voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir to the throne had in secret plighted his faith. There, too, was she, the beautiful mother of a beautiful race, the Saint Cecelia, whose delicate features, lighted up by love and music, art has rescued from the common decay. There were the members of that brilliant society, which quoted, criticised and exchanged repartees under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montague. And there the ladies, whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox himself, had carried the Westminster election against palace and treasury, shone round Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The sergeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar and bent his knee. The culprit, indeed, was not unworthy of that great presence; he had ruled an extensive and populous country, and made laws and treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes; and in his high place he had so borne himself, that all had feared him, most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory except virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self-respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pensive but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face pale and wan, but serene, on which was written, as legibly as under the picture in the councilchamber at Calcutta, Mens æqua in arduis; such was the aspect with which the great proconsul presented himself to his judges." The only other event of any interest associated with Westminster Hall-the last occasion on which it presented the striking splendor of ancient times—was the coronation of George the Fourth, which was solemnized on the 1st of August, 1820. At the magnificent ban quet, the king sat on a gorgeous throne, on a raised dais, immediately under the great window at the south end of the hall. At long ranges of tables were seated the guests, including the peers, and the knights of the different Orders, in their robes; every ceremonial was followed which had been in use in the days of the Tudors and Plantagenets; and lastly, the champion Dymoke rode into the fine old Hall attended by the Duke of Wellington as High Constable of England, and the Marquis of Anglesea as Lord High Steward, both of them also on horseback. The total expense of the coronation ceremony of George the Fourth, the pageant of a day, was estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.-Fesse. |