of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three
fourths of the Upper House as the Upper House then was, walked in
solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. The
junior Baron present led the way, George Eliott, Lord Heathfield,
recently ennobled for his memorable defence of Gibraltar against the
fleets and armies of France and Spain. The long procession was closed
by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great
dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the King. Last of all
came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble
bearing.

The gray old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were
crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or the
emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts
of a great, free, enlightened and prosperous empire, grace and female
loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every science and
of every art. There were seated round the Queen, the fair-haired young
daughters of the house of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of great
Kings and Commonwealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no
other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime
of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all
the imitations of the stage. There the historian of the Roman Empire
thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against
Verres, and when, before a senate which still retained some show of
freedom, Tacitus thundered against the oppressor of Africa.

There were seen, side by side, the greatest painter and the greatest
scholar of the age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel
which has preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers
and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many noble matrons. It had
induced Parr to suspend his labours in that dark and profound mine
from which he had extracted a vast treasure of erudition--a treasure
too often buried in the earth, too often paraded with injudicious and
inelegant ostentation; but still precious, massive, and splendid.
There appeared the voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir of the
throne had in secret plighted his faith. There too was she, the
beautiful mother of a beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia, whose
delicate features, lighted up by love and music, art has rescued from
the common decay. There were the members of that brilliant society
which quoted, critici