way--George Elliot, Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his
memorable defense 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 emulations 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 labors 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 St. 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, criticized, and
exchanged repartees under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montague.
And there the ladies whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox
himself, had carried the Westminster election against palace and
treasury,