_The Crystal Palace—Opening, etc._
Having frankly confessed my prejudices against the Great Exhibition, I
must now as frankly own that I am ashamed of them. The whole thing was
indeed strongly marked by the spirit of the age, and was, therefore,
such as no one who sees and understands the faults of our own times can
enthusiastically admire. Yet, little by little, I saw so much in it
which illustrates the better elements of that spirit, and which is
capable of being directed to noble results in behalf of the whole family
of man, that, to some degree, I rejoice in the complete success of that
splendid experiment. I was nicely punished for my folly at the outset,
in losing the pageant of the opening, of which I took no pains to be a
spectator, until it was quite too late to obtain admittance. If I lost
any thing, however, I suffered in good company. I am astonished, at this
time, to remember the indifference of many Englishmen, in different
ranks of society, to the entire project, until its success was
demonstrated. From _The Times_, which was a great grumbler at first, and
from old _Blackwood_, which railed at the _Temple of Folly_, down to the
shopkeepers in Regent-street, there was a wide-spread feeling of
contempt for Prince Albert’s hobby, as likely to cost more than it would
come to: while sincere apprehensions were entertained that something
revolutionary and bloody might be the result of the collection of vast
bodies of men, with a large proportion of foreign republicans among
them, into the bosom of the Metropolis. How idle all this seems now! At
the time, I am sure, very few were satisfied that it was altogether
idle; and I fancy the Queen and Prince Albert themselves wished the
thing well over, for some time before it was fairly inaugurated.
I went into Oxfordshire without making any plans to see the show, and
remained over the morning of the first of May, to hear the hymn on the
Tower of Magdalen. This was the day of the opening of the Palace, and
accordingly I immediately hastened to London, to see how it would end.
Riot and murder were the very least of evil results predicted by some,
and our American press had anticipated nothing less than general pillage
and insurrection. On arriving in London, I found that if I had only
secured my ticket beforehand, I might have been at the show, as well as
at the Oxford solemnity; for it was yet early in the day. Immense masses
of men were pouring into Hyde Park, as I drove down the Edgeware road,
and the crowd and crush of vehicles was not less surprising. It was with
difficulty that I made my way through Piccadilly, especially as my cab
emerged into the vicinity of Hyde-Park-corner. The police were
everywhere on duty, but there was no mob, properly speaking, to require
their interference. Thousands of the humbler classes, men, women and
children, in their best clothes, were endeavouring to enjoy the holiday,
and get a sight of the Queen. That was all, at this hour—and so it
continued through the day. Towards noon, the crowd in the Park grew
oppressive, and the slightest accident might have bred a confusion, in
which life would have been sacrificed; but there was absolutely nothing
but good-natured pushing and thrusting, and the occasional squall of an
infant, whose mother was more engaged to save her tawdry finery, than to
secure the safety of her child.
Finding myself one of the people, I resolved to enjoy a nobody’s share
of the sight-seeing. Some English friends whom I found in the same
predicament, and who assured me I had lost nothing worth a guinea to
see, volunteered to accompany me into the Park, where they thought it
not unlikely the most exciting scenes of the day would come off. So
then, we elbowed and pushed our progress into the Park, and were elbowed
and pushed in return quite as much as we cared to be. At last, it became
impossible to fight it out three abreast, and we agreed to “divide and
conquer.” The last I saw of my friends, one was here and the other
there, amid a crowd of hats and faces swaying about, with exclamations
and entreaties in behalf of coats and shins, and toes, and umbrellas. We
looked laughing adieus, and saw each other no more. At length I found
myself in the line of the Queen’s procession, and hired a convenient
standing-place to see her progress to the Palace. On she came at last,
preceded by those superb horse-guards, who dashed magnificently through
the crowd, and were themselves the finest military spectacle I had ever
beheld. Several of the Court carriages followed, one containing the
Crown-Prince of Prussia; and then came the Queen’s, distinguished by
many horses, coachmen, and footmen; the coach itself glittering with
gold; the horses splendidly caparisoned; and the servants in showy
liveries, with powdered hair, cocked-hats, and immense nosegays thrust
into their bosoms. The cockneys, however, had expected to see the
coronation coach, and were accordingly much disappointed with this
modicum of show. Then followed more horse-guards, kicking up the gravel
into the faces of the plebeians, and sinking, with their haunches to the
earth, as their riders spurred them into proud prancings and
curvettings, as if to intimate that the very beasts knew they were
attending the Sovereign of many Empires to a festival of all nations.
Whew! how they dashed along! and soon a discharge of artillery announced
her arrival at the Palace; nor was it long before another discharge of
the guns proclaimed the ceremony concluded, and the Great Exhibition
opened. Everybody looked happy and contented; and everybody, with wife
and children in the bargain, appeared to be on the spot.
As the royal carriage passed, I observed the Queen to be apparently
uneasy, and apprehensive. The glass was up, and she was giving herself
that constant motion which was Louis Philippe’s art of safety on like
occasions. Without any distrust of her people, she may have remembered
the attempt of the madman, Oxford, and she knew that any similar
desperado must have a better chance of success on a day like this. I saw
the little princes, and the royal head, therefore, to great
disadvantage; but fortune favored me with a fuller satisfaction on their
return. While everybody was pressing towards the Crystal Palace, I now
turned against the tide, and gradually extricating myself from the Park,
passed down Constitution Hill, and finally arrived at Buckingham Palace
just in time to get a full view. The crowd here was very light, and I
saw everything to great advantage. The Queen was evidently in high
spirits, the glass down, and she bowing most maternally. I was within a
few feet of her, and lifted my hat in homage to the broad, good-humoured
smile with which she seemed to regard her enthusiastic subjects. The
grand-daughter of George the Third looks exceedingly like her venerable
ancestor, and a glance suggested to me what must have been his
appearance in his younger days. Her features are by no means unfeminine,
though far from delicate; she was a little flushed, and hence less fair
than she is painted; but her exhilaration at the happy conclusion of her
morning, gave an attractiveness to her expression which she lacked when
I afterwards saw her, on more splendid occasions, languid with the
routine of a drawing-room at St. James’s, and sick enough, I dare say,
of its heartlessness and formality. After the Queen passed into her
residence, I supposed the pageant ended, but shortly after there arose a
shout, which convinced me I was mistaken. I turned, and saw her
exhibiting herself to the people in the balcony of the palace, in the
centre of a very splendid group, and with the little Prince of Wales,
and the Princess Royal, at her side. The Princess Alice, the Crown
Prince of Prussia, and the Duchess of Sutherland, were in the splendid
circle, but the Prince Consort I did not discover. The shouts of the
people were not so vociferous as I should have anticipated; and the
royal party soon withdrew. I afterwards learned that this was a novel
proceeding, and was meant by her Majesty as an act of most gracious and
particular condescension. I trust my republican interest in the
spectacle was none the worse, however, for being wholly unsuspicious of
the gratitude with which it should have been mingled. I looked not
without reverence, at the Sovereign Lady, and not without solemn
thoughts of futurity at her lovely little family of children. But the
influence of my country was so far upon me, that I never conceived at
the time, that her Majesty was doing more than might have been expected
of her, in honour of her loyal and most decorous people.
To Americans in London the Crystal Palace soon became a sore subject. We
were the laughing-stock of nations; and I confess, when I first visited
the vast desert at the American end of the show, in which many of the
articles exhibited were even worse than the lack of others which ought
to have been there, I felt myself disposed, for a minute, to blush for
my country. It would have been the very poverty of patriotism to plead
that a few items of our contribution were of very great merit; and
self-respect would not permit me to multiply apologies, or even
explanations. What was really good spoke for itself. What was bad, or
indifferent, was simply inexcusable. The fact is, our progress in the
arts of civilization was not at all represented; and after observing the
things which attracted attention, from other countries, I felt sorry
that nobody had thought of making similar exhibitions for us. It really
pained me to reflect, that I had seen much more attractive exhibitions
in our provincial towns; and I was quite sure that one day’s work, in
each of our great cities, might have sufficed to collect a far better
show of industrial produce out of the ordinary market. Fortunately, the
yacht “America” came in at the last moment to “pluck up our drowning
honour by the locks;” and if we could but stop bragging about it, that
would be enough, until some future occasion may afford us an opportunity
of showing what American mechanics and manufacturers are able to achieve
in their various departments of skill and ingenuity.
I was pained to observe the feeling engendered by the Exhibition between
England and America, and by the highly-irritated recriminations of
ill-bred representatives of both countries, on the spot. On the other
hand, I was sometimes amused by the ludicrous attempts of some
well-meaning Englishman to be complimentary. He would choke out
something about the “Greek Slave,” and then pass rapidly to speak of his
delight in meeting with a model of Niagara Falls: an execrable thing,
which only served still further to confuse the unusually mudded ideas of
that prodigy of Nature, entertained by the English generally. As it was
simply an immense map of the Niagara, it of course represented the Falls
on such a scale as entirely deprived them of sublimity and beauty: and
so, when the speaker would enlarge upon the magnificence of this feature
of our country, I usually took some satisfaction in confessing that the
better half of the Falls is, after all, on the British side, and that I
was sorry he could find nothing to praise that was entirely ours. The
only instance in which I encountered rudeness upon this subject, was an
absurd one, in a railway carriage, when a Paisley manufacturer, a little
the worse for whiskey, and very rich in his brogue, after some impudent
remarks, which led me to decline conversation, stuck his face into mine,
with the startling announcement—“_ye can’t mak’ shawls in your
country!_”
On my first visit to the Exhibition, I must own that my prejudices were
utterly dispelled. The meagre effect of the exterior was forgotten in
the enchantment of the view within. It was a high-priced day, when rank
and fashion had the scene to itself. The place where the interest of the
whole was concentrated was that beneath the transept, commanding, as it
did, the entire view; and where the great trees, preserved within the
building, furnished a comparative measure of the whole. The crystal roof
showered a soft day-light over the immense interior; the trees and
curious plants gave it a cheerful and varied beauty; the eye bewildered
itself in a maze of striking objects of luxury and taste; musical
instruments, constantly playing, bewitched the ear, their tones
blending, from various distances and directions, in a kind of harmonious
discord; fountains were gurgling and scattering their spray, like
diamonds and pearls; and, amid all, moved the high-born beauty, and the
rank and pride of England, mixed with auxiliar representatives of
foreign states, but not unconscious of their own superiority, even while
they seemed to forget that they were insular, in their easy transition
through the pavilion, from England to France, and from France to
Austria, and from Austria to India and China. I thought of “the kingdoms
of the world and the glory of them:” did the vision which the Tempter
disclosed to the Man of Sorrows glitter more ravishingly than this?
But others have written so well on this magnificent spectacle, that I
must not enlarge upon my own impressions. It grew upon me, to the last.
It was an encyclopædia, which I am glad to have consulted. It was, in
fact, a great piece of luck to a traveller. How much of Europe it showed
him in a day: how many leagues of travel it would have cost to have
gained the information, with respect to divers countries, which here
unfolded itself beneath one mighty roof! I am convinced, moreover, that
its influence, on the whole, was good. It was opened and dedicated by
prayer, and the blessing of the Primate; it was presided over by the
religious spirit of the British Empire; it illustrated the pacific and
domestic influences of a female reign; it furnished a striking proof of
the stability and self-reliance of the Government, as well as of the
tranquil prosperity of the state; it united many nations in a common and
friendly work; it furnished a touching but sublime commentary upon the
lot of man, to eat bread in the sweat of his brow, and it redeemed
itself from the spirit of that other Babel, upon the plains of Shinar,
by bearing, inscribed upon its catalogue, the text—“The earth is the
Lord’s, and all that therein is: the compass of the world, and they that
dwell therein.”
On one of the days which admitted “the people,” I took my stand in a
corner of the quiet gallery, over the transept, and looked down on the
swarming hive with a meditative pleasure. England was there, city and
country, the boor and the shopkeeper, and all sorts and conditions of
men. The unspeakable wealth of nations stood secure, and glittered,
untouched, among them all. All men are brothers, indeed; and tears came
to my eyes as I surveyed those sons of toil gazing for a moment upon
luxury, and trying to extract a day’s satisfaction in beholding the
pomps and vanities which Providence helps them, so sternly, to renounce.
Each soul—worth infinitely more than all; and the purchase of the blood
that is beyond all price! Oh God, how solemn the theatre, in which such
a scene was presented to my eye; and what thoughts it gave me of glory
and of vanity, of human joys and sorrows; of the speedy day when all
that multitude shall have passed from a world as transient as the show
which then amused them; and of the day not very distant, when they, with
all nations, shall stand before the Son of Man!
It is a good thing that the better counsel prevailed, and that the
Crystal Palace, when it had served its purpose, was taken utterly away.
It is now a thing of history, so far as Hyde-Park is concerned; and the
Transept Tree will long be its best memorial to surviving generations.
In this way its memory will have a moral value, till the end of time. A
bubble, like the world, it has glittered and vanished. An epitome of
nations and kingdoms, and manners and men, it has served its purpose,
and been removed by its imperial architects. Who can doubt that, in like
manner, when their noble ends are accomplished, the heavens shall be
folded up as a vesture; and “the great globe itself, with all which it
inherits,” shall forever pass away, according to His promise, who is
King of kings and Lord of lords?
It would have been pity not to have seen poor _Jack-in-the-Green_, on a
May-day, in London; and yet I had quite forgotten the sweep, and his
right to a share in the festival, until I saw the sight itself, as I
chanced to be passing through one of the streets of the West-end. A
chimney of green things, it seemed to be; walking along, and nearly or
quite concealing the occupant, who gave it motion, while a crowd of boys
did honour to the show. The game seemed to consist, in pausing before
certain doors, and soliciting a gratuity. Certain it is, that no one can
grudge a penny to such an applicant, or behold the one day’s sport of
the poor climbing-boy, without wishing he may succeed in trying to make
the most of it. Lady M. W. Montague is said to have invented this
beneficial anniversary of sweepdom, and the moving obelisk of green
seemed to me no unmeet memorial of her benevolence. Better this, than
the column of the Place Vendôme, unless it be better to be remembered
for levying a world-wide tribute of blood and tears, than for giving one
new object of hope and joy to the children of sorrow!
During the residue of the week I was engaged in the ordinary lionizing,
but met several agreeable persons in company, dining one day at the
Rectory of St. George’s East, and another day at Clapham. My first
impressions of the enormous extent of London were gained in passing
between these limits, and yet as vast a suburb lay unexplored beyond the
former, as I had travelled through to reach the latter. Clapham is
called four miles from the metropolis, but one reaches it, by omnibus,
with no very clear idea of having left London at all. And so, in every
direction, London seems interminable, and villages known to us from
books as highly rural, and as affording delightful retreats from the
city, are found, to our surprise, to be incorporated with the great
Babel itself, and that by no means as its extremities.