per; and the old bodies had had
a good dinner, and the old tongues were chirping and clacking away,
all eager, interested, sympathizing; and one very elderly and rheumatic
Goody, who is obliged to keep her bed, (and has, I trust, an exaggerated
idea of the cares attending on royalty,) said, "Pore thing, pore thing!
I pity her." Yes, even in that dim place there was a little brightness
and a quavering huzza, a contribution of a mite subscribed by those
dozen poor old widows to the treasure of loyalty with which the nation
endows the Prince's bride.

Three hundred years ago, when our dread Sovereign Lady Elizabeth came to
take possession of her realm and capital city, Holingshed, if you please
(whose pleasing history of course you carry about with you), relates in
his fourth volume folio, that--"At hir entring the citie, she was of
the people received maruellous intierlie, as appeared by the assemblies,
praiers, welcommings, cries, and all other signes which argued a
woonderfull earnest loue:" and at various halting-places on the royal
progress children habited like angels appeared out of allegoric edifices
and spoke verses to her--

"Welcome, O Queen, as much as heart can think,
Welcome again, as much as tongue can tell,
Welcome to joyous tongues and hearts that will not shrink.
God thee preserve, we pray, and wish thee ever well!

Our new Princess, you may be sure, has also had her Alexandrines, and
many minstrels have gone before her singing her praises. Mr. Tupper, who
begins in very great force and strength, and who proposes to give her no
less than eight hundred thousand welcomes in the first twenty lines of
his ode, is not satisfied with this most liberal amount of acclamation,
but proposes at the end of his poem a still more magnificent
subscription. Thus we begin, "A hundred thousand welcomes, a hundred
thousand welcomes." (In my copy the figures are in the well-known Arabic
numerals, but let us have the numbers literally accurate:)--

"A hundred thousand welcomes!
A hundred thousand welcomes!
And a hundred thousand more!
O happy heart of England,
Shout aloud and sing, laud,
As no land sang before;
And let the paeans soar
And ring from shore to shore,
A hundred thousand welcomes,
And a hundred thousand more;
And let the cannons roar
The joy-st