• The papers of Saturday were full of accounts of
the magni- ficent fete given by the officers of the Guards to the Prince and Princess of Wales. The gallery of the Great Exhibition was splendidly fitted up for the ballroom ; the preparations cost an untold sum, the plate in the supper-rooms, lent by various nobles, was estimated at two millions, and 2,000 guests attended, the very flower and. cream of the aristoeraey. These accounts are becoming a little overdone. The fetes are well enough, but the incessant descriptionsof scenes of lux.ury produce no healthy effect on popular feeling. An Oxford man used to say that the habits- of George IV. were bene- ficial as-teaching the bourgeoisie that there were modes of lire other than their humdrum respectability, but the excuse, even when, as at present, the luxury has no mischief behind it, is far-fetched. We do not want to see a reaction against exuberant loyalty, as there will be if the country has so much of it. This very week Mr. Justice Mellor savagely remarked, in open court, that a very little of the money spent by the City on the Princess's Ball would have rendered the court he satin. habitable.
Previous page
