Or, reasons offered against confining the procession to the usual track, and pointing out others more commodious and proper. To which are prefixed, a plan of the different paths recommended, with the parts adjacent, and a sketch of the procession.—Most humbly submitted to consideration[1].
All pomp is instituted for the sake of the publick. A show without spectators can no longer be a show. Magnificence in obscurity is equally vain with a sundial in the grave.
As the wisdom of our ancestors has appointed a very splendid and ceremonious inauguration of our kings, their intention was, that they should receive their crown with such awful rites, as might for ever impress upon them a due sense of the duties which they were to take, when the happiness of nations is put into their hands; and that the people, as many as can possibly be witnesses to any single act, should openly acknowledge their sovereign by universal homage.
By the late method of conducting the coronation, all these purposes have been defeated. Our kings, with their train, have crept to the temple through obscure passages; and the crown has been worn out of sight of the people.
Of the multitudes, whom loyalty or curiosity brought together, the greater part has returned without a single glimpse of their prince's grandeur, and the day that opened with festivity ended in discontent.
This evil has proceeded from the narrowness and shortness of the way, through which the procession has lately passed. As it is narrow, it admits of very few spectators; as it is short, it is soon passed. The first part of the train reaches the Abbey, before the whole has left the palace; and the nobility of England, in their robes of state, display their riches only to themselves.
All this inconvenience may be easily avoided by choosing a wider and longer course, which may be again enlarged and varied by going one way, and returning another. This is not without a precedent; for, not to inquire into the practice of remoter princes, the procession of Charles the second's coronation issued from the Tower, and passed through the whole length of the city to Whitehall[2].
The path in the late coronations has been only from Westminster hall, along New Palace yard, into Union street, through the extreme end of King street, and to the Abbey door, by the way of St. Margaret's church yard.
The paths which I propose the procession to pass through, are,
1. From St. James's palace, along Pall Mall and Charing Cross, by Whitehall, through Parliament street, down Bridge street, into King street, round St. Margaret's church-yard, and from thence into the Abbey.