The Queen received her distinguished guest in the great hall at Buckingham Palace Shortly afterwards there was a dejeuner, at which some of the Emperor's old acquaintances in the royal family and out of it, met him—the Duchess of Gloucester, the Princess Sophia, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Wellington, &c. &c. In the evening there was a banquet.

The Emperor followed the Queen to Windsor, where, amidst the gaieties of the Ascot week, he was royally entertained. Two visits were paid to the racecourse, with which the new-comer associated his name by founding the five hundred pounds prize. There was a grand review in Windsor Park, at which both the Emperor of Russia and the King of Saxony were present, as well as Her Majesty and Prince Albert and the royal children. The Emperor in a uniform of green and red, the King of Saxony in a uniform of blue and gold, and Prince Albert in a field-marshal's uniform—all the three wearing the insignia of the Garter—were the observed of all observers in the martial crowd. The only incidents of the day which struck Lady Lyttelton were "the very fine cheer on the old Duke of Wellington passing the Queen's carriage, and the really beautiful salute of Prince Albert, who rode by at the head of his regiment, and of course lowered his sword in full military form to the Queen, with such a look and smile as he did it! I never saw so many pretty feelings expressed in a minute."

On the return of the Court with its guests to Buckingham Palace, the Emperor went with Prince Albert to a fete at Chiswick, given by the Duke of Devonshire, and attended by seven or eight hundred noble guests. The Czar returned from it loud in the praise of the beauty of English women, while staunchly faithful to the belles he had admired twenty-eight years before. The same evening he accompanied the Queen to the opera, when she took his hand and made him stand with her in the front of the box, that the brilliant assemblage might see and welcome him.

The Emperor was an adept at saying courteous things. He remarked to the Queen, of Windsor, which he greatly admired, "It is worthy of you, Madame." He wished Prince Albert were his son. When the hour of leave-taking came he found the Queen in the small drawing-room with her children. He declared with emotion that he might at all times be relied upon as her most devoted servant, and prayed God to bless her. He kissed her hand and she kissed him; he embraced and blessed the children. He besought her to go no farther with him. "I will throw myself at your knees; pray let me lead you to your room." "But," wrote the Queen, "of course I would not consent, and took his arm to go to the hall…. At the top of the few steps leading to the lower hall he again took most kindly leave, and his voice betrayed his emotion. He kissed my hand and we embraced. When I saw him at the door I went down the steps, and from the carriage he begged I would not stand there; but I did, and saw him drive off with Albert to Woolwich."

The Emperor was rather suspiciously fond of declaring, "I mean what I say, and what I promise I will perform." Some of his speeches were emphatic enough. "I esteem England highly, but as for what the French say of me I care not; I spit upon it." He felt awkward in evening dress; he was so accustomed to wear military uniform that without it he said he felt as if they had taken off his skin. To humour him, uniform was worn every evening at Windsor during his stay. Among his camp habits was one which he had formed in his youth and kept up to the last: it was that of sleeping every night on clean straw stuffed into a leathern case. The first thing his valets did on being shown their master's bedroom in Windsor Castle was to send out for a truss of straw for the Emperor's bed. The last thing got for him at Woolwich was the same simple stuffing for his rude mattress.

On the 15th of June, 1844, Thomas Campbell, author of the "Pleasures of Hope," "Ye Mariners of England," &c., died at Boulogne at the age of sixty-seven. Although he had not quite reached the threescore and ten, the span of man's life on earth, he had long survived the authors, Scott, Byron, &c., with whom his name is linked. He was one of many well-known men in very different spheres who passed away in 1844. Sir Augustus Callcott, the painter; Crockford with his house of Turf celebrity; Beckford, the eccentric author of "Vathek," and the owner of the art-treasures of Fonthill; Lord Sidmouth, the well-known statesman of the "Addington Administration;" Sir Francis Burdett, who in recent times was lodged in the Tower under a charge of high treason.

In the same year an attempt was made to honour the memory of a greater poet than Thomas Campbell, one whose worldly reward had not been great, whose history ended in a grievous tragedy. The Scotchmen of the day seized the opportunity of the return of two of Robert Burns's sons from military service in India to give them a welcome home which should do something to atone for any neglect and injustice that had befallen their father. The festival was not altogether successful, as such festivals rarely are, but it excited considerable enthusiasm in the poet's native country, especially in his county of Ayrshire. And when the lord of the Castle of Montgomery presided over the tribute to the sons of the ploughman who had "shorn the harvest" with his Highland Mary on the Eglinton "lea-riggs," and Christopher North made the speech of the day, the demonstration could not be considered an entire failure.

Scotch hearts warmed to the belief that the Queen understood and admired Burns's poetry, and proud reference was made to the circumstance that during one of her Highland excursions she applied the famous descriptive passage in the "Birks of Aberfeldy" to the scene before her:

The braes ascend like lofty wa'e,
The foamy stream deep roaring fa's,
O'erhung with fragrant spreading shaws,
The birks of Aberfeldy.

The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flowers,
White o'er the linn the burnie pours,
And rising, weets wi' misty showers
The birks of Aberfeldy.