So alien princes, native peers, and high-born ladies bright
Along whose brows the Queen's new crown'd, flashed coronets to light.
And so, the people at the gates, with priestly hands on high,
Which bring the first anointing to all legal majesty;
And so, the Dead--who lay in rows beneath the Minster floor,
There verily an awful state maintaining evermore--
The statesman, with no Burleigh nod, whate'er court tricks may be;
The courtier, who, for no fair Queen, will rise up to his knee;
The court-dame, who for no court tire will leave her shroud behind;
The laureate, who no courtlier rhymes than "dust to dust" can find;
The kings and queens who having ta'en that vow and worn that crown,
Descended unto lower thrones and darker, deeper adown;
"Dieu et mon Droit," what is't to them? what meaning can it have?
The king of kings, the dust of dust--God's judgment and the grave.
And when betwixt the quick and dead the young fair Queen had vowed,
The living shouted, "May she live! Victoria, live!" aloud,
And as these loyal shouts went up, true spirits prayed between,
The blessings happy monarchs have, be thine, O Crowned Queen!

In the autumn and winter of 1838 Leslie went down to Windsor to get
sittings for his picture of the coronation. He had been presented to the
Queen on her first visit to the Academy after her accession, as he mentions
in one of his pleasant letters to his kindred in America. He was now to
come into nearer contact with royalty. He slept at the Castle Inn, Windsor,
and went up daily to the Castle. If he found her Majesty and any other
sitter engaged, he improved the occasion by copying two of the Queen's fine
Dutch pictures, a De Hooghe and a Nicholas Maas. He wrote his experience to
his wife in London, and his sister in America. To the latter he said, "I
came here on the 29th of last month by appointment to have a sitting of the
Queen, and with little expectation of having more than one.... I have been