coronation with her usual clever power of observation and occasional
caustic commentary. "The maids called me at half-past two that June
morning, mistaking the clock. I slept no more, and rose at half-past three.
As I began to dress the twenty-one guns were fired, which must have
awakened all the sleepers in London. When the maid came to dress me she
said numbers of ladies were already hurrying to the Abbey. I saw the grey
old Abbey from the window as I dressed, and thought what would have gone
forward within it before the sun set upon it. My mother had laid out her
pearl ornaments for me. The feeling was very strange of dressing in crape,
blonde, and pearls at five in the morning.... The sight of the rapidly
filling Abbey was enough to go for. The stone architecture contrasted
finely with the gay colours of the multitude. From my high seat I commanded
the whole north transept, the area with the throne, and many portions of
galleries, and the balconies which were called the vaultings. Except a mere
sprinkling of oddities, everybody was in full dress. In the whole
assemblage I counted six bonnets. The scarlet of the military officers
mixed in well, and the groups of the clergy were dignified; but to an
unaccustomed eye the prevalence of Court dresses had a curious effect. I
was perpetually taking whole groups of gentlemen for Quakers till I
recollected myself. The Earl-Marshal's assistants, called Gold Sticks,
looked well from above, lightly fluttering about in white breeches, silk
stockings, blue laced frocks, and white sashes. The throne--an arm-chair
with a round back, covered, as was its footstool, with cloth of gold--stood
on an elevation of four steps in the centre of the area. The first peeress
took her seat in the north transept opposite, at a quarter before seven,
and three of the bishops came next. From that time the peers and their
ladies arrived faster and faster. Each peeress was conducted by two Gold
Sticks, one of whom handed her to her seat, and the other bore and arranged
her train on her lap, and saw that her coronet, footstool, and book were
comfortably placed. I never saw anywhere so remarkable a contrast between