t 4r Curt.
THE incident of the week is the state ball, the first of the season, which was given at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday. The entire suite of state saloons was opened for the ball, and brilliantly lighted. The stair- case leading from the marble hall was profusely decked out with flowers and shrubs. In the throne-room and ball-room, prepared for dancing, a chair of state covered with crimson velvet was placed upon a dais for the Queen, and seats covered with crimson silk for the Prince and Royal visitors. The alcoves behind were filled with plants and flowers ; the walls being lined with white embroidered silk; the draperies of crimson velvet in the throne-room, and amber coloured silk in the ball-room. The Queen,
Prince Albert, the Duchess of Kent, the Duchess and the Princess Mary of Cambridge, were escorted to the rooms in the usual state. The Queen wore a dress of white crape Esse, spangled with gold, and trimmed with wreaths of bay-leaves, red berries, ivy-leaves, and riband-grass. Her head-dress, ornamented with diamonds, corresponded with the flowers. The company assembled included the elite of the political, diplomatic, and fashionable world. The Queen opened the ball with Count Colloredo, the Austrian Minister-, Prince Albert dancing with the Princess Mary of Cambridge.
Last Saturday, her Majesty went to Woolwich Dockyard, accompa- nied by Prince Albert and the Royal children, to name the Royal Albert, launched on that day. On Tuesday, the Queen and Prince drove to Hampton Court; returned by Twickenham, and visited the Duke and Duchess d'Aumale. On Monday, Prince Albert inspected the ground se- lected as the site for a camp at Aldershott Common.
Lord Palmerston and Earl Granville had audiences of the Queen on Monday.
Her Majesty and Prince Albert visited the French Plays on Saturday, and the Royal Italian Opera on Thursday. Prince Albert, accompanied by the Earl of Derby and Mr. Sidney Her- bert, yesterday morning inspected the site offered for the Wellington Col- lege, near Sutton ; and the Prince afterwards presided at a meeting of the Commission for Promoting and Encouraging the Fine Arts in the Re- building of the Palace at Westminster.
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