God’s peaceful sun is beaming through,
And shining over all.”
One note of discord, and one only, was heard; rather, one note necessary to make the complete harmony was silent. It would have fulfilled the international character of the Exhibition and emphasised it as an echo of the message of peace on earth and goodwill towards men had the Corps Diplomatique availed themselves of Prince Albert’s invitation to present an address to the Queen. But, strangely as it may sound at the present day, most of the great Continental rulers held severely aloof from the whole project of the Exhibition. They were apprehensive of the effect which contact with English institutions, so dangerously liberal, might have on their own subjects, and the foreign Ambassadors agreed, by a majority of three, to decline to present an address.
The success of the opening ceremony attended the Exhibition to its close on October 15. |Its Success and Close.| Between six and seven millions of persons visited it, and the surplus funds accruing to the Commissioners, amounting to upwards of £200,000, were afterwards applied, on Prince Albert’s suggestion, to the purchase of the South Kensington estate, now occupied by various institutions for the encouragement of Science and Art.
As inaugurating an era of universal peace, which its most enthusiastic supporters expected it to do, the Great Exhibition of 1851 proved a failure; but as a means of diffusing among the people of Great Britain views about foreigners more enlightened than those they entertained before, as an impetus to commerce and manufacture and a stimulus to artistic production, the “Crystal Palace” has fully fulfilled the most sanguine anticipation.
From a Photograph] [by Frith & Co.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE.