Amid these agitations, inferior far to many that had preceded them, the year 1850 ran out, and 1851 opened—­the year in which Prince Albert’s long-pursued project of a great International Exhibition of Arts and Industries was at last successfully carried out.  The idea, as expounded by himself at a banquet given by the Lord Mayor, was large and noble.  “It was to give the world a true test, a living picture, of the point of industrial development at which the whole of mankind had arrived, and a new starting-point from which all nations would be able to direct their further exertions.”  The magnificent success, unflawed by any vexatious or dangerous incident, with which the idea was carried out, had made it almost impossible for us to understand the opposition with which the plan was greeted, the ridicule that was heaped upon it, the foolish fears which it inspired; while the many similar Exhibitions in this and other countries that have followed and emulated, but never altogether equalled, the first, have made us somewhat oblivious of the fact that the scheme when first propounded was an absolute novelty.  It was a fascination, a wonder, a delight; it aroused enthusiasm that will never be rekindled on a like occasion.

Paxton’s fairy palace of glass and iron, erected in Hyde Park, and canopying in its glittering spaces the untouched, majestic elms of that national pleasure-ground as well as the varied treasures of industrial and artistic achievement brought from every quarter of the globe, divided the charmed astonishment of foreign spectators with the absolute orderliness of the myriads who thronged it and crowded all its approaches on the great opening day.  Perhaps on that day the Queen touched the summit of her rare happiness.  It was the 1st of May—­her own month—­and the birthday of her youngest son, the godchild and namesake of the great Duke.  She stood, the most justly popular and beloved of living monarchy, amid thousands of her rejoicing subjects, encompassed with loving friends and happy children, at the side of the beloved husband whose plan was now triumphantly realised; and she spoke the words which inaugurated that triumph and invited the world to gaze on it.

“The sight was magical,” she says, “so vast, so glorious, so touching...God bless my dearest Albert!  God bless my dearest country, which has shown itself so great to-day!  One felt so grateful to the great God, Who seemed to pervade all and to bless all.  The only event it in the slightest degree reminded me of was the coronation, but this day’s festival was a thousand times superior.  In fact, it is unique, and can bear no comparison, from its peculiar beauty and combination of such striking and different objects.  I mean the slight resemblance only as to its solemnity; the enthusiasm and cheering, too, were much more touching, for in a church naturally all is silent.”