage 1 Why
cram the ceremonial of the marriage itself into a
chapel which does not properly hold more than
200, though by a porteirous squetze, and at the
cost of treasures of millinery, you may fill it up to
the extent of another hundred or more? Why
select for the p occasions that knot of small courts,
corners, and angles which composes St. James's
Palace, which is about the most unsuitable and
uncongenial scene for a procession that cJuld be
found in London ? Why conduct these cet e-
monials as if we were ashamed of them, as if '• we
wanted nobody to see us." Tha marriage of the
Princess Royal of England is a national event ;
why should it not be celebrated as such, and the
two bands be joined tope her, as far as can be, in
the sight of the country 1 Why not celebrate it in
that edifice which is so associated with the h;story
of English Royalty, which witnesses the crowning
of our Kings and Queens, and which it spires such
deep national rtcollections and display's such me-
morials of English glory—in Westminster AbF ey ?
In that interior thousands, instead of hundreds,
could see the actual cei etuony of the marriage.
That would be a great improvement. But, besides
the thousands which c Aild be accommodated in the
Abbey, tens of thousands would line the road
which would conduct the processions from the
Palace to the Abbey. That would indeed be a
national scene. As it is, it looks as if the whole
ceremonial were shut up in a box. The very
journal which authoritatively gives us the pro-
graseme is driven to that melancholy test of
grandeur and sublimity which consists in
the 'number of disappointments, the quantity of
persons who might naturally have expected places
at the ceremonial but who will not get them.
Our contemporary enlarges with some gusto
upon this huge, dark mass of disappointment, upon
the deep, hoarse murmuts, of an excluded crowd,
as if the black shadow threw by contrast an addi-
tional glory and brightness upon the rich scene
itself. We are told that "never was Lord Cham-
berlain or Chief Commissioner of Works made so
much of as at the present time," and that "as much
interest is made for seats, especially by ladies, as
would under ordinary circumstances procure capital
official appointments." Our contemporary dwells
almost with fondness upon " the d-af ear to the
voice of the charmers" of the Lord Chamberlain,
who upon this occasion sustains such a siege as was
never known before in the anna!s of pageantry, and
who from all accounts ought to be a very Brutus
and a perfect hero of moral courage to get through
his difficulties and sustain the assaults upon his con-
science. All this may give immense importance to
the occasion, still it is not an agre'3able mode of
giving importance to it. It would be better that,
as far as practicable, the sense of the grandeur of
the scene should arise from seeing it than trout not
seeing it, and that a Royal marriage should be
associated with pleasure rather than disappoint
meat.

CHRISTMAS WEATHER IN THE NORTH.—The weather
on the north-7tast coast curing the Christmas hulidays
has been the most remarkable ever remembered by the
oldest inhabitants. Old seamen and fishermen who have
spent their lives on the North Sea have no rec. liection
of such a long §‘ spell" of open sunny weather at a
Christmas as we have experienced tbis year. The lutae
bushes are out in bloom on the bents upon the Nor-
thumberland coast, and daisies, primroses, and other
spring flowers may be seen peep* from the ground.
On Christmas-day numerous parties were observed bath-
ing in the sea near Cuileroats and Tynemouth ; and to
notice a person walking with a top coat on was some-
thing remarkable on that day. Tho mild weather and
the general depression of trade are very much affecting
the coal trade. Above 200 vessel.' generally employed
in the Lyndon coal trade are laid• ny in Um Tine.