came forward with a supply of the stirrups which Napoleon had used in one
of his campaigns. And there might have been something significant to the
visitor, in the rapturous greeting which was bestowed on the Iron Duke,
round whose erect, impassive figure the multitude pressed, the nearest men
and women defying his horse's hoofs and stretching up to shake hands with
"the Conquering Hero" amidst a thunder of applause.

The rejoicings pervaded every part of the country from John o' Groat's to
Land's End, from the Scilly Isles to Sark. There was merry-making among the
English residents in every foreign place, as far as the great colonies in
the still remote continents.

To many simple people the Queen did not seem to reign, hardly to exist,
till she had put on her crown and taken up her sceptre. It was to do the
first honour to their youthful liege lady that June garlands were swung
over every village street, bonfires gleamed like carbuncles on mountain
cairns, frightening the hill foxes, or lit up the coast-line and were flung
back in broken reflections from the tossing waves, scaring the very fish in
the depths of the sea, where hardy islanders had kindled the token on some
rock of the ocean.

Pen and pencil were soon busy with the great event of the season. Elizabeth
Barrett Browning wrote later:--

The Minster was alight that day, but not with fire, I ween,
And long-drawn glitterings swept adown that mighty aisled scene;
The priests stood stoled in their pomp, the sworded chiefs in theirs,
And so the collared knights--and so the civil ministers;
And so the waiting lords and dames--and little pages best
At holding trains--and legates so, from countries east and west;