In a little while we formed ourselves into a procession, four in a row,
and set forth from the Town Hall, through James Street, Lord Street, Lime
Street, all the way through a line of policemen and a throng of people;
and all the windows were alive with heads, and I never before was so
conscious of a great mass of humanity, though perhaps I may often have
seen as great a crowd. But a procession is the best point of view from
which to see the crowd that collects together. The day, too, was very
fine, even sunshiny, and the streets dry,--a blessing which cannot be
overestimated; for we should have been in a strange trim for the banquet,
had we been compelled to wade through the ordinary mud of Liverpool. The
procession itself could not have been a very striking object. In
America, it would have had a hundred picturesque and perhaps ludicrous
features,--the symbols of the different trades, banners with strange
devices, flower-shows, children, volunteer soldiers, cavalcades, and
every suitable and unsuitable contrivance; but we were merely a trail of
ordinary-looking individuals, in great-coats, and with precautionary
umbrellas. The only characteristic or professional costume, as far as I
noticed, was that of the Bishop of Chester, in his flat cap and
black-silk gown; and that of Sir Henry Smith, the General of the
District, in full uniform, with a star and half a dozen medals on his
breast. Mr. Browne himself, the hero of the day, was the plainest and
simplest man of all,--an exceedingly unpretending gentleman in black;
small, white-haired, pale, quiet, and respectable.
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