









'lllliliai THE BOOK _0F THE ROYAL Jillillil 







niJ 



3 



contractors, and workmen — to tteir utmost exertions. The 

 Queen took scarcely less interest in it, and, disregarding phy- 

 sical difficulties, went over the works with His Eoyal Highness, 

 in their rawest and most unfinished condition. 



By the greatest exertions, the principal portion of the 

 works was so far advanced as to allow the Council to fulfil their 

 promise to open the Garden on the 5th of June. 



No sooner had the Garden begun to assume something of 

 this aspect of advancement, than His Eoyal Highness turned 

 his attention to its decoration and embellishment. He himself 

 presented various objects to the Garden ; amongst them were 

 the Juno and Ceres now standing on the upper end of the 

 central basin, and the small terra cotta statuettes placed at 

 the entrance and exit of the Maze. It was he, too, who recom- 

 mended the purchase of the two Victories of Eauch, perhaps 

 the finest (certainly the most effective) objects of art in the 

 Garden. Indirectly, too, but not less certainly, does the Society 

 owe one of the great features of the Garden to His Eoyal 

 Highness's connection with it, viz. — the Memorial of the 

 Exhibition of 1851. 



Shortly after th-C close of tlie Exliibition of 1851, tind. while 

 the admu'ation excited by the talents shown by His Eoyal 



TTi frlin OQC! m Tf a AVI (Tl Tl 1^"! DTI TTl H Jl fl TTll Til Cl'f'T'fl'fl HTl "WH ^tl TTPClh 

 Xllgnneoo ill l Lo Ul Ig HidLiUll cLULI tlLllliillilb 111 Oi W uo a VllX JLi ciSll 



in the minds of the public, a subscription was set on foot 

 by a number of his admirers for the erection of a Memorial 

 of the Exhibition, to be surmounted by a statue of His Eoyal 

 Highness. This had scarcely commenced when its promoters 

 received intimation from His Eoyal Highness that he disap- 

 proved of a Memorial being erected to him during his lifetime. 



54 



ft 



& 













