was evidently drawn into a vortex, for he
went on during twenty minutes, puffing away
at the effete weed, quite unconscious that
it was extinguished! At length, gathering
the unrolled papers up in a bundle, he threw
them into the opposite seat, exclaiming—
"Wonderful!—worthy of the magnificence
of Chatsworth!—a thousand times better
than anything that has been brought before
us! What a pity they were not prepared
earlier!"

"Will you lay them before the Royal
Commission?"

"I will."

The value of this promise and of the favourable
expression of opinion which would doubtless
accompany its performance, will be best
understood when we divulge to the reader
(without, we trust, any breach of confidence)
that the gentleman who made it was Mr.
Robert Stephenson.

The next day fills a melancholy page in
English history. It was Saturday, the twenty-
ninth of June. The Royal Commission met,
headed by Prince Albert. After the regular
business of the Board was over, the Prince and
Sir Robert Peel retired to one of the bay-windows,
and were some time engaged in earnest
conversation. Mr. Stephenson's time was
precious, for he had an appointment elsewhere.
He was, in short, obliged to depart without
an opportunity of placing Mr. Paxton's plans
before his colleagues and the Prince. He
delegated that office, however, to an able hand,
Mr. Scott Russell, one of the Secretaries of
the Commission.

Both Prince Albert and Sir Robert Peel
gave great attention to the drawings, and
the Prince signified his wish that Mr. Paxton
should wait upon him at Buckingham Palace,
to explain the details. Sir Robert Peel
greatly admired the design for its unity
and simplicity; remarking with pleasure,
that if it were accepted, it would occasion
the first great operation in glass since the
introduction of his own new tariff. Alas!
this was the latest connected remark which
that great statesman was destined to utter.
He almost immediately left Westminster
Palace on horseback for an airing, was thrown
on Constitution Hill, and three days afterwards
had ceased to exist.

The Paxton scheme was referred to the
Building Committee; which, in the regular
routine of business, could not entertain it,
having rejected all the designs it had invited
for competition, and having devised a plan of
its own. Nothing daunted, however, Mr.
Paxton determined to appeal to a tribunal which
(to borrow the tag of most modern comedies)
is "never sought in vain;" namely, to the
British public! This he did by the aid of
the woodcuts and pages of the "London
Illustrated News." Never was an appeal
more promptly or satisfactorily answered!
The practicability, the simplicity, and beauty
of the scheme convinced every member of
the many-headed court of appeal of its
efficacy.

Meanwhile, the projector of the building
waited on the projector of the entire
Exhibition, Prince Albert, on another
memorable morning—that of the Christening
day of Prince Patrick. What passed need
not be divulged; but the encouragement
vouchsafed, added to the expression of public
opinion daily gathering strength, induced Mr.
Paxton to decide on procuring a tender to
be sent in to the Building Committee for his
design. He therefore went straight to
Messrs. Fox and Henderson, and these
gentlemen immediately engaged to prepare a
tender. It happened that the Building
Committee in their advertisement had
invited the candidates for raising their edifice,
to suggest any improvements in it that may
occur to them. This opened a crevice, into
which Messrs. Fox and Henderson were able
to thrust their tender for Mr. Paxton's plan.
Seeing at once it was, of all other plans, the
plan—the supreme desideratum—they
tendered for it as an "improvement" on the
Committee's design.

Here a new and formidable difficulty arose.
It was now Saturday, and only a few days
more were allowed for receiving tenders.
Yet before an approximate estimate of expense
could be formed, the great glass manufacturers
and iron masters of the north had
to be consulted. This happened to be dies
mirabilis the third, for it was the
identical Saturday on which the Sunday postal
question had reached its crisis; and there
was to be no delivery next day! But in a
country of electric telegraphs and of
indomitable energy, time and difficulties are
annihilated, and it is not the least of the
marvels wrought in connexion with the great
edifice, that by the aid of railway parcels
and the electric telegraph, not only did all
the gentlemen summoned out of Warwickshire
and Staffordshire appear on Monday
morning at Messrs. Fox and Henderson's
Office, in Spring Gardens, London, to
contribute their several estimates to the tender
for the whole; but, within a week, the
contractors had prepared every detailed working
drawing, and had calculated the cost of every
pound of iron, of every inch of wood, and of
every pane of glass.

There is no one circumstance in the
history of the manufacturing enterprise of the
English nation which places in so strong
a light as this its boundless resources in
materials, to say nothing of the arithmetical
skill in computing at what cost, and in how
short a time, those materials could be
converted to a special purpose. What was done
in those few days? Two parties in London,
relying on the accuracy and good faith of
certain iron-masters, glass-workers in the
provinces, and of one master carpenter in
London, bound themselves for a certain sum
of money, and in the course of some four