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Wu left the Queen and Prince Albert at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, travel- ling towards Coburg. The postillions made better speed on their way than was expected; and they reached the Post-house of Aschaffenberg, just within the kingdom of Bavaria, by noon. This was the first place at which the Queen alighted. The stay, however, was very brief. At Essen - bach, the Maine was crossed in a large ferry-boat; which bore the carriage, with its four horses and out-riders, and was urged by twelve sturdy boatmen. Wurzburg was reached just as the daylight closed in. The Queen was received at the fortified gates of the town by Prince Luitpold, the King of Bavaria' third son; the King himself being detained at Munich by poli- tical business. The Prince conducted the travellers to the fine Royal Pa/ar,iwittre they passed the night. In the evening, her Majesty received Lora Leieson and some Bavarian officers of distinction. The Queen and Prince also took a hasty view of the town of Wurzburg; going to see the Cathedral, the house in which )lather lived, the Hifthanger Church, and the Julies Hospital, At six defrock on Tessier morning, the cortege went forward on the journey. Just beyond Liehtenfels, at the frontier of Coburg, the reigning Duke of Saxe Coburg, (Prince Albert's brother,) with the King and Queen of the Belgians, were waiting to receive the Queen and her consort; who passed through a pretty trivniphal arch to enter the territory. The King and his Queen entered Queen Victoria's carriage; the Duke took his sta- tion by its side, on horseback, and all proceeded towards the capital. The cortege looked picturesque enough: the German postillions wore blue dresses with plumes of white feathers ; several carriages belonging to the Duke, Prince Augustus of Saxe Coburg, and other members of the family, swelled the procession; and the escort was furnished by a large body of huntsmen of the house of Coburg, dressed in a uniform of green and gold, with carbines slung over their shoulders. At the extrance to the town, a splendid triumphal arch stretched across the road; from which hung flags, and every house in the long line of street through which the procession passed was gaily decorated with garlands, festoons, flags, and flowers. At the entrance, the Burgomaster and Town-Councillors were stationed to receive the great foreigners; and within, the town was crowded by smiling inhabitants who lined the streets and clustered in all the windows. The great buildings of the city were also profusely ornamented. The Town- house, and the Palace of the Prince of Furstenberg, were especially deco- rated with garlands, festoons, and flags. The party alighted at the palace, the town-residence of the Duke. It is a fine building, in the modern Gothic style, forming three sides of an immense quadrangle, with a turreted en- trance. Some of the English visiters, indeed, were surprised at the size and wealth of the capital belonging to Prince Albert's family. After par- taking of a slight repast, the party left the palace, and proceeded to Rose- nau, the Duke's summer palace, about four miles from the town. " The road to this place runs through a vale, in which are crowded in pictu- resque variety all the most charming features of English rural scenery. A little further on, an avenue of trees, perhaps two miles long, leads up to the palace, through a country which has all the charm and beauty, all the richness and mas- siveness, of forest and verdure, that you see in an English nobleman's park, with- out that exclusiveness which in our country is a check upon all enjoyment. You cannot see where the public road ends and where the domain of the Prince be- gins, so entirely open is the place to all corners. [It is, indeed, without fences to separate the park from the corn-fields.] " Rosenau itself is the beau-ideal of a summer residence. Although built on a princely scale, it looks like an enormous cottage ornee, embowered in trees and flowers. The name, Rosenau, the meadow of roses,' aptly describes the lovely valley from which the palace rises. The views commanded from the windows are of the finest kind. A landscape of more than English softness and rich luxuriance—meadow, woodland, and stream—is spread at the foot; while all around as far as the eye can reach, mountains of -highland grandeur, clothed to their summits with fir or with rich woods, enclose it, and develop its beauties by a noble contrast. In the distance, at the extremity of the valley, lies Coburg itself.
" After the natural beauties of the place, the next peculiarity that strikes an English mind is the utter absence of all ceremonial and exclusiveness. There is none of that sulky solitary grandeur with which English noblemen and princes are so prone to surround themselves. There is not a gate or a sentinel in the whole place; but the country-people (and happy comfortable people they seem) come and go, and look about them as they please, under the very windows of the palace, with no other restraint upon them than their own sense of self-respect, and those habits of decorum which characterize the Germans."
At Rosenau, the Queen and Prince Albert slept in the very room in which the Prince was born. The palace wasgiven up for their use; the Duke and his other guests being lodged in other neighbouring residences and the town palace. On Wednesday evening, the whole of the Royal party went to the Opera; where, at the express desire of the Queen, The Huguenots was played. It was very creditably performed; and the audience gave a most hearty reception to their Sovereign's sister-in-law; enjoining in the English anthem, " God save the Queen." After dinner on Thursday, the Royal party drove over from Rosenan to the town palace; where her Majesty and the Prince held a sort of levee or reception, called there a "circle." Among those presented were the Grand Duke of Baden and his son, the Dowager Dutchess of Coburg, the Princess Reuss, Count Mensdorff and his three sons, Prince Ferdinand of Coburg, and Prince Leopold of Coburg. The Queen rose at an early hour on Friday morning, as usual; and walked in the grounds about Rosenau for some time before breakfast. The air was so soft and balmy that her Majesty expressed a wish to breakfast on the lawn; and the morning meal was accordingly served al fresco; after which, the Queen again walked in the grounds with Lady Canning, who sketched some of the most picturesque spots in the surrounding scenery. After breakfast, the Queen drove to Callenborg, a castle belonging to the Duke of Saxe Coburg, and his more usual residence than the town palace when he is not at Rosenan- It commands a fine view of the surrounding country, contains some family-pictures, and is itself in parts an interesting relic of antiquity.
In the afternoon, the Royal visiters assisted at a very curious exhibition; the account of which we amalgamate from the reports of the "gentlemen connected with the press" who have dogged the tourists.
" There is at Coburg an annual festival called the 'Feast of Gregorian. It has lasted for several hundred years, and is kept up with funds long since be- queathed for the purpose. It fell eoday; and in that spirit of simple enjoyment and relaxation from courtly ceremony which has characterized the visit of the Queen here, because it seems to be the custom of the country, her Majesty and the whole Royal party came down from the Palace to be present at the gay scene. " In a spacious meadow in one of the suburbs of Coburg,pavilions were erected, and a portion of the ground opposite these pavilions was fenced in with festoons and garlands. In the pavilions tables were laid for dinner, of which the Royal visiters were to be the partakers. Besides the pavilions, there were also many other booths, a travelling theatre, and a most grotesque roundabout, with hobby- horses and sledges, mounted on which were musicians playing a most musical polka, and girls and boys in fantastic dresses. This was the preparation on the ground. The festival was of a different kind. All the children of the town- schools, girls and boys, formed, according to custom, in procession, to-the num- ber of six or seven hundred. The girls were all dressed in white, their heads adorned with ivy-wreaths, and their dresses festooned in like manner. Some wore fancy costumes—the Highland dress, the Greek dress; and there were flocks of the prettiest little shepherdesses in the world. The greater number of the boys also wore fancy costumes: they were dressed as jagers, as Highlanders, Greeks, Turks, Albanians, to say nothing of one or two first-rate little Napoleon B0111i- partes, and an unexceptionable Captain Macheath. This pretty troop of mummers preceded the Royal party to the festival-ground,
and formed themselves in lines within the precincts of the festoons opposite the pavilions, marching to bands of music. Of coarse there were multitudes of lookers-on: they formed a dense mass around the say throng, but conducted themselves with the utmost propriety. There was no crushing or crowding; each respected the convenience of the rest; yet all enjoyed the scene to the utmost, laughing, chatting, and uttering the liveliest expressions of admiration.
"Tire Royal party arrived at a quarter to four o'clock. They occupied a good many camag' es, and came slowly through the crowd. The sky had looked threatening for some moments before, and a few drops of rain had fallen; but the lowering was only momentary, and the sun burst out again hotter and fiercer than ever. Arrived at the marquee, the Royal party entered the square; there was a decorous gentlemanly sort of a cheer, not a wild shout; and the band struck up the old familiar tune of God save the Queen.' Presently the Queen, leaning on the arm of the reigning Duke, the Kin.' and Queen of the Belgians together, and Prince Albert conducting the Dutchess of Kent, walked along, the three lines in which the children were disposed; the boys and girls incontinently setting up a shrill small cheer, or rather a succession of unfledged juvenile hurrahs—which sounded after the low, general murmur of acclamation, like a concerto of whistles. The Royal personages walked up and down the ranks; now and then stopping to say a word to some blushing little girl, or to pat an urchin's head; and at every word and at every pat there was another of the whistling choruses. " As soon as this promenade was over and the promenaders had returned to the pavilions, the children's turn came. They formed once more in procession, and walked slowly round the enclosure to the music of the bands, passing severally by the Queen. It was a pretty sight. The little fair-haired girls, in their chaste costume of white and ivy wreaths—the strange, often grotesque, mixture of the fancy-dresses of the boys—the uniforms of the gendarmerie, and of the officers who attended the party—the music, flags, and the general stir and ex- citement among such a multitude of people—rendered the whole thing one of the gayest and most animated scenes we ever remember to have witnessed. The pro- cession was a sort of Eton Montem show in miniature, but with the graceful addition of the girls; and the whole ground on which the festival took place, with the shows and booths, the music, and the gay crowds of people sauntering about and enjoying themselves, looked like a fair, but without its rude licence. " The part of the whole affair which will most surprise an English reader is, that in a very few minutes after the procession was over, the whole Royal party sat down to dinner in the pavilion, amidst all the noise of the jarring bands, and the clashing of the cymbals, and under the gaze of thousands of people. To our own Queen it must have been a scene of peculiar novelty; and the people in Eng- land will no doubt be not a little surprised to find that so many crowned beads and royal personages as were here assembled could without any loss of their supposed dignity dine in this al fresco style, in a meadow, surrounded by so many of what we should in England deem the ruder elements of rustic gayety. But this is one of the most agreeable characteristics of royalty in these Conti- nental countries—the free and unreserved manner in which the great mix with the people: nor is it less remarkable that the people never abuse this privilege of partaking in the amusements of their rulers by those exhibitions of rudeness and vulgar curiosity which are too often seen in England on public occasions. In the meanwhile, the children were allowed to drink beer at a neighbouring Gast-haus while some kept up a dance before the tent; many of them waltzing in as good time and with as much grace as if Madame Weiss had bestowed upon them as much care as on her tricksy spirits the Danseuses Viennoises. Then followed a gay and happy scene of youthful revelry. The children, unrestrained by the presence of royalty, romped and danced and sting,—happily, however, without launching forth into any of those infantile blunders so happily illustrated by Ga- varni in his Enfans Terribles. After the dinner, the youthful chorus burst forth into God save the Queen,' and also sang some of our national airs. The Queen caused several of them to be brought to her, and addressed them in their own tongue, much to their delight and astonishment. When the children grew tired of dancing, they took to all manner of merry romps. I do not know the German for thread the needle,' at least in the play- ground sense of the term; but the game went on with great spirit; as did many similar frolicsome proceedings, the great people in the pavilions looking on evi- dently in high delight. The glee of the whole affair at length got quite in- fectious; and presently the whole royal party got up and mingled with the chil- dren—kings and queens quite happy among the romping gambols of the school boys. Our own Queen looked really delighted; while the whole party over- whelmed the happy children, as each flying group passed them, with showers of bon-bons and comfitures. The whole affair was quite couleur de rose; and even the Earl of Aberdeen relaxed the official awfulness of his diplomatic brow, and walked smilingly about, like a goodnatured dominie coaxed into holyday-giving.
" The Royal party lingered long upon the ground; and when they departed for the 'Residence ' a few minutes before six o'clock, the children sang the national anthem with good effect."
The festivities did not cease with the departure of royalty, but were kept up till a late hour at night; and the sequel is too good to be omitted. " The whole meadowglittered with lights, and there were long lines of booths and drinking- tables, all filled with merry people. An odd and grotesque addition to this scene of nocturnal revelry presented itself in the shape of al fresco cooking-places; where, on fires made of heaped fir-branches, enormous gridirons were continually covered with still more enormous sausages, which were handed round among circles of greedy purchasers, on whose faces the lurid light of the fires produced an effect quite Rembrandt-like. Then there was also a travelling theatre A la Richardson, where tumblers and posture-makers performed their jests to a gaping audience ; and gigantic merry-go-rounds, with hobby-horses and carriages, mounted or filled with people of both sexes, produced the most absurd combina- tions of effect possible, as they whirled madly round to the music of polkas and other airs played by a capital band. And although the people were as merry as they could be, what made this German fair so pleasing was, that there was no drunkenness or indecorum."
In the evening, there was a ball at the town palace. Supper was served at half-past eleven o'clock; and at two o'clock Queen Victoria and Prince Albert returned to Rosenau.
The whole of the Royal party went to the Theatre on Saturday evening, to see a veritable German play. The Theatre is a light and elegant build- ing, about the size of our Haymarket, adorned internally with white and gold. There are no private boxes, except one occupying the whole middle part of the dress-circle from side to side, reserved for the Royal Family. The Queen sat in the centre of the box, with the reigning Duke and the Queen of the Belgians on either side, the King of the Belgians and Grand Duke of Baden on the same seat, Prince Albert and the Dutchess of Kent a little
behind. The play was Schiller's Bride of Messina; a doleful tragedy, which was felt to be very dull; but the Queen followed the dialogue throughout with a book in her hand. And the entertainment was en- livened with a copious supply of coffee and ices.
The Queen and Prince Albert attended Divine service with their host and the other illustrious visiters in the Church of St. Maurice on Sunday; arriving at a quarter to eleven o'clock. The church is not a very imposing structure, being plain in form and whitewashed; but some of the incidents at least were novel.
With one exception, there are no pews in the church; but the body is fitted with seats, and appropriated exclusively to females, the galleries being occupied by the males The one Ducal pew overlooks the communion-table: it is more like a
room than a pew, being shut in with windows; which were now of course thrown open. On this occasion, the children who assisted at the fete of Gregorius on Friday were all assembled in the chancel, in the dresses they wore, the girls wreathed with ivy; and the effect in the warm bright sunlight was very pictu- resque. The church was crowded with people. The Duke and his guests were received by the clergymen in their robes, and conducted over a carpeted way to their pew. The service then commenced. It began with the chanting of a few verses by the clergymen standing at the communion-table, to which there were responses from the choir. Then the congregation generally joined in a hymn; portions of the Scripture were read; another hymn, and a short prayer; the ser- mon; a blessing from the communion-table, as in a Roman Catholic church; and, finally, a Te Deum, chanted, and accompanied by a military brass-band. This Te Deum was a kind of hymn in rhyme, composed by Schicht, and sung by the choir alone. The effect was very grand. The service was over by noon.
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