for some weeks anterior to the event the excitement was extreme. The
thousand equipages which thronged the streets, the plumed retainers of the
ambassadors, the streams of swarthy strangers, and the incessant din of
preparation, which resounded by night as well as by day, along the intended
line of the procession, constituted by themselves a scene of no ordinary
animation and interest, and sustained the public mind in an unceasing
stretch of expectation."

Some disappointment was experienced on the knowledge that the ancient
custom of a royal banquet in Westminster Hall on the coronation day was to
be dispensed with. But the loss was compensated by a procession--a
modification of the old street pageant--on the occasion.

On the morning of the 28th of June the weather was not promising. It was
cold for the season, and some rain fell; but the shower ceased, and the day
proved fresh and bright, with sunshine gilding the darkest cloud. The Tower
artillery awoke the heaviest City sleepers. It is needless to say a great
concourse, in every variety of vehicle and on foot, streamed from east to
west through the "gravelled" streets, lined with soldiers and policemen,
before the barriers were put up. "The earth was alive with men," wrote an
enthusiastic spectator; "the habitations in the line of march cast forth
their occupants to the balconies or the house-tops; the windows were lifted
out of their frames, and the asylum of private life, that sanctuary which
our countrymen guard with such traditional jealousy, was on this occasion
made accessible to the gaze of the entire world."

At ten o'clock the Queen left Buckingham Palace in the State coach, to the
music of the National Anthem and a salute of guns, and passed beneath the
Royal Standard hoisted on the marble arch. A marked feature of the
procession was the magnificent carriages and escorts of the foreign