'ry day will want, and most the last.
This done, the poorest can no wants endure;
And this not done, the richest must be poor. POPE.

THOUGHTS ON THE CORONATION
OF HIS PRESENT MAJESTY,
KING GEORGE THE THIRD;

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