CORONATION FEVER
NO Monarch ever came to the throne so buoyed up by general popularity and affectionate interest as Elizabeth II. The impress of her personality had long before been made, her choice of husband had been well liked by the people, and when the time of her accession came very few of her subjects could not have known the stirring hope that with a second Elizabeth there might In some sense come a second Elizabethan greatness.
In addition to this the monarchy had risen to heights of respect and popularity never known before. Elizabeth II had no disadvantages to overcome. Now her Coronation approaches. None before has put such a fever. on London. It will be the occasion for national and international cele- bration, but it is in the capital of the Queen's kingdom and commonwealth, the city through which she will drive to her crowning, that the fever of anticipation rises hour by hour. The streets are bright with .banners and with decorative and Witty devices which well match the rising tide of exhilaration; householders are putting out4more flags; great areas of central London have disappeared behind scaffolding; enormous crowds. swarm each evening outside Buckingham Palace and pack the processional route; the mood of holiday grows more intense hour by hour. There are those who still protest their determination to get away from it all and spend the day in the country, but the joke already wears a thin and irresolute expression. For it is far too late to be cynical, much too late to be sceptical even. Perhaps there was a time when it was reasonable to question the wisdom of spending quite so large a sum of ingenuity and money on the elaboration 9f the event, but the public's reaction should long ago have convinced the objector that there was as much sense in his objections as in protests against the heat of the sun.
The business of getting about London is formidable; a ring of barricades squeezes traffic into long crawling lines, and the pavements are packed with people come to see the gaily transformed streets of the processional route. :Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace have been surrounded by crowds hoping to catch a glimpse of the Queen on her way to or from one of the many rehearsals of the ceremony, and they have not budged an inch when torrential rain has drenched them. In the evening cars come pouring in from the suburbs and beyond to add to the confusion in the Mall, in Whitehall and Piccadilly. Yet there is singularly little evidence of ill-temper about this considerable dislocation of the city's ordinary life. Nothing could be more instructive to anyone who has so far resisted the mood of e4citement than to spend an evening in the jostling crowd. The grip of public events on private individuals tightens. Steadily and irresistibly the attention of the nation and the world is being concen- trated on the climax of the crowning in Westminster Abbey.
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