He had a clear head and
good judgment that everyone trusted to, and yet he always kept himself
in the background, that the queen might have all the credit of whatever
was done.
He took much pains to get all that was good and beautiful encouraged,
and to turn people's minds to doing things not only in the quickest
and cheapest, but in the best and most beautiful way possible. One
of these plans that he carried out was to set up what he called an
International Exhibition, namely--a great building, to which every
country was invited to send specimens of all its arts and manufactures.
It was called the World's Fair. The house was of glass, and was a
beautiful thing in itself. It was opened on the 1st of May, 1851;
and, though there have been many great International Exhibitions
since, not one has come up to the first.
People talked as if the World's Fair was to make all nations friends;
but it is not showing off their laces and their silks, their ironwork
and brass, their pictures and statues, that can keep them at peace;
and, only two years after the Great Exhibition, a great war broke out
in Europe--only a year after the great Duke of Wellington had died,
full of years and honors.
The only country in Europe that is not Christian is Turkey; and the
Russians have always greatly wished to conquer Turkey, and join it on
to their great empire. The Turks have been getting less powerful for
a long time past, and finding it harder to govern the country; and one
day the Emperor of Russia asked the English ambassador, Sir Hamilton
Seymour, if he did not think the Turkish power a very sick man who
would soon be dead.
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