“I wouldna ha’e come hame as I gaed away, if I had been you, Jenny.” The
speaker stands at the door of Jenny’s little byre, looking on, while
Jenny milks her favourite cow. “Ye see what Nelly Panton’s done for
hersel; there’s naething like making up folk’s mind to gang through wi’
a’ thing; and you see Nelly’s gotten a man away in yon weary London.”
“I wouldna gang to seek a misfortune—no me,” said Jenny; “ill enough
when it comes; and I wonder how a woman like you, with twelve bairns for
a handsel, could gie such an advice to ony decent lass; and weel I wat
Nelly Panton’s gotten a man. Puir laddie! it’s the greatest mercy ever
was laid to his hands to make him a packman—he’ll no be so muckle at
hame; but you’ll make nae divert of Jenny. If naebody ever speered my
price, I’m no to hang my head for that. I’ve aye keepit my fancy free,
and nae man can say that Jenny ever lookit owre her shouther after him.
A’ the house is fu’ ’enow, Marget; we’ve scarcely done with our
flitting; I canna ask you to come in.”
So saying, Jenny rose with her pail, and closed the byre-door upon
Brockie and her black companion. The wind came down keen from the hills;
the frosty wintry heavens had not quite lost the glow of sunset, though
the pale East began to glitter with stars. Sullen Criffel has a purple
glory upon his cap of cloud, and securely, shoulder to shoulder, this
band of mountain marshals keep the border; but the shadows are dark
about their feet, and night falls, clear and cold, upon the darkened
grass, and trees that stir their branches faintly in the wind.
The scene is strangely changed. Heaths of other nature than the peaceful
heath of Hampstead lie dark under the paling skies, not very far away;
and the heather is brown on the low-lying pasture hills, standing out in
patches from the close-cropped grass. Yonder glow upon the road is the
glow of fire-light from an open cottage door, and on the window ledge
within stand basins of comfortable Dumfriesshire “parritch,” cooling for
the use of those eager urchins, with their fair exuberant locks and
merry faces, and waiting the milk which their loitering girl sister
brings slowly in from the byre. It is cold, and she breathes upon her
fingers as she shifts her pail from one hand to the other; yet
bareheaded Jeanie lingers, wondering vaguely at the “bonnie” sky and
deep evening calm.
Another cottage here is close at hand, faintly throwing out from this
back-window a little light into the gathering gloom. Brockie and Blackie
are comfortable for the night; good homely sages, they make no account
of the key turned upon them in the byre-door; and Jenny, in her original
dress, her beloved shortgown and warm striped skirts, stands a moment,
drawing in, with keen relish, the sweep of cold air which comes full
upon us over the free countryside.
“I’m waiting for Nelly’s mother,” says Jenny’s companion, who is Marget
Panton from Kirklands, Nelly’s aunt; “she’s gane in to speak to your
mistress. You’ll no be for ca’ing her mistress now, Jenny, and her sae
muckle come down in the world. I’m sure you’re real kind to them;
they’ll no be able now to pay you your fee.”
“Me kind to them! My patience! But it’s because ye dinna ken ony
better,” said Jenny, with a little snort. “I just wish, for my part,
folk would haud by what concerns themsels, and let me abee. I would like
to ken what’s a’ the world’s business if Jenny has a good mistress, and
nae need to seek anither service frae ae year’s end to the ither—and it
canna advantage the like o’ you grudging at Jenny’s fee. It’s gey dark,
and the road’s lanesome; if I was you, I would think o’ gaun hame.”
“I wouldna be sae crabbit if I got a pension for’t,” returned Marget,
sharply; “and ye needna think to gar folk believe lees; it’s weel kent
your house is awfu’ come down. ‘Pride gangs before a fa’,’ the Scripture
says. Ye’ll no ca’ that a lee; and I hear that Miss Menie’s joe just
heard it, and broke off in time.”
“I’m like to be driven daft wi’ ane and anither,” exclaimed Jenny
furiously. “If Miss Menie hadna been a thrawart creature hersel, I
wouldna have had to listen to the like o’ this. Na, that micht ha’e been
a reason—but it was nane of the siller; she kens best hersel what it
was. I’m sure I wouldna have cast away a bonnie lad like yon if it had
been me; but the like of her, a young lady, behooves to ha’e her ain
way.”
“Weel, it’s aye best to put a guid face on’t,” said Jenny’s tormentor.
“I’m no saying onything at my ain hand; it’s a’ Nelly’s story, and
Johnnie being to marry July Home—it’s a grand marriage for auld
Crofthill’s daughter, such a bit wee useless thing—we’re the likest to
ken. Ye needna take it ill, Jenny. I’m meaning nae reproach to you.”
“I’m no canny when I’m angered,” said Jenny, setting down her pail in
the road; “ye’ll gang your ways hame, if you take my counsel; there’s
naething for you here. Pity me for Kirklands parish, grit and sma’! with
Nelly at the Brokenrig, and you at the Brigend; but I canna thole a
lee—it makes my heart sick; and I tell ye I’m no canny when I’m angered.
Guid nicht to you, Marget Panton; when I want to see you I’ll send you
word. You can wait here, if you maun get yon puir decent woman hame wi’
you. I reckon I would get mony thanks if I set her free; but I dinna
meddle wi’ ither folks’ business; you can wait for her here.”
And, taking up her pail again rapidly, Jenny pattered away, leaving
Marget somewhat astonished, standing in the middle of the road, where
this energetic speech had been addressed to her. With many mutterings
Jenny pursued her wrathful way.
“Ye’ve your ainsel to thank, no anither creature, Menie Laurie; and now
this painting business is begun, they’ll be waur and waur. Whatfor could
she no have keepit in wi’ him? A bonnie ane, to ha’e a’ her ain way, and
slaving and working a’ day on her feet, as if Jenny wasna worth the
bread she eats; and the next thing I’ll hear is sure to be that she’s
painting for siller. Pity me!”
Full of her afflictions, very petulant and resentful, Jenny entered the
cottage door. It was a but and a ben—that is to say, it had two
apartments, one on each side of the entrance. The larger of the two was
boarded—Mrs Laurie had ventured to do this at her own expense—and had
been furnished in an extremely moderate and simple fashion. It was a
very humble room; but still it was a kind of parlour, and, with the
ruddy fire-light reddening its farther corners, and blinking on the
uncovered window, it looked comfortable, and even cheerful, both from
without and within. Mrs Laurie, with her never-failing work, sat by a
little table; Menie, whose day’s labour was done, bent over the fire,
with her flushed cheeks supported in her hands; the conflict and the
sullen glow had gone out of Menie’s face, but a heavy cloud oppressed it
still.
Conscious that she is an intruder, divided between her old habitual
deference and her new sense of equality, as Johnnie Lithgow’s mother,
with any Mrs Laurie under the sun, Mrs Lithgow sits upon the edge of a
chair, talking of Nelly, and Nelly’s marriage.
“Nelly says you were real kind. I’m sure naething could be kinder than
the like of you taking notice of her, when she was in a strange place
her lane, though, nae doubt, being Johnnie’s sister made a great
difference. I can scarcely believe my ainsel whiles, the awfu’ odds it’s
made on me. I have naething ado but look out the best house in
Kirklands, and I can get it bought for me, and an income regular, and
nae need to do a thing, but be thankful to Providence and Johnnie. It’s
a great blessing a good son.”
As there was only a murmur of assent in answer to this, Mrs Lithgow
proceeded:—
“I’m sure it’s naething but neighbourlike—you’ll no take it amiss, being
in a kindly spirit—to say if there’s onything ane can do—There’s Nelly
gotten her ain house noo, and wonderful weel off in the world; and for
me, I’m just a miracle. If there was ought you wanted, no being used to
a sma’ house, or ony help in ae way or anither, from a day’s darg wi’
Jenny, to——”
But Mrs Lithgow did not dare to go any further. The slight elevation of
Mrs Laurie’s head, the sudden erectness of that stooping figure by the
fireside, warned the good woman in time; so, after a hurried breathless
pause, she resumed:—
“I would be real glad—it would be naething but a pleasure; and I’ll
ne’er forget how guid you were to me when I was in trouble about
Johnnie, and aye gied me hope. Poor laddie! next month he’s coming down
to be married—and I’m sure I hope he’ll be weel off in a guid wife, for
he canna but be a guid man, considering what a son he’s been to me.”
“He will be very well off,” said Mrs Laurie; “and poor little July goes
away next month, does she? Has Jenny come in yet, Menie? We have
scarcely had time to settle in our new house, Mrs Lithgow; but I will
remember your kind offer, and thank you. How dark the night grows—and it
looks like snow.”
“I’ll have to be gaun my ways,” said the visitor, rising; “it’s a
lanesome road, and I’m no heeding about leaving my house, and a’ the
grand new things Johnnie’s sent me, their lane in the dark. I’ll bid you
good night, ladies, kindly, and I’m real blithe to see you in the
countryside again.”
She was gone, and the room fell into a sudden hush of silence, broken by
nothing but the faint rustling of a moved hand, or the fall, now and
then, of ashes on the hearth. The bustle and excitement of the
“flitting” were over—the first pleasure of being home in their own
country was past. Grey and calm their changed fate came down upon them,
with no ideal softening of its everyday realities. This sliding pannel
here opens upon their bed; this little table serves all purposes of
living; these four dim walls, and heavy raftered roof, shut in their
existence. Now, through the clear frosty air without, a merry din breaks
into the stillness. It is little Davie from the cothouse over the way,
who has just escaped from the hands which were preparing him for rest,
and dares brothers and sisters in a most willing race after him, their
heavy shoes ringing upon the beaten way. Now you hear them coming back
again, leading the truant home, and by-and-by all the urchins are
asleep, and the mother closes the ever open door. So good night to life
and human fellowship. Now—none within sight or hearing of us, save Jenny
humming a broken song, on the other side of the wooden partition, which,
sooth to say, is Jenny’s bed—we are left alone.
Menie, bending, in her despondent attitude, over the fire, which throws
down, now and then, these ashy flakes upon the hearth—our mother,
pausing from her work, to bend her weary brow upon her hand. So very
still, so chill and forsaken. Not one heart in all the world, except the
three which beat under this thatched roof, to give anything but a
passing thought to us or our fate; and nothing to look to but this even
path, winding away over the desolate lands of poverty into the skies.
Into the skies!—woe for us, and our dreary human ways, if it were not
for that blessed continual horizon line; so we do what we have not been
used to do before—we read a sad devout chapter together, and have a
faltering prayer; and then for silence and darkness and rest.
Say nothing to your child, good mother, of the bitter thoughts that
crowd upon you, as you close your eyes upon the wavering fire-light, and
listen, in this stillness, to all the stealthy steps and touches of the
wakeful night. Say nothing to your mother, Menie, of the tears which
steal down between your cheek and your pillow, as you turn your face to
the wall. What might have been—what might have been; is it not possible
to keep from thinking of that? for even Jenny mutters to herself, as she
lies wakefully contemplating the glow of her gathered fire—mutters to
herself, with an indignant fuff, and hard-drawn breath, “I wish her
muckle pleasure of her will: she’s gotten her will: and I wadna say but
she minds him now—a bonnie lad like yon!”
CHRONOLOGICAL CURIOSITIES: WHAT SHALL WE COLLECT?
Is knowledge, like Saturn, destined to devour her own masculine
offspring, and leave only the weak to live to propagate follies? If
Common Sense, the strong born, has escaped, it is because Knowledge has
been deceived, like Saturn, with a stone, not very easy of digestion,
nor promising to add much to her substance. But this survivor, Common
Sense, has the effeminate yet numerous progeny to contend with, who,
with a busy impertinence, multiply absurdities, and put them forth under
the glorifying name of their parent, Knowledge. We rejoice, therefore,
to see a laudable attempt being made to rescue knowledge from the
cramming in of uncommon and worthless things, and to substitute for the
people’s use a knowledge of “common things.” And we hope an aggregate
addition of the bone and muscle of a little more common honesty, and
true genuine natural feeling, will be the result of the wholesomer food.
The people have been long enough imposed on by false titles; or the
“Useful Knowledge,” the pretence of the age, has been exhausted, and
resort had to a very useless substitute.
It is not long since that we read the question and answer scheme of an
examination of a retired village school, consisting of labourers’
children; one of the questions being, “What is chronology?” “What is its
derivation?” Answer, “Derived from two Greek words,” &c. Will any one
think that children so taught become wiser or better? This may not be an
isolated instance. It seems possible that chronology may become rather
too fashionable a study, and engage a host of collectors of valueless
nothings. The neglected science has certainly some arrears to make up.
Some few years ago we were authoritatively told that “History” is
nothing but an “old Almanac.” Since which time, History and her sister,
Chronology, have been discarded servants—out of place, and glad to pick
up a few pence here and there as charwomen, in all sorts of odds and
ends of corners, to sweep away time-collected dust and rubbish. Their
industry seems likely to be rewarded at last. A few of the old
worshippers, taking advantage of this exhaustion of “useful knowledge,”
benevolently lend them a helping hand, and are trying to persuade the
public that the dust was gold dust, or better than gold dust, and the
rubbish a treasure, and advising that it should all be swept in
again—and where?—into our National Gallery! and doubtless their next
step will be to appoint a Parliamentary Commission, not so much for the
purpose of sifting it, as of issuing treatises and lectures upon the
value and national importance of this new-old treasure trove. So that
the public may look to this, that, instead of having their eyes
gratified by the beauties of art, they will be disgusted with its
deformities; while their heads will be so stuffed with its history, as
to leave no room for a thought of its excellence, or a sentiment to be
derived from it.
Let not the reader be alarmed at the very mention of the National
Gallery. We are not about to inflict upon him the evidence in the Blue
Book respecting the picture-cleaning, the doings and misdoings of
trustees, the “discrepancies” of opinions and statement of facts, the
faults of a system which is inconsistently at once condemned and
recommended for continuance, the labyrinth of question and answer
leading to no conclusion, the blame here and the flattery there, the
unwilling admissions and unreserved condemnations: most people we see
are perhaps inclined to believe, in this instance at least, that a “big
book is a big evil.” We do not, therefore, intend in this place to
reopen the discussion which made the subject of our former papers.
The difficulty under which the Commission laboured was visible from the
beginning. The trustees had approved of the cleaning. The task of very
decidedly condemning this approval was naturally distasteful; therefore,
what is too evidently wrong is charged upon a “system,” while the
honourable personages are praised and flattered as if they had never had
anything to do with it.
The case must for a while rest where it is, and we should have waited
with patience the leisure of our now busy Parliament for its resumption,
were it not that a very grievous mischief is left in the Blue Book,
where it meets with much favour, to be taken up and made the key-note,
the first and last principle of every future discussion respecting a
national gallery. It might be thought that, after thirty years of its
establishment, we should not have now to come to the question, what a
national gallery should be. But so it is. There has been as yet no
“fixed principle,” we are told, upon which a national collection is to
be formed. We have no charge to bring against the trustees on that
account; indeed, we rejoice that they had no fixed principle, if by
fixed principle is meant such scheme and system as we see pertinaciously
and insinuatingly urged upon the public notice in parts of the evidence,
and more particularly in the appendix of this voluminous Report.
We give our reader credit for good taste and common sense, and doubt not
he will think it sufficient that a national gallery should consist of
good pictures—the best that are to be had. But no: common sense is too
unrefined for this knowledge-age, and good taste is of private
purveyorship, and of very little importance in forming a public
collection. However absurd this may seem to be, we assure the reader
that it is an idea put forth with a good deal of authority, and perhaps
no little presumption, on the part of some of its advocates; we see its
dressing up into a substantial image of magnitude, and mean to take up
the sling and the stone, and do battle with it. There are always a
multitude of dilettanti who, loading their memories with names, love to
talk with apparent learning about art, and yet have little feeling for
its real excellences. To such, a history of art is better than art
itself. They would make a national gallery a lumber-house of
chronological curiosities. They have a perverse love for system and
arrangement: very good things in their proper places, and with
moderation, keeping a very subordinate position, not without value in a
national gallery; but the value is little indeed, if put in any degree
in competition with what should be the great primary aim—to gather
together the finest works of the best painters. The chronological
arrangement should be the after-thought, arising out of what we possess,
not directing the first choice. This whim of the dilettanti school is
not new with us. It may be seen in the Report of the Commission of
1836—and is repeated in the present Report.
“The intelligent public of this country are daily becoming more alive to
the truth, which has long been recognised by other enlightened nations,
that the arts of design cannot be properly studied or rightly
appreciated by means of insulated specimens alone; that, in order to
understand or profit by the great works, either of ancient or modern
schools of art, it is necessary to contemplate the genius which produced
them, not merely in its final results, but in the mode of its
operation—in its rise and progress, as well as in its perfection. A just
appreciation of Italian painting can as little be obtained from an
exclusive study of the works of Raphael, Titian, or Correggio, as a
critical knowledge of English poetry from the perusal of a few of its
masterpieces. What Chaucer and Spenser are to Shakespeare and Milton,
Giotto and Massaccio are to the great masters of the Florentine school:
and a national gallery would be as defective without adequate specimens
of both styles of painting, as a national library without specimens of
both styles of poetry. In order, therefore, to render the British
National Gallery worthy the name it bears, your committee think that the
funds appropriated to the enlargement of the collection should be
expended with a view not merely of exhibiting to the public beautiful
works of art, but of instructing the people in the history of that art,
and of the age in which, and the men by whom, those works were
produced.”
There is but little said here in many words, and that little based upon
an erroneous presumption. We do not believe that the “intelligent
public” are becoming alive to “the truth,” which is a fallacy, that they
cannot profit by great works without having before them the previous
failures, experiments, and imbecilities of the earlier practitioners in
art. If the public have any intelligence at all, they will appreciate
the “Madonna de Sisto,” for instance, without disgusting their eyes with
such Byzantine “specimens” as that shown to Mr Curzon in the monastery,
where the monk in his strange ignorance inquired if “all women were like
that?” Nor is the parallelism between poetry and painting here
fortunate. For, besides that books may sleep on shelves and not offend,
and pictures (for the purpose intended) must obtrude themselves on the
eye, we do not see that Chaucer and Spenser at all bear the relation to
Shakespeare and Milton that Giotto and Massaccio do to the great masters
of the Florentine school. All these were men of great, mostly
independent genius, worthy of galleries and libraries for their own
sakes. But they are here placed as screens to hide the chronological
deformities behind them. The “not merely exhibiting to the public
beautiful works of art” would seem to infer, to give any force to the
passage, that not only the painters Giotto and Massaccio had no
“beautiful works,” but that Chaucer and Spenser were poor poets, having
no beauties, and no other or little merit but that of being the warning
precursors to Shakespeare and Milton, to enable them to eschew their
faults.
The committee very cautiously abstained from defining any chronological
limits, for we are not to infer that they are to begin with Giotto.
However they may consider him the founder of the Italian school, the
appendix shows that the Byzantine and very early Italian art (if to be
obtained) are desired specimens. “The specimens more especially fitted
for a gallery of paintings commence with movable paintings on wood, by
the Byzantines, representing the Madonna and child, single figures of
saints, and sometimes extensive compositions on a minute scale,” going
back even to the ninth century, and so to the earlier Italian
“influenced by Byzantine art.” And more decidedly to show the mere
chronological object, it is added, “In the case of works without names,
or inscribed with names before unknown, the test of artistic merit must
chiefly determine the question of eligibility.” Artistic merit _only in_
these cases, and then “chiefly” so that in other cases names are
everything.
And all this is for the purpose of instructing the people, not in art,
but in the history of art, which may be quite well enough learnt from
books by the curious, or in some museum of curiosities, better than in a
national gallery, where the real and proper instruction would only be
hindered by the sight of things antagonistic to any beauty. We do not
doubt that this idea, carried out, would lead to a pictorial
chronological mania, if it does not commence with it, not unlike the
Bibliomania, ever in search of works, only rare because worthless. Such
a national gallery as this scheme contemplates would be the exhibition
of a pictorial Dunciad, in which we hope the _veræ effigies_ of the
first schemers and promoters would not be omitted, that some future
satirist may give them also their merited immortality. Why cannot a
committee upon a national gallery confine themselves to the objects for
the consideration of which they are appointed, and not run needlessly
into the duties of an educational committee, and talk of _instruction_,
when the preservation and advantageous exhibition of the monuments of
antiquity and fine art “possessed by the nation” are what they are
required to give their attention to? There is enough to be done in the
line pointed out to them, and no need of bewildering themselves or the
public, led astray by this _ignis fatuus_ of a chronological whim. We
are weary of the daily cant; everything is to be _instruction_, works of
art are to be “specimens.” Michael Angelo, Raphael, Correggio, are to be
known only by and as “specimens.” The “people” must be ever in a worry
of knowledge, flying about from specimen to specimen: it is for
knowledge alone they are to come to a national gallery—we hear nothing
of enjoyment, of an indulgence in the repose of taste; and we do
sometimes smile, in turning over the leaves of the Blue Book, when
meeting with much talk about _instructing_ the people, and turn our
thoughts for a moment to the happy “specimens” of instruction the walls
of our or any National Gallery exhibit. Is moral instruction or art
instruction to be gathered in by the people’s eyes, with their
astonishment at “Susanna and the Elders,” and that other Guido purposely
purchased as a companion to it, the “Lot and his Daughters?” very costly
specimens of instruction, the one amounting to £1680, the other £1260,
and neither thought very good specimens for instruction in art—not that
the severe criticism upon Guido in the evidence is quite to be depended
upon. The great flustering “Rape of the Sabines” is not of very nice
instruction, perhaps, either in morals or art. There are the “Three
naked Goddesses” by Rubens, to whom the caterers of public instruction
took the part of Paris, and threw the golden apple, and a very large one
too;—what are their Flemish nudities to teach? A stern moralist showed
his insulted purity by dashing one offending specimen to atoms.
We do not, however, profess to be such purists as to desire an irruption
into the Gallery of a mob of mad Savonarolas, not easily gathered
together in these Latter-day-Saints’ times, knowing as we do the real
why and wherefore of collecting; yet we cannot but smile at the pretence
of instruction, which is sometimes put upon moral, and sometimes shifted
to pictorial, grounds. But there is a class of pictures we could wish to
see more sought after—pictures of a pure sentiment. It is true they are
rare, in comparison to those of a far other character; but they are the
most precious, and the really improving. Nevertheless, at once to get
rid of this pretence and sham of instruction, we would ask, to whom are
such works of sentiment precious, and whom are they likely to
improve?—Certainly not the multitude, who would look at them with
indifference, and pass them by. They are precious to cultivated minds
and pure tastes: minds which, either from natural dulness or evil
habits, cannot receive, or even admit, the perception of common virtues,
will be altogether untouched by their pictorial representations.
Fortunately, there are enough works of a simply pleasing character, that
excite little emotion, and none of a high caste, so that, to a certain
degree, those may be gratified, and receive a pleasure, who will neither
receive instruction nor improvement from a national gallery. And it is
this modicum of pleasure to all which justifies expenditure for a
national gallery. The real, solid benefit, delight, and improvement are
very great, but they are the luxury of the few.
It must be that the multitudes go to such an exhibition more from
curiosity than from any love of art. Nor is love of art likely, in the
first place, to be there implanted; for, in most cases, a certain love
of art, commencing, perhaps, with a mere love of imitation, precedes
taste—that perception of what is good. If we were to collect only for
the masses, we should have a very worthless gallery. Nor would “the
people” ever even learn, from a chronological collection, that history
of art, which it seems, in the opinion of the Commissioners, so
desirable to teach them. Art, which is not valued for itself, will not,
in general, be valued for its history; and without the love for itself,
a knowledge of its history is nothing but pedantry. High art is a common
prate; it is in every one’s mouth, but in very few hearts. It is not
difficult to find the “reason why.” High art treats of high and noble
sentiments, of generous actions, fortitude, patience, sublime
endurance—all that is great, and good, and pure—all tending to a real
“elevated taste.” If it be true that “Similis simili gaudet,” the
recipients of delight from this High art should, in some degree at
least, be recipients of these high virtues themselves. It must be a
large nature for High art. Such a nature may not always be good; but if
it be large, even if it be viciously great, it may be possible that it
will have a perception of what is great in art, though it may lose its
finer qualities. But narrow and utterly selfish minds are altogether out
of art’s pale. There are degrees of narrow-mindedness and of
selfishness, and there is a condition which may be free from these
vices, yet of no very elevated virtue. We do not wish to put all our
fellow-men in the worst category, but we do maintain that there is a
general lack of moral training—of moral habit—and not confined to one
branch of society, which operates as a bar to the acquirement of a real
taste for art. We live in too mercenary an age. There is too great a
worship of mere money—there is cold calculation where there should be
feeling. The romance of life is a term of contempt. What is useful
supersedes what is good. Take classes with their characteristics, and
see if they be fit for the enjoyment of the Fine Arts. The Parliamentary
class have established new maxims. Expediency has taken the place of
honour, and perhaps of integrity. To say one thing and mean another not
only meets with no reprobation, but is justified and applauded.
Statesmen make sham speeches and false promises; politicians bribe and
are bribed. Is it likely that _High_ art, whose essential being is good,
great, and noble, and, beyond all, truth, should find a real love among
such? We deny not exceptions, we speak of that which prevails. View the
large and important class, the manufacturing, the great fabricators of
wealth—they are encouragers of art, but of what quality? Shall they who
thicken their cotton goods with flour, to give them a deceitful
substance; shall the common traders, who adulterate everything, whether
it be what we put in our mouths or on our backs—nay, to a fearful
extent, even the drugs, for lack of whose genuineness miserable
sufferers die—shall these, we say, stand with delight before the grand
dignity wherewith Michael Angelo has embodied our common nature; or
before the pure “Spozalitio” of Raffaelle; or, to come to a “_specimen_”
in our National Gallery, before the lovely countenance of the
pure-minded St Catharine, beaming with every grace of truth, of love, of
faith, and of fortitude, that appears too much natural instinct to have
the effort of strength? Will they, whose pursuits are the material
things of a material world, stand for a moment to receive one impression
that shall produce an unusual awful thought, before the solemn miracle,
the “Raising of Lazarus” of Sebastian del Piombo? No one will deny that
there is but little feeling for works of this kind; and that there is so
little, characterises our utilitarian times.
It may be as well here to notice what is said in the body of the
evidence with regard to this chronological principle. The questioning is
not very extensive, and was, perhaps, purposely limited. J. Dennistoun,
Esq., is examined, and says: “The only further observation I would
venture to make is the extreme desirableness of something like an
arrangement of the pictures. I believe that is a matter felt to be so
important that it is hardly necessary for me to speak upon it. I think a
chronological arrangement in schools is desirable; but, in the
meanwhile, as that would be totally impossible in the present building,
I think, as far as possible, an arrangement of the pictures might be
made chronologically, without reference to schools,—even that would be a
step.” We observe that Mr Dennistoun subsequently, as if alarmed at the
chronological prospect, very much qualifies this his opinion. To
_Question_ 5901, he says: “I have already stated that I think they
should omit no favourable opportunity of obtaining any monument
illustrative of the progress of art in any school, such as pictures
authenticated by signature or date, and of sufficient interest to be
specimens of art of that period. But I think it is desirable that they
should, in the first place, bestow their attention and dedicate their
funds to that more particularly interesting and valuable period of
Italian art, which I have already considered in the course of my
evidence.” This puts the chronological arrangement happily a little more
in the background. As might have been expected from the accomplished and
learned author of the _Dukes of Urbino_, we find in Mr Dennistoun a nice
appreciation of the immediate predecessors of Raffaelle, but he has no
very long list; he only mentions twenty whose works should be collected,
not merely on account of their historical relation to Raffaelle, but for
their merit.
No one is more thoroughly acquainted with the Italian schools than Sir
Charles Eastlake, both as an artistic critic and historical scholar. He
is (_Q._ 6512) consulted with regard to chronological arrangement. He
evidently fears the subdivisions of the whimsical process. _Q._ 6515:
“Would you then propose to arrange the Italian school in a chronological
series as a whole, or would you subdivide it into separate schools?”—“I
would certainly not separate the schools needlessly; but I would not
take out the finest works and put them apart.” _Q._ 6015: “Then you do
not approve of having separate apartments for paintings of the Venetian,
Florentine, and other schools?”—“I see no objections to a separation,
but I do not see that there would be anything gained by having a mere
historical series independent of merit.”
We rejoice to find that the influence of Sir Charles, deservedly great,
will not tend to turning our National Gallery into an hospital of
invalids and imbeciles. We now come to Mr Dyce’s evidence. _Q._ 7471:
“You have also, in your published work, made suggestions as to the mode
of carrying into effect the historical and chronological principle in
the arrangement of the collection?”—“I have touched on the subject very
slightly, though I have laid it down as a primary rule in the formation
of the National Gallery, that the historical arrangement of the works
should be had regard to.” _Q._ 7472: “You insisted that an endeavour
should be made, as far as possible, to show the origin and progress of a
school of art, independently of showing the excellence of its highest
and most perfect works?”—“Yes.” As Mr Dyce’s pamphlet, a _Letter,
addressed, by permission, to H.R.H. the Prince Albert, K.G._, may be
considered the first, and perhaps authorised, movement towards the fully
setting up the chronological system, we shall make it the subject of our
comments more at large; preliminary to which it may be useful to show
the reader the number of painters in the several lists furnished in the
Appendix, which, we are yet told, is imperfect—in fact, deficient, by
many omissions; so that the actual lists—as the mania of making fresh
acquisitions would become very restless and busy—would be possibly
doubled and trebled. Sir Charles Eastlake, in his suggestions in the
Appendix, not very strenuously, we think, notices the object, keeping it
somewhat subordinate; and we discover here why Mr Dyce has dedicated his
letter, by permission, to H.R.H. the Prince Albert. “The idea of a
catalogue of the masters, who might sooner or later be represented in a
national gallery, has occurred to many; but the actual formation of such
a list has only been recently undertaken, according to a plan suggested
by His Royal Highness Prince Albert, and for His Royal Highness’ use.
With reference to that list, I may add, that the catalogue of the
Italian masters was prepared by myself, and that relating to the other
schools by Mr Wornum. The series cannot be considered complete; there
are probably both omissions and redundancies; but it may, at least, be
taken as the ground-work for such a guide.” We find the lists for this
chronological collection to contain (the Byzantine curiosities not
included) one thousand five hundred and fifty-five names, and it is
probable that as many more might be collected. So that these specimens,
if even confined to one for each name, would very soon exhaust the
public purse, and possibly so disgust the nation, by their exhibition,
as to cause a stoppage of supply for a national gallery. Seeing this
array of names, Mr Dyce may well add, when he asks, “What ought a
national collection of pictures to be?”—“extensiveness will, I think,
suggest itself as one of those characteristics.”
We are not denying that catalogues of this kind are of value—far from
it; they are parts of the history of Art; but surely a dictionary of
painters is one thing and a collection of pictures another. An army and
navy list are valuable documents, but would be rather unwieldy national
incumbrances if accompanied by each individual’s portrait at full
length—especially viewing the collection, as is the case with this
gallery scheme, “independently of merit.” It may be well said, that it
is absurd to think of such a scheme with our present building; and it
would be difficult to find a site of sufficient area for these specimens
by thousands, and at the same time provide for the increase at the
present ratio of art propagation.
We proceed to consider Mr Dyce’s pamphlet, or letter—happily not very
long—for we have seldom met with so much serious nonsense in so few
pages. He blunders on the very threshold of his work; for, as shown, he
makes extensiveness a characteristic, whereas it must be but the
accident of finding good things to collect. He considers it as a museum,
having evidently in view a collection of curiosities, the thing above
all others a National Gallery should not be. “Then, again, as every
collection has in view some definite purpose, the systematic fulfilment
of that purpose on the most enlarged basis—in other words, systematic
arrangement, and a _wholeness_ or completeness in relation to its
particular purpose, seem necessary to the idea of a national
collection.” Words, words, words! all to envelop a commonplace truth
that no one need be told. Of course, every man, woman, and child, having
a “purpose,” should suit the matter in hand to it. If the man had been
destined to manufacture small-clothes instead of writing about art, he
wouldn’t begin at the wrong end, and stitch on the buttons before he had
cut out his shapes. Of course, he would have had his arrangement and his
“chronological” measure too, and not put the boy’s fit on the aged
father. There is no end to writing in this style; there may be, if a
writer pleases, miles of verbiage before reaching a place of rest or
tolerable entertainment, without any prospect of the journey’s end. Then
he goes on thinking, and “thinks” what nobody ever doubted: “I think we
may assume that a public museum ought to fulfil its purpose” (so ought a
pipkin)—but more—“and, secondly, that the objects contained in it ought
not merely to be coextensive with that purpose, but illustrate it with
the greatest possible fulness and variety; that is to say, the
collection ought to be at once extensive and complete.” Extensive and
complete—or we would put it plainly, as with regard to the pipkin, that
care should be taken that as much be put into it as it will hold without
boiling over, preserving in the simmering every variety in the broth—the
meat, the bone, the fat, and the vegetables. Notwithstanding this his
very clear explanation, he immediately again gravely asks, “But what are
we to understand by the completeness of a collection of pictures?” The
reply to this question (a reply which may well astonish any inquirer)
“depends upon the view we take of its purpose;” that is, to pursue our
illustrations, whether the small-clothes be to be made for grandson or
grandfather; whether the pipkin is to hold porridge for breakfast, or
broth for supper. “Now all, I imagine, will agree, that the object of
our National Gallery is, to afford instruction and enjoyment” (a
discovery which he very shortly annihilates, by taking out the
enjoyment, and making the instruction doubtful); “that it is, or ought
to be, an institution where the learned study art, and the unlearned
enjoy it, where _docti artis rationem intelligunt, indocti sentiunt
voluptatem_; so that we have to consider how that instruction and
enjoyment which the gallery is calculated to afford ought to be provided
for.” Not a doubt of it. But why, Mr Dyce, ride your poor hobby-horse
round this circle? Don’t you see you haven’t advanced ten paces beyond
the stable door. In fact, you have said but the same thing over and over
again; but you have taken out of the pack-saddle a scrap of Latin,
which, however well it may sound, and your own hobby may prick up his
ears at it, is really a piece of arrant nonsense; indeed the reverse of
it is the truth; for it is _the unlearned_, of course, who come to your
lecture, that they may understand, “_intelligunt_;” and the learned, the
“_docti_,” they who know something about the matter, only who can
perceive, “_sentiunt_,” the “_voluptatem_,” the pleasure of art. But we
said Mr Dyce would annihilate enjoyment, and see if he does not do the
thing, and most astonishingly. After the passage last quoted, follows:
“Now, if there be any, and at this time of day it is to be hoped there
are very few, who think that the purpose of the National Gallery will be
served by what in popular phrase is termed ‘a selection of the best
works of the best masters’” (we rejoice to find so sensible a _phrase_
is popular), “I will simply beg them to apply their opinion to the case
of any section of a national library to convince themselves how utterly
untenable it is.”
Now the Curiosity Museum is a Library, and a Museum of Curiosities and a
library are, _ergo_, moulded into one—a National Gallery; whereas the
materials will not amalgamate,—not one is a bit like the other. To go on
is really to get deeper and deeper into the quagmire of nonsense, the
only kind of _depth_ to be met with in the whole pamphlet. It must sadly
have tired the patience of his Royal Highness, if he did read it; and if
Mr Dyce wrote it with any view of giving his Royal Highness a lesson in
the English language, which was not needed, he has furnished as bad a
“specimen” as could be well met with. But to the matter and the
argument:—“the best works of the best masters” is as silly an idea, he
thinks, as to supply a library with the best dramatists, Shakespeare, of
course, included. He is an advocate for the worst, such as no one would
read—and why?—the very sound of it is truly asinine. “Would such a
proceeding be tolerated for a single moment? Would it be endured that
they, that any body of men, however eminent, should possess the right to
withhold from the public any attainable materials for literary knowledge
and criticism?”—for which purpose Mr Dyce does not withhold this
pamphlet. His materials it is not difficult to decide. It certainly
could never have been intended for knowledge but under the greatest
mistake; supposing it then to be for criticism, we take him at his word,
and indulge him accordingly, or, as he says, “in relation to its
particular purpose.” But he is not satisfied yet; having nothing more to
say, he must say that nothing in more words. He continues—“that, in
fact, they should have it in their power” (that is, the any men, however
eminent) “actually or virtually to pronounce a judgment on the
comparative merits of authors, the accuracy of which could only be
tested by the very comparison which the judgment has the effect of
preventing. Yet there is no difference between such a proceeding and the
restriction of the national collection of pictures to such works as
might happen to be considered the best.” What a circular jumble of words
is here!—“a judgment on comparative merits” not to be pronounced, not to
be endured to be pronounced, because such judgment has the effect of
preventing the said judgment, which is here made at once both desirable
and undesirable.
The reader sees how much nonsense may be comprised in less than two
pages, for we have not advanced further in the pamphlet. A library, to
be a good library, ought to contain the veriest rubbish, even Mr Dyce’s
letter, because without comparison therewith we shall never be able to
appreciate the styles of Swift, and Addison, and Milton, nor
Shakespeare’s dramas, without ransacking the “condemned cells” of Drury
Lane. And when at length, by these forbidden comparisons, we have
discovered the best works of the best masters, it is not to be endured
that “any men, however eminent,” should prefer them to the worst, or at
least not give the worst equal honour. Our letter-writer thinks he
strengthens his argument by quotations from the evidence, which, if
there be anything in them, are quite against him, for they tend to show
that selection should be of the best: thus Mr Solly is asked, _Q._
1855—“Is it your opinion the study of these earlier masters is likely to
lead to a purer style on the part of our own painters, than of the later
and more effeminate school?”—“Certainly. I perfectly agree with the
questions that have just been put to me, and I am not aware that I could
add anything to them, as I think they comprehend all that I should have
thought of suggesting myself upon the subject.”
It would have been surprising if Mr Solly had not agreed with questions
so manufactured by epithets—for “purer” and “effeminate” make an
undeniable difference. The questioner might as well have said, Don’t you
think good better than bad? Don’t you think virtue better than vice?
This is a specimen of the art of dressing up a false fact, to knock down
with it a true one; but even here, according to the Dycian theory, the
only earthly reason for preferring the purer is that it is the earlier;
if the effeminate had by chance changed places with it, it would have
had his chronological post of honour.
In his next quotation the pamphleteer is intent on giving a blow to his
compeers of the English school. Mr Leigh confirms Mr Solly’s view—is
questioned, _Q._ 1913: “You say the more chaste works of the Italian
school—do you refer to an earlier era?”—“I allude to that particular
period so justly referred to in the questions put to Mr Solly.” _Q._
1914: “Do you mean the historical painters who were contemporaneous or
prior to Raffaelle?”—“Yes.” _Q._ 1915: “You prefer these to the schools
of Bologna?”—“Yes; it is a school whose works we are exceedingly in want
of, to enable us to correct the tendency of the English style towards
weakness of design, effeminacy of composition, and flauntiness of
colouring.” But Mr Dyce has altogether forgotten his own rule, that it
is not to be endured to give a judgment, &c.—that is, to pronounce what
is good, what is “best” and “of the best,” and that if proved best, we
have nothing whatever to do with that accident. We have just warned the
public, by showing the probable number of specimens for this new “Old
Curiosity Shop,” to be called our National Gallery. Page 18, Mr Dyce
says, “Still, if it be remembered that only fifteen years after the
commencement of the Royal Gallery of Berlin it possessed works of all
classes, from the rude Byzantine down to productions of the last
century, to the number of nearly twelve hundred, we need entertain no
great misgiving as to the possibility of forming even a very
considerable collection within a moderate period.” The public, we hope,
do entertain a very great misgiving of the consequences of so frightful
an inundation, especially as it is to begin with the rude Byzantine. But
as the “rude Byzantine” may stand as high art, or fine art, in
comparison with still more rude beginnings; and as antiquity lore is
ever increased as it looks backward, and is not confined to country,
there may be cause for misgiving whether there may not be an attempt to
ransack China and Japan for new old schools—to discover picture mines in
Peru, for monstrosities in paint and design; for all become legitimate
sources under the ever-growing chronological mania, this outrageous
pedantry of the “The history of Art.” And here the writer of the
pamphlet, having perhaps momentary misgivings himself as to the quality
of the stuff to be collected, goes backwards and forwards in oscillating
contradictions, from best to any specimens, and from any specimens to
best, ending in such wise conclusion as he generally comes to, that it
is “best” to get the “best” specimens we can, but no matter whether we
get them or not, provided we get any. For he insists that the one object
is to have “a collection illustrative of the history of the art, and
“(in italics)” the formation of it must be undertaken expressly with
that view.” Moreover, “secondly, that though it be desirable that all
works collected should be of the highest order—that is to say” (he loves
to explain himself thus by duplicate) “that every master should be
represented by one or more of his best works, yet as such works are not
essential to the completeness of the collection, considered as an
historical series, but serve rather to enrich it as a mere assemblage of
beautiful works,” &c. &c. Can anything show more his contempt of mere
beautiful works, as in no way being an object in collecting? In fact,
the whole pamphlet is to recommend, if not to enforce, the gathering
together an enormous mass of curiosity lumber, and building a labyrinth
of “Chambers of Horrors” to hold them. And it must be taken into account
that this absurd, this tasteless scheme, is not confined to pictures. It
is proposed, in most views of our future gallery, that statues are to be
added, and architecture is to claim its due share as one of the Fine
Arts; and where are we to begin, and where end? Is statuary to find its
rude commencement in the “Cannibal Islands,” its progress in Tartary,
its rise and deification in joss-houses, Burmah furnishing “specimens,”
even the wheels of Juggernaut moving slowly and majestically to a new
enthronement in Kensington Gardens, or wherever our grand, national,
amalgamated museum is to be? Pagodas will yield up their deformities to
the new idolatry of chronological worshippers; the old monsters of
Nineveh will be revived; and to prove Lord Jeffrey to be right, that
there is no principle of beauty, many a hideous image will in
arrangement claim affinity to the Venus de Medicis and the Apollo
Belvidere. Really, all this is but a natural consequence of the first
step in the system. It is to be, not art, but a history of art, to be
shown by “specimens;” nor will it do to bring a brick even from Babylon
as a specimen of its architecture. The public may rejoice in its ruin,
or it would have to be brought in bodily, and a hundred or two crystal
palaces added to our wonder of the world; as it is, there must be an
“_hiatus maxime deflendus_.” We should have architecture, and
“specimens” of architects of all the several countries and schools, as
of pictures and painters. The English progress would be delightful to
see. Holingshed says, that within the memory of many in his days,
chimneys were rare; of course we must have “specimens.” We might go on
indeed to weary the reader with absurdities, and it would only be
following out Mr Dyce’s chronological idea in all its collateral
branches; for, getting warm in riding his hobby, his heated imagination
looks out for inconceivable vanishing points, which recede as fast as he
finds them, till he sees in the unbounded space of art, which he thinks
he has himself created, arts and sciences flying about in every
direction, and crossing each other like so many dancing comets. The
reader must look for a little incomprehensible language and confused
utterance when Mr Dyce descends, having breathed the bewildering gas of
his extraordinary sphere, to put his thoughts on paper, and thus he
writes: “What I was going to say was in substance this—that if the idea
of a complete museum of the fine arts involved the illustration of
decorative art, and of physical science in its relation to art, to an
extent which, though not unlimited, is nevertheless indefinite, if the
_vanishing point_” (the italics of Mr Dyce), “so to speak, of such a
museum lies somewhere in the region of practical science, one is
immediately led to consider whether, as the reverse is true—viz., that
practical science finds its vanishing point in the region of fine
art—the true idea of a museum of arts would not be that which embraced
the whole development of the artistic faculty, and commenced, therefore,
on the one hand, with those arts which are solely, or almost solely,
dependant on _æsthetical_ science, and terminated on the other with
those which are solely or chiefly dependant on _physical_ science. Such
an institution would start at the one extreme from physical science, and
at the other from fine art; and these two would meet and cross one
another, the influence of each vanishing and disappearing towards the
opposite extremes.” So that, if there is anything to be understood and
unriddled from this confusion of wordy ideas, it is this, that these
arts and sciences, æsthetical and physical, do not meet to kiss and be
friends, but to cross each other, and, having simply blazed awhile in
each other’s faces, to fly off to their own vanishing points, more
distant than ever, disappearing beyond the hope of that happy junction
which, nevertheless, it had been the whole purpose of Mr Dyce’s pamphlet
to bring about, and which, perhaps, he thinks he has brought about, or
intends to bring about, unconscious of the impossibility which he has
set in their way.
Lest the reader think we have needlessly brought in this body of
architecture, we must again quote Mr Dyce. He certainly, to do him
justice, does admit that specimens of architecture may be too big; but
if he enumerates and measures his “fragmentary remains” from the British
Museum and elsewhere, “models of whole structures, or models and casts
of details,” “adequate to the great purpose of exhibiting the
development of architecture, both as it is a science and a fine art, in
all the various stages of its history,” and if some genii could bring
them all together and throw the brick and plaster down before him, we
doubt if his, or any known human agility, would enable him to escape the
being buried under the dust that would be made by the deposit.
“But secondly, there is a peculiarity in the case of architecture which
deserves to be specially noticed. It is this:—that the examples required
to illustrate the history of architectural construction and decoration
lead us at once into the province of _practical science_ and of
_decorative art_; and thus the door is opened to a more extended view of
the contents of a National Gallery of Art.” When he told us in the
commencement that extensiveness was one of the characteristics of a
National Gallery, we never thought of an extensiveness that should have
no termination. The opening of this, his one door, shows a wearying
vista—but there are so many doors to open to “complete” his scheme, that
it is past all comprehension where he will find door-keepers, or the
nation means to pay them.
Let us imagine these ten thousand chronological galleries built, and
inhabited by all the arts and sciences. Who could preside over such a
seraglio of beauties and uglinesses?—who could possibly know anything
about one-half of them? We should doubt even Mr Dyce’s powers to
interpret their languages, which would be wanted, considering that the
object in view is instruction in their history. And yet Mr Dyce, in his
scheme of government for the National Gallery, looks to some one “coming
man.” “Some officer should be appointed to take charge of all business
relating to the National Gallery, to be responsible for the immediate
management, and to whom the public should look for the success or
failure of the undertaking.” He must be a very wonderful man indeed: if
Mr Dyce has any such in his eye, he ought to have named him; for no one
besides ever saw a man on earth equal to so much; and if he is to be
general instructor too, he would be wondered at, as when
“——still the wonder grew
That one small head should carry all he knew.”
Yet upon the appointment of this one officer Mr Dyce again insists in
the conclusion of his letter, and under the idea of his duty embracing
sculpture and architecture, as well as painting, under which heads also
are included unlimited and undefined æsthetical and practical arts and
sciences.
In our former articles on the National Gallery, we advocated the
appointment of one responsible person; in what then, it may be asked, do
we differ from Mr Dyce? Simply, that we would confine his attention to
one thing which he might be able to know—to the collection of pictures.
Even if it were thought desirable to place statues under the same
building, we would put them under the direction of a person specially
acquainted with sculpture.
The interest of the nation has been now awakened with regard to the
National Gallery, to the pictures only, to their collection and
preservation. A national museum, such as Mr Dyce and others propose, is
far too large a subject, to discuss which seriously would be only
drawing away the public mind from that which is a pressing necessity. As
the system holds at present, we are neither able to buy pictures
properly, nor to preserve them when we have them. Mr Dyce’s own
experience in the art qualifies him to speak upon this point, and in
justice to him we add, that, excepting the times when the chronological
mania is upon him, he writes fairly and sensibly; and we willingly add
his modicum of assent to the general opinion, upon the matters which the
blue-book has brought before the public. Indeed, in this pamphlet he has
two styles of writing: the pages might be well thought the work of two
hands. Whatever relates to his chronological scheme is redundant,
confused, and ambitiously laboured. He does not appear very clearly to
know what he has to say. He is, we suppose, in the midst of his
theoretic arrangements, as a painter of eminence visited with some
misgivings as to the worthless trash the fulfilment of his scheme would
introduce. He writes like one under an adopted whim, against his first
instincts, with the verbosity of an untutored and awkward advocate. When
he knows clearly what he is writing about, he writes like other people.
He successfully exonerates the keepers of the National Gallery, those
appointed subsequently to Mr Seguier, from much of the blame that had
been cast upon them. He shows that the responsibility had been, for the
most part, taken out of their hands, with regard to the purchase of
pictures; that the trustees superseded the keepers, and were afterwards
themselves superseded by the Treasury as to active operations. The Lords
Commissioners of the Treasury, from the nature of their appointment, are
sure to be more incompetent than the trustees themselves. It is in
evidence that the Lords of the Treasury had no confidence in the
trustees; nor, perhaps, much in themselves. Therefore, in 1845, when the
trustees recommended the purchase of the Guido from Mr Buchanan, the
Treasury do not comply with the request unconditionally—they require Mr
Seguier to be consulted as to the condition of the picture; and also
“two other eminent judges of the merit and pecuniary value of Italian
pictures.” They even point out the individuals for selection: “Mr
Woodburn and Mr Farrer might probably be selected with advantage for the
purpose, or any others whom Mr Eastlake might consider preferable.” The
Lords of the Treasury then preferred the opinion of two dealers in
pictures to that of the trustees or Mr Eastlake; the latter being more
competent than all the others put together to decide upon the subject.
The only surprising thing is, that the trustees, upon this slight put
upon them, did not resign their appointments, which, if honourable in
other respects, were now marked with the character of incompetency. We
have already strongly insisted that picture-dealers should in no case be
consulted. They are too much interested, and wish to keep up the value
(artificial) of pictures; and the world knows too well the nature of
their trafficking, to place implicit confidence in their decisions. We
say not that a judicious choice might not be made of skilful and
honourable men; but looking to all times, and with some knowledge of the
temptations of trade, we should be sorry to see the practice of
consulting dealers become a habit or a rule. Take the case which has
occurred—the Treasury nominate judges; at a subsequent meeting of the
trustees these very judges have pictures to be recommended—are other
trading judges to be called in? In that case decisions will have to go
the round of these dealer judges. They will either be shy of pronouncing
against the interests of each other, or be under the temptation to give
each other a good turn, or, at any rate, keep up the market, which they
themselves supply. The public have of late been let a little too much
into the secrets of picture trafficking, and of picture manufacturing.
Is there truth in the exposure that an overbaked would-be Raffaelle was
spoiled for that master, but would make an admirable Correggio? With all
the respect we owe to individuals, we confess that there is a strong
resemblance between picture-dealing and horse-dealing. The habit of
appointing dealers as judges would certainly end in a council of
dealers, who would, in actual operation, supersede all others. The fiat
of the Treasury transferred to the fiat of Wardour Street. We are glad
to quote Mr Dyce on this subject:—“This, then, is the present state of
matters. The right to entertain a proposal to purchase any picture rests
with the trustees; the ultimate opinion of its merits, on which the
purchase depends, is not theirs, but that of certain ‘eminent judges’ of
such points. The trustees decide what may be and shall be purchased, if
it be worth purchasing; the eminent judges decide whether it be worth
purchasing, and worth the money asked for it. It may be said that this
is an extreme and exaggerated case; that the Treasury, though reposing
confidence in the recommendation of the trustees, might nevertheless
think it desirable, on several accounts, to have this recommendation
fortified by the opinions of eminent judges. True: but as it cannot be
supposed that the trustees would press a recommendation, in any case, in
the face of an adverse opinion given by the judges they had summoned to
their assistance—in other words, since they cannot make a recommendation
at all without both summoning such assistance, and obtaining a
favourable opinion—it is perfectly clear that the favourableness of
opinion they have obtained, not their concurrence in it, must be looked
upon by the Treasury as the real warrant for adopting their
recommendation. Nor, on the other hand, is it refining too much to say
that the _ex officio_ trusteeship of the heads of the financial
department of the Government, not only annihilates the responsibility of
the trustees, but prevents the due exercise of the control which that
department ought to have over their proceedings.”... “If the trustees
were to be superseded in a matter of such importance, they surely ought
to have been consulted, not only as to the manner in which they might,
with the greatest advantage, avail themselves of professional
assistance, but as to the class of persons who were to afford it. But no
discretion was left to them; and who, let me ask, were the ‘eminent
judges’ fixed upon by the Treasury? Will it be believed that not only
the class of persons, but the very individuals chosen to give an
opinion, on which the purchase of pictures was to depend, were those who
were in the habit of offering, and _actually at the time were offering
pictures to the trustees for sale_? At the very meeting (held February
2, 1846) at which the communication from the Treasury was read, I find
the trustees considering a proposal for the sale of a collection of
pictures by _Mr Woodburn_, one of the judges nominated by the Treasury.
At the next meeting (held March 2, 1846), I find that “the trustees
_again_ took into consideration the offer of a picture, by Spagnoletti,
for sale by _Mr Farrer_,” the other “eminent judge” recommended by the
Treasury. So that, in fact, the “eminent judges” were by turns
competitors for the patronage of the trustees, and by turns sat in
judgment on one another’s wares.”
Constitutions grow—they are not made. We never knew one from any
manufactory, paper-made, that could hold together; yet we go on with the
conceit that we have consummate skill in that line; we make ourselves,
as it were, sole patentees for all people and nations, and wonder at the
folly of those who reject the commodity, and yet we never attempt the
thing on a small scale at home, or a large one abroad, but the result is
a failure. The School of Design is a parallel case with the National
Gallery. The committee of management of that school was in the same
relation with the Board of Trade as the National Gallery with the
Treasury. The action of the body was stopped if no official
representative of the Board of Trade was present; and if present, the
council felt themselves to be a nullity. Yet the council could not at
once be easily dismissed, for the Parliamentary grant was voted for the
council of the School of Design. In 1842, therefore, this constitution
is remodelled. The School is put “under the _management_ of a director
and of a council, subject to the control of the Board of Trade.” But
here again is a failure. The council and director cannot arrange
responsibilities. The director resigns, another succeeds: as before,
there is no working together. The constitution has to be remodelled
again. The Board of Trade takes the management, assisted by the artist
members of the old council. This fails also; and at last that is done
which should have been done at the beginning—an officer is appointed,
“under the authority of the Board of Trade, to superintend and be
responsible for the business of the schools.”
In our democratic tendencies we are jealous of one responsible director;
and, on the other hand, with our aristocratic tastes and habits, we
devolve upon men of rank and wealth, solely on account of their rank and
wealth, duties which they are not qualified to perform (and, we think,
the greater honour would consist in their declining such positions), and
which, if in other respects qualified to perform, they will not, simply
because it is not their distinct personal business, and of a paid
responsibility. And thus it is that the really qualified persons,
eminent for their knowledge in art, science, and habits of business, are
ever excluded. Can we be surprised if there be perpetual failures?
The best boon the trustees of the National Gallery can confer upon the
nation, is to resign in a body. Surely there is now little to induce
them to remain where they are, and as they are. This step would compel
the Government to do what they have found it necessary to do in other
cases—appoint a paid and responsible minister; and, if it be thought
worth while to have a National Gallery at all, to provide liberally the
means of obtaining it. It will never do, on every trifling occasion, to
have to go to Parliament, and to be met in a huckstering spirit. We must
break some of the shackles which the modern utilitarian school is ever
imposing; we must learn to view the fine arts as a constitutional part
of the liberal arts, which must be treated liberally, if we would have
them permanently established.
We must now return for a little space to the subject which, in the
commencement of this paper, we proposed to discuss: “What are we to
collect?” We shall make a great mistake indeed, if we are led by Mr Dyce
as an authority, to pass contempt upon either the works of, or the
admiration felt for, the genius of the greatest men in art—if we put
chronological series in competition with excellence. He overdoes his
part, and can gain nothing by such language as this:—“Turgid, unmeaning
panegyrics of Raffaelle, Michael Angelo, Titian, Correggio, and the
rest.” These “_and the rest_” are such pre-eminently great masters,
that, in some shape or other, we would have their works ever before the
public. Where we cannot have originals, we would have copies, and the
best that either have been made and can be acquired, or that can now be
made. We cannot think a gallery perfect without them. We would have a
portion set apart especially for copies of the best works, and also for
prints. In them we might have the designs, and the light and shade, the
great and beautiful ideas represented: and here we cannot but lament,
that the perfection to which the art of engraving has been brought
should in this country be given up to inferior and almost to worthless
things. Our engravings indicate the public taste, the causes of the low
state of which we have already remarked upon. If there be really a
desire to instruct the public—and without instruction there will not be
an encouragement for a better devotion of that beautiful art—let the
collecting the best engravings, whether old or new, be a great object
with the purveyors of a National Gallery. Nor would we have the grand
works to which we allude put away in portfolios, but glazed, and hung
upon walls specially appropriated to them. Let us have, at least, good
things—the best originals we can procure, and the next best, copies, and
engravings of the best; and not waste time and squander means in
searching out for chronological histories, the attenuated deformities of
the Byzantine schools, the hideous performances of those predecessors in
art, who had not yet acquired the knowledge of drawing with any
tolerable correctness.
We are earnest to make this protest against the chronological scheme,
and we hope it will be dissipated by the general voice, because Mr
Dyce’s pamphlet seems to have found favour in the eyes of the
commissioners. They almost adopt his language—or at least, with little
variation of phrase, his argument, and his illustration. They too speak
of an “intelligent public,” which has no existence as to art, and is but
the translation of Mr Dyce’s Latin quotation, “docti artis rationem
intelligunt.” With him, they snub the admirers of “Raffaelle, Titian,
and Correggio,” and adopt his literary illustration, and a very bad
illustration it is, for the rubbish of books in the world is even
greater in bulk than the picture rubbish. Some of the book rubbish may
indeed bear affinity to art, and come within the scope of the scheme’s
arrangement. The woodcuts of our earliest spelling-books, of Jack the
Giant-killer, of Pilgrim’s Progress, and the “specimens” heading last
dying speeches and confessions, may yet be discovered with some pains,
and no very large cost, if a Parliamentary commission would bespeak Mr
Dyce’s acceptable labours. How gratifying to such collectors would it be
to trace the rise and progress of that particular branch of the art now
so much in fashion, from the earliest “specimens” of designs in popular
editions of Æsop’s Fables, to Mr Landseer’s last costly print. Nor
should the old glazed picture tiles, that used to amuse our early
childhood, when the glow of fire-light illuminated the “animali
parlanti,” warmed our young affections, and heated our incipient
imaginings, be omitted. The “intelligent public” might perhaps hence
learn not only a little in the history of art and its progress, but
somewhat also of the history and progress of cruelty, when they see how
much artistic labour has been bestowed, and what a large price is given,
in our modern improvement days, in getting up and in the sale of that
“perfect specimen,” Mr Landseer’s “Otter Hunt,” where the poor creature
is writhing upon the spear of the huntsman, and the howling brute dogs
are in sympathetic delight with the human bigger brute than themselves.
It will be then not uncreditable if the “intelligent public” retrograde
in their taste, and for once agree with Mr Dyce in rather admiring the
attenuated and ill-drawn deformities, which, after all that can be said
against them, were a less libel upon man and brute than some later and
more perfect “specimens.” To this extent the chronological idea must go
for completion, for Mr Dyce, the favourite of connoisseurs and
dilettanti, will not allow them to stop short of it. “Notwithstanding
appearances,” he says, “I do not imagine the trustees of the National
Gallery ever seriously contemplated the establishment of an _index
expurgatorius_ of pictures.” Such opinions he considers obsolete. We
must have all “specimens,” however bad; for he says, in emphatic
italics—“_The collection can aim at no lower object than to exhibit the
whole development of the art of painting; the examples of which it
consists must therefore range over its whole history!_” The “ςηματα
λυγρα” of Zellerophon were not of a more deadly character than would the
contemplated collection be to all true notions of the Beautiful in
art—the collection of inhumanities, the doleful horrors of saints and
demons, and worse and more awful representations which preceded
perceptions of the Beautiful.
We ought to be glad to learn from any who know better than ourselves,
but we very much question if our perpetual appeal to the practice of
foreign galleries, in the way in which it is made, is at all a healthy
sign. We are not sure that some of the examples we seek may not rather
be warnings. It is a confession of imbecility and mistrust in themselves
of trustees and commissioners. Foreign architects, foreign directors,
and foreign galleries, bear too prominent a part in our blue-books and
our pamphlets. We are confident in our own men, if not in the
“intelligent public.” We have men quite able to devise galleries, and to
know how to fill them. The misfortune has been, not that we lack men of
ability, but we do not employ them. And why? Our governments have no
better taste, no better knowledge, no better desires, with regard to the
arts, than the “intelligent public.” They have never entertained serious
views upon the subject. In conclusion, we would ask if the series of
Hogarth’s pictures have been removed from our National Gallery, on which
they conferred an honour and importance of a kind that no other gallery
in Europe can boast of possessing, with the object of forming a
chronological series of the British school. We hope to see them
transferred to their old places. Our National Gallery should not be
deteriorated, to give a grace to Marlborough House, however much it may
want it.
THE REFORM BILLS OF 1852 AND 1854.
The postponement of the second reading of Lord John Russell’s new Reform
Bill, until a later, and it may be a protracted period of the Session,
is suggestive of some important considerations. It shows, in the first
place, that even the author of the bill is by no means confident in his
power of carrying it through the House of Commons, else we may be
perfectly certain that no departure from the original arrangements would
have taken place. It shows, moreover, that other members of the
Cabinet—or, we should rather say, the members of the Cabinet
collectively—do not consider the provisions of this measure of so much
importance as to justify them in allowing it to interfere with the more
immediate exigencies of the state. In one sense of the word, Lord
Aberdeen and his colleagues are thoroughly conservative. They want to
keep their places; and they have no idea whatever of sacrificing
themselves through the impulse of Quixotic gallantry, or of allowing
Lord John Russell’s pledges to imperil their tenure of office. But they
have an obstinate and pragmatical man to deal with, and cannot afford to
affront him. Without Lord John Russell, the Coalition could not stand,
and therefore, in some matters, they are compelled to allow him more
license than is agreeable to their own inclination, or in accordance
with the interests of the country. Thus, they not only permitted him to
prepare his measure during the recess, but they gave it real importance,
by introducing it as a material part of the ministerial programme, as
announced by her Majesty from the throne. At that time there was no more
probability of a pacific settlement of the Eastern question than exists
just now; so that every objection to the measure, founded on the
impropriety of exciting internal agitation at such a crisis, must have
been foreseen. There was still time before the development of the
measure, and the publication of its intended details, to have postponed
it without any loss of credit. No one would have blamed the Ministry had
they done so—even the most ardent reformer could scarcely have
maintained that they were bound to force it through Parliament, just as
if no war were expected, or as if the country emphatically demanded it.
But Lord John Russell would not consent to that. He was determined that
the whole details of his project should be laid before the public; and
he accordingly did so in a speech which fell flat on the ear alike of
the House and of the country. He fixed a day for the second reading; but
before that day arrived, postponed his bill until a later period of the
Session, with a statement that, even then, it would depend upon
circumstances whether he should proceed with it or not.
This is not such conduct as the country has a right to expect from the
ministers of the Crown. They were entreated, both by friends and
opponents, not to bring forward their measure in the midst of warlike
preparations, and in the total absence of any demand on the part of the
country for an immediate change in the representation. Those entreaties
were met by silly, bombastical, and vapouring speeches about the sublime
spectacle which Great Britain would afford to the world, if, while
waging war abroad, she applied her energies to the remodelment of the
constitution at home! We need not pause now to demolish that most
pitiful pretext. It has virtually been given up by the Ministry; for
they now acknowledge, that the time originally fixed for the second
reading of the English bill was not seasonable; and they indicate, that
if we should be actively engaged in war on the 27th of April, the bill
will not be proceeded with; so that the notion of the “sublime
spectacle” is thrown aside, whilst the cause of the irritation, made
worse by the divulgence of the scheme in detail, is still continued.
No really united cabinet would have ventured to act in such a manner. It
is in vain to tell us of concert and cordiality, when the public
measures of one week belie the bragging language used in that which
immediately preceded it—when bluster is followed by postponement, and
extreme recklessness by an affectation of patriotic caution. The
prevalent opinion is, that the bill will not be proceeded with; and if
the Ministry had said even so much as that, there would have been no
occasion for any further discussion; but they will not say it. Lord
Aberdeen, on the 9th of March, when urged by Earl Grey to withdraw the
bill altogether, is reported to have replied, that “the second reading
of the bill had been postponed by Lord John Russell till the 27th of
April, _in sincerity and good faith_. Whether it would then be proceeded
with, depended upon the state of Europe; for no one could tell what a
day or an hour would bring forth. Government, however, would act
consistently with the interests of the country, and with a due regard to
their own honour.”
We cannot predict what the Government may do hereafter, but we know what
they have already done with respect to this matter; and it is our humble
but deliberate opinion, that they have neither consulted the interests
of the country nor their own collective credit. We should have been very
glad, indeed, had they allowed the subject to drop; for we should then
have been spared the necessity of criticising their conduct. But,
threatened as we are, though by no means agitated or alarmed by the
suspension of a most clumsy weapon over our heads, we must take the
liberty of reviewing the proceedings of these Dionysians.
Let us assume, which we really believe and devoutly hope to be the case,
that, notwithstanding the professions about sincerity and good faith,
this bill has been absolutely sent to limbo. Let us look upon it in the
light of a scheme abandoned. That, however, cannot acquit Ministers from
the serious charge of having played fast and loose with the country, by
embodying in the Queen’s speech, at the opening of Parliament, a
distinct recommendation of internal organic change, when war was staring
us in the face. They knew then perfectly well that there existed no
probability of the settlement of the Eastern dispute without a direct
appeal to arms; and it was their bounden duty to have interdicted the
mooting of such a question at such a time. We maintain, that no cabinet
has a right to countenance this species of deception. No specific
measure should be announced by a Ministry, much less recommended by the
Crown, unless it is seriously intended that it shall be carried through,
not at some indefinite future period, but in the course of the existing
session. This is not the first time that the country has been annoyed by
this indecent and reprehensible practice, introduced, we believe, by
Lord John Russell, of rash ministerial pledges. We do not think that
even a premier is entitled, towards the close of one session, to
announce distinctly the ministerial policy of the next, or to bind
himself by a specific pledge; for even a premier is not allowed by our
constitutional custom to act autocratically—he must carry along with him
at least the majority of the Cabinet. He cannot accurately predict who
may be his colleagues at the opening of the ensuing session—he cannot
foresee what events may occur or causes arise to render a change of the
intended policy not only expedient, but necessary. If a premier is not
entitled to do this, still less is a subordinate like Lord John Russell;
and yet we see him, session after session, blabbing about future
schemes, and pledging himself unconditionally to their introduction.
This is really intolerable, and it is full time that the nuisance should
be abated. If the noble lord is of opinion that, notwithstanding all
which we have heard and seen, he has still power and reputation enough
to head an independent party—let him leave the Cabinet, and then, as a
plain member of Parliament, he may pledge himself to his heart’s
content. But while he remains a minister and servant of the Crown, he is
bound to maintain the dignity of his position, and preserve a due
decorum, instead of acting like a popularity-hunter and a partisan. Of
late he has let himself down woefully. We are not accustomed, in this
country, to see ministers, while in office, engaging in literary
squabbles—and exposing themselves to damaging rejoinders by petulant
paragraphs and absolutely deplorable sneers. Their duty is, not to write
or edit gossip and scandal, but to devote themselves, heart and soul, to
the affairs of the nation and the service of their sovereign; and, if
they are not willing to abandon their favourite pursuits, they ought at
once to withdraw. With less than this the nation will not be satisfied;
and we really think we are acting a friendly part to Lord John Russell
to tell him so, in as many words. If he doubts our sincerity, let him
ask the opinion of his colleagues upon the point; and we are ready to
stake our existence that they will be unanimous in their agreement with
us. We believe also, that, if the question were fairly put them, they
would be unanimous in recommending him, for the future, so long as he is
a member of the Cabinet and acting along with them, to abstain from that
system of specific pledging, the result of which, in the present
instance, has by no means tended to raise them in the estimation of the
country.
But it may be asked, why, when the Ministry have postponed for the
present, and may abandon, the Reform Bill, we should harp upon a string
not intended, for some time at least, to vibrate in the ear of the
country? To that we reply that we have many good reasons for doing so.
The vibration has already been made. If a man is told that it was
intended, by virtue of a parliamentary act for which Ministers were to
be responsible, to make some decided change in his property or
condition, but that, in respect of certain external circumstances, it
was deemed expedient to allow him a respite—surely he is entitled to use
the interval in examining into the nature of the proposed change; and,
if need be, in preparing his defence. It would perhaps be too strong a
phrase to say that we know what is to come—for Lord John Russell is such
an experimentalist, so entirely dependent upon suggestions from others,
and so utterly devoid of any fixed principles to guide his own judgment,
that no one can venture to predict what his views may be six months from
the present moment. As a constitution-monger, the Abbé Sièyes was, in
reality, less erratic. But we know this—that his lordship in 1852
brought forward a bill for amending the representation, which bill,
owing to certain circumstances which we need not recapitulate, went to
limbo; and that in 1854 he has brought forward another, bearing in no
respect any likeness to the former one. Indeed the issue of Banquo and
of Macbeth could not have been more dissimilar. No. 3, however, is a
great deal more sweeping in its innovations than No. 2 (for we must
recollect that more than twenty years ago the noble lord carried No. 1);
and No. 4 may be still more progressive. Heaven only knows what we shall
have proposed, when the number of his Reform Bills equals that of his
Jew Bills, or the volumes of his _Biography of Moore_! He seems to think
that the story of the Sybilline books was written expressly for his
guidance and conduct, and that he is entitled, after each successive
failure and rebuff, to charge the constitution with an additional per
centage of radicalism by way of penalty. He becomes louder and broader
in his demands whenever they are negatived or postponed, and seems in
the fair way to adopt some of the views of the Chartists.
We do not say this lightly—by way of banter—or in regard of general
political disagreement. We never, at any time, reposed much faith in the
judgment or sagacity of Lord John Russell; and, of late years, our
opinion of him, in these respects, has, we confess, materially declined.
We have been, in our own sphere of action, engaged in most of the
political struggles which have taken place within the memory of the
present generation; and we trust that these have not passed by without
some wholesome lessons. To change of opinion, where honestly induced and
through conviction, every one is bound to be fair and lenient; because,
undeniably, in our own day there has been a great unravelment of social
questions, and mere party prejudice is no longer allowed to be
paramount. Perhaps the only living statesman of eminence, who cleaves to
the old system, and is inveterate in his addiction to party intrigue,
and what he calls “tradition,” is Lord John Russell. Put him into
Utopia, and his first thought would be how he might establish the
exclusive supremacy of the Whigs. He is so much and so inveterately a
party man, that he seems to care little what becomes of the country,
provided only that he, and his, sit at the receipt of customs. He showed
that long ago—not in the days of his hot youth, but in those of his
pragmatic manhood. He—the Whig Constitutionalist—characterised the
opinion of the Upper House as “the whisper of a faction;” and did not
disdain the violent and frantic sympathy of mobs when such
demonstrations tended to his own particular purpose, or aided the
ascendancy of his party. Ever since he has pursued the same course. No
man can tell when he is in thorough earnest, or when he is not. He
invited, by word and deed, Papal aggression; and, when the aggression
came, he started up at once, as an indignant Protestant champion, and
flung down his diminutive gauntlet, in name of Great Britain, to the
Pope! And yet, at the bidding of the Irish Roman Catholic phalanx, we
find this second Luther a strenuous supporter of Maynooth, and of the
nunneries! Had his ancestor John, the first Lord Russell—who in 1540,
and 1550, obtained grants from the Crown of the possessions of the Abbey
of Tavistock and the Monastery of Woburn—been equally zealous for the
protection of convents, he probably would have remained, as he was born,
an utterly unacred gentleman.
The proposed Reform Bill of 1852 did not attract a large share of the
public attention, and that for two reasons. In the first place, the
country was quite apathetic on the subject; and in the second place, it
was introduced at a time when the Whigs were tottering to their fall.
Nevertheless, it is a remarkable document, inasmuch as we may conclude
it to embody the experiences and observation of Lord John Russell upon
the working of our representative system during a period of exactly
twenty years. That there should have been some defects in the machinery
of the engine which he invented in 1832, is not wonderful; nor can we
call him rash for essaying, after so long an interval, to remedy these
defects according to the best of his judgment. His position in 1852 was
this:—He told the House, that he, the mechanist of 1832, was now
prepared, from the results of twenty years’ observation, to introduce
certain improvements which would have the effect, for a long time
coming, of preventing the necessity of any further change. The
improvements he proposed were these:—The qualification in towns was to
be reduced from £10 to £5; and in counties from £50 to £20. Every man
paying 40s. a-year of direct taxes was to be entitled to vote. There was
to be no disfranchisement of boroughs, but the smaller ones were to
receive an infusion of fresh blood by the incorporation of adjoining
villages. No property qualification was to be required for members, and
the parliamentary oaths were to be modified, so as to allow the
admission of Jews and other unbelievers in the Christian faith. Such
were the chief features of the proposed measure of 1852, as laid before
the House of Commons by Lord John Russell, then Prime Minister. Wise or
unwise, they were the conclusions which he had formed as to the change
necessary to be made in the English representative system; and we must
assume that he had not formed them without due thought and matured
investigation. That both the necessity for, and the nature of the change
were seriously considered by him and his colleagues in the Cabinet, it
would be unfair and irrational to doubt; and we must therefore hold that
the provisions of the bill were regarded by them not only as wise and
salutary, but as the very best which their collective wisdom could
devise.
If, in 1852, this bill had been rejected by a majority of the House of
Commons, Lord John might either have remodelled it, so as to meet the
more obvious objections, or have again introduced it, without
alteration, for the consideration of another parliament. But it was not
rejected by the House, and its merits were never thoroughly discussed
throughout the country. It was, as we have said, introduced at a time
when the Whig ministry were obviously in the death throes, and in
February of that year they tendered their resignation. The bill
accordingly fell to the ground before judgment could be pronounced upon
it. The public at large seemed to care nothing about it. There was no
enthusiasm manifested at its introduction, and no disappointment
expressed at its withdrawal.
The scheme, therefore, of 1852, was not only untried but uncondemned.
Nothing had occurred that could reasonably shake the confidence of the
deviser in its prudence, correctness, or aptitude for the necessities of
the country; unless we are to suppose that he felt somewhat disappointed
by the exceedingly cold and indifferent nature of its reception. That,
however, could not be taken as any distinct criterion of its merits. We
are not to suppose that Lord John Russell, in framing that bill, merely
looked to the popularity which he and his party might attain thereby, or
the future advantages which it might secure to them. We are bound, on
the contrary, to assume that he, being then Premier, and in the very
highest responsible position, was acting in perfectly good faith, and
had embodied in the bill the results of his long experience and
observation.
Now, mark what follows. In 1853, he again pledges himself to introduce a
measure for the amendment of the Parliamentary representation; and
redeems his pledge by bringing out, early in 1854, a measure totally
different from that which he recommended in 1852! The great points of
difference are these: By the one, the boroughs were to be preserved, and
in some cases enlarged; by the other, they are to be disfranchised to
the amount of sixty-six members. The bill of 1852 maintained the
distinction between town and county qualification—that of 1854 abolishes
such distinction. The first proceeded upon the plain principle that
majorities alone were to be represented—the second, in special cases,
assigns a member to minorities. In short, the two bills have no kind of
family resemblance. They are not parallel, but entirely antagonistic
schemes; and it is almost impossible, after perusing them both, to
believe that they are the productions of the same statesman.
Nothing, it will be conceded on all hands, has occurred during the last
two years, to justify such an extraordinary change of sentiment. We have
had in the interim a general election, the result of which has been that
a Coalition Ministry, numbering Lord John Russell among its members, is
presently in power. Trade, we are told, is in the highest degree
flourishing; and the prosperity of the country has been made a topic of
distinct congratulation. Search as closely as you please, you will find
no external reason to account for so prodigious a change of opinion. The
potato-rot and famine were the visible reasons assigned for Sir Robert
Peel’s change of opinion on the subject of protective duties—but what
reasons can Lord John Russell propound for this prodigious wrench at the
constitution? He cannot say that the proposals in _both_ his bills are
sound, safe, and judicious. The one belies and utterly condemns the
other. If his last idea of disfranchising and reducing sixty-six English
borough constituencies is a just one, he must have erred grievously in
1852 when he proposed to retain them. So with the other provisions. If
he intends to maintain that he has now hit upon the true remedy, he must
perforce admit that he has acquired more wisdom in 1853 than was
vouchsafed him during the twenty previous years of his political career.
He must admit that he was totally and egregiously wrong in 1852; and he
has no loophole for apology on the ground of intervening circumstances.
Really we do not believe that there is a parallel instance of a British
minister having voluntarily placed himself in such a predicament. How is
it possible that he can expect his friends, independent of the mere
official staff, to support, in 1854, a measure diametrically opposite to
that which was propounded in 1852? No wonder that Earl Grey and other
influential Whigs are most desirous to have the measure withdrawn
without provoking a regular discussion. Some of them may not have
approved of the former bill; but those who did so, or who were at all
events willing to have let it pass, can hardly, if they wish to be
consistent, give their sanction to the present one. It is not Lord John
Russell alone who is compromised; he is compromising the whole of his
party. If they thought him right in 1852, they must think him wrong in
1854; for he cannot point to the smallest intervening fact to justify
his change of principle. And if they think him wrong, how can they
possibly support him? We do not believe that he can reckon on the
support of the high-minded Whigs of England. They have principle and
honour and character to maintain; and we think it exceedingly improbable
that they will allow themselves to be swept into the howling Maëlstrom
of Radicalism. Rather than that, we venture to predict that they will
toss the rash little pilot, whose incapacity and want of knowledge are
now self-confessed, overboard, and trust to the direction of an abler
and more consistent member of the crew.
Be that as it may, we must try if possible to ascertain what cause has
operated to produce this singular and rapid change in the opinions, or
rather convictions, of Lord John Russell on the subject of Parliamentary
Reform. As we have said already, there are no external circumstances,
either apparent or alleged, to account for it. The boroughs have done
nothing to subject them to the penalty of disfranchisement; the counties
have done nothing to entitle them to a considerable addition of members.
To use diplomatic language, the _status quo_ has been rigidly observed.
Well, then, in the absence of any such tangible reason, we must
necessarily fall back upon motives, the first of which is the advice and
representation of confederates.
We at once acquit Lord Aberdeen and the majority of the Cabinet of any
real participation in the scheme of Lord John Russell. What may be the
mind of Sir James Graham and Sir William Molesworth on the subject, we
cannot tell, but we are tolerably sure that no other minister regards
the bill with favour. Even the members of the Manchester party do not
seem to consider it as an especial boon. Mr Bright knows well enough
that a new reform bill, if carried, cannot be disturbed for a number of
years to come; and as this one does not come up to his expectations, he
is ready to oppose it. Indeed, it seems to satisfy none of the extreme
party beyond old Joseph Hume, who, for some reason or other to us
unknown, has of late years been in the habit of spreading his ægis from
the back seats of the Treasury bench over the head of the noble Lord,
the member for London. The voice of the ten-pounders, as a body, was not
favourable in 1852 to the lowering of the franchise; and we have heard
no counter-clamour from the class who were and are proposed to be
admitted to that privilege. The Whig aristocracy, naturally enough,
regard this bill with peculiar bitterness. Therefore we do not think
that the astonishing change of opinion, or rather of principle exhibited
by Lord John Russell, is to be traced either to the advice of
colleagues, or the influence of more matured democrats. Our own theory
is this—that he never had, as regarded improvements on the form of the
constitution or the representation, anything like a fixed principle—that
he was striking just as much at random in 1852 as in 1854; and that, so
far from having any settled or original ideas of his own, he grasps at
any which may be presented to him with extreme recklessness and avidity.
We are quite aware that it would be, to say the least of it, gross
impertinence to make any such statement, or to express any such opinion,
without reasonable and rational grounds. We should be very sorry to do
so at any time, but more especially at the present, when we wish to see
Ministers disembarrassed of all perplexing questions at home. But it is
their fault, not ours, if we are forced to make the disclosure; and to
show that, in reality, the grand mechanist of 1832 had so forgotten his
craft, if he ever had a due knowledge of it, that after his last
abortive effort, in 1852, he was fain to derive new notions from the
pages of the _Edinburgh Review_. In saying this, we intend anything but
an insinuation against the talents of the author of the articles to
which we refer. We can admire the ingenuity of his arguments, even while
we question their soundness. We have no right to be curious as to what
section of politicians he belongs. He may represent the philosophic
Liberals, or he may be the champion of Manchester in disguise. All we
know is, that he has written three plausible articles, after the manner
of Ignatius Loyola, the result of which has been that poor Lord John
Russell has plunged into the marsh, misled by the _ignis fatuus_, and is
at the present moment very deep in a quagmire.
Some of our readers will doubtless remember that, during the autumn of
1851, various pompous paragraphs appeared in the Whig newspapers,
announcing that Lord John Russell had withdrawn himself to country
retirement, for the purpose of maturing a grand and comprehensive scheme
of Parliamentary Reform. The task was entirely gratuitous and
self-imposed; for although the venerable Joseph Hume, Sir Joshua
Walmsley, and a few other Saint Bernards of the like calibre, had
attempted to preach up an itinerant crusade, their efforts met with no
response, and their harangues excited no enthusiasm. Nobody wanted a new
Reform Bill. The class which, of all others, was most opposed to
innovation, embraced the bulk of the shopkeepers in towns, who, having
attained considerable political and municipal influence, were very
unwilling to share it with others, and regarded the lowering of the
franchise not only with a jealous but with an absolutely hostile eye. It
was upon the shoulders of that class that the Whigs had been carried
into power; and it really seemed but a paltry return for their support
and devotion, that a Prime Minister, upon whom they had lavished all
their honours, should attempt to swamp their influence without any
adequate reason. It would be absurd or unfair to charge them with
selfishness. The first Reform Bill, acceded to and hailed by the great
mass of the people, had established a certain property qualification for
voters; and no one could allege that popular opinion was not
sufficiently represented in the House of Commons. Nay, many of the Whigs
began to think that popular opinion was too exclusively represented
therein, and did not scruple to say so. Anyhow, the Bill had so worked
that there, in 1851, was Lord John Russell, its parent and promoter, in
the office of Premier of Great Britain, and in the command of a
parliamentary majority. Small marvel if the ten-pounders asked
themselves the question, what, in the name of gluttony, he could covet
more?
They were quite entitled to ask that question, not only of themselves,
but of the singular statesman whom they had been content to follow.
Could he state that there was any measure, not revolutionary, but such
as they and other well-disposed subjects of the realm desired, which he
was prevented from introducing by the aristocratic character of the
House of Commons? Certainly not. The triumph of the Free-trade policy
was a distinct proof to the contrary. Was there any discontent in the
country at the present distribution of the franchise? Nothing of the
kind. The apathy was so great that even those entitled to enrolment
would hardly prefer their claims. Even the enrolled cared little about
voting—so little, indeed, that it was sometimes difficult to persuade
one-half of a large constituency to come to the poll. All attempts at
public meetings, for the purpose of agitating a reduction of the
franchise, had been failures. The people were quite contented with
things as they stood, and grumbled at the idea of a change. And yet this
was the time, selected by a Prime Minister who had everything his own
way, for getting up a fresh agitation!
Every one, beyond himself, saw the exceeding absurdity of his conduct.
The leading Whigs became positively angry; and from that period we may
date his rapid decadence in their estimation. The real nature of his
scheme, consisting of an arbitrary lowering of the franchise, was quite
well known; and as that could not, by any possibility, be carried even
through the House of Commons, his own friends thought it advisable to
put the noble Lord upon another scent.
There appeared, accordingly, in the _Edinburgh Review_ for January 1852,
an article on “The Expected Reform Bill,” which took most people by
surprise on account of its apparently moderate, philosophic, and even
Conservative tone. It would be difficult to analyse it—it is difficult,
even after reading it, to draw any distinct conclusion from its
propositions and argument. But this, at all events, was admitted, that
“clearly there is no _call_ for Parliamentary Reform on the part of any
large or influential class. There is no zeal about it, one way or the
other. An extension of the franchise is wished for by some, and thought
proper and desirable by many; but it is not an actual want largely felt,
nor is the deprivation of the franchise a practical grievance, clear
enough, tangible enough, generally recognised enough, to have given rise
to a genuine, spontaneous, exclusive demand for redress. There is a
general languor and want of interest on the subject, manifested nowhere
more plainly than in the tone and character of the meetings got up by
the Reform Association for the sake of arousing public feeling. _The
nation, as a whole, is undeniably indifferent; the agitation is clearly
artificial._” Then, again, we are told that “_Quieta non movere_ is, in
political matters, as often a maxim of wisdom as of laziness;” and a
great deal more to the same effect, which could not have had a very
exhilarating effect on the mind of Lord John Russell, supposing, as we
do, that he was in total ignorance of the article in question before it
was given to the public. Certainly, on this occasion, he had but a poor
backing from his friends.
The view of the writer in question seemed to be this—that instead of
arbitrarily lowering the franchise on the footing of a property
qualification, it is important to discover some criterion by means of
which persons morally and educationally qualified, who have not the
franchise at present, may be admitted to that privilege. We are not
reviewing or discussing the article—we are simply pointing out the
sources from which Lord John Russell has derived most of his new ideas.
Therefore we shall simply quote one passage from this article.
_Source of Lord John Russell’s new idea of the Savings’ Bank Deposit
qualification._—“Our present system is defective and unjust in this—that
it selects two kinds or forms of property only as conferring the
franchise. Let us continue to maintain a property qualification; but let
us not insist that the property, so favourably and honourably
distinguished, must be invested in one special mode. If a man has
accumulated by diligence or frugality £50 or £100, and spends it either
in the purchase of a freehold, or in removing his residence from an £8
to a £10 house, his realised property confers upon him the distinction
of a vote. But if he invests the same sum, earned by similar qualities,
in the savings’ bank, or in railway shares or debentures, or in the
purchase of a deferred annuity—which would probably be much wiser modes
of disposing of it—it carries with it no such privilege. This seems
neither equitable nor wise. It might easily be rectified, and such
rectification would be at once one of the safest, simplest, justest, and
most desirable extensions of the franchise that could be suggested. _Let
the production before the registration courts of a savings’ bank book,
showing a credit of £50_, of at least six months’ standing, or of a
_bona fide_ certificate of shares to the same value in a valid railway,
or of coupons to the same amount, be held to entitle a man to be
inscribed upon the list of voters for that year.”—_Edinburgh Review_,
Jan. 1852, p. 265.
Adhering to our original intention of not discussing the merits of the
different proposals of this and the other articles in the _Edinburgh
Review_, we shall not comment upon the unblushing impudence of such a
project as this, which would place the representation of the country
principally in the hands of millionaires and railway directors. It _is_
unparalleledly impudent. But we notice it now simply as the germ of Lord
John Russell’s £50 savings’ bank qualification.
By the time this article appeared, Lord John Russell’s Bill was
prepared; though no one expected that it would be carried. The Whig
party were conscious that the hour of their doom was approaching, but
they wished to bear with them into opposition a weapon which might be
available for future warfare. Lord John’s ideas had not then penetrated
beyond a lowering of the franchise and the admission to the register of
parties who paid 40s. a-year of direct taxes. These were his deliberate
impressions before the schoolmaster of the _Edinburgh Review_ appeared
abroad.
After this, Lord John Russell went out of office; but the _Review_ kept
harping on Reform. The writer had already stated, “that a new measure of
Parliamentary Reform was demanded, rather in the name of theoretical
propriety than of practical advantage.” It seems to us that such an
admission was nearly tantamount to an argument against the policy of
making any change at all; more especially when we were told, nearly in
the same page, that “there was no _call_ for Parliamentary Reform on the
part of any large or influential class.” If that were true, we should
like to know who “demanded” the new measure? But we must not be too
critical regarding the advances of the new Lycurgus.
In October 1852, a second article appeared, the preamble of which was
very moderate—indeed, rather calculated to impress the casual reader
with the idea that the author would have much preferred if “the vexed
question of the franchise” could have been left alone. Nevertheless it
appeared to him that there were “many reasons which make it impossible
either entirely to shelve or long to postpone the question of
Parliamentary Reform;” and, having stated these, he dashes again into
his subject. He is, however, a great deal too knowing to commence with
the proposal of innovations. He treats us to several pages of high
Conservativism, condemnatory of universal suffrage; and having thus
established a kind of confidence—acting on Quintilian’s advice, to frame
the introduction so as “_reddere auditores benevolos, attentos,
dociles_”—he begins to propound his new ideas. In this article we have:—
_Source of Lord John Russell’s new proposal to swamp the Counties by the
admission of £10 occupants._—“The other plan is to extend the £10
qualification to counties, by which means _every_ householder (to the
requisite value) throughout the land would possess a vote; if he resided
in a small town or a village, or an isolated dwelling, he would be upon
the county register. The only objection we can hear of to this plan is,
that in the country districts and in hamlets a £10 occupancy generally
includes some land, and would not, therefore, indicate the same social
station as the living in a £10 house in town, and that it might lead to
the creation, for the sake of augmenting landlord influence, of a
numerous and dependent class of tenant voters. But in the first place,
the occupier of a £10 house in villages and small towns belongs to a
decidedly higher social grade than the occupier of a £10 house in
cities; and, in the second place, it would not be difficult to meet the
objection, by requiring that the qualifying occupancy shall be, in the
county register, a house, and not a house and land, or by fixing a sum
which shall, as nearly as can be ascertained, be generally an equivalent
to the £10 occupancy contemplated by the present law.”—_Edinburgh
Review_, Oct. 1852, p. 472.
That is the second instance of appropriation on the part of the wise,
ripe, deliberate statesman, who for twenty years had been watching the
progress of his own handiwork with the view to introducing repairs.
Before this article in the _Edinburgh Review_ appeared, it had never
occurred to him how convenient it might be to swamp the counties, and
how very simple were the means of doing so! Now for appropriation
third:—
_Source of Lord John Russell’s proposal to admit all Graduates of
Universities to Town and County franchise._ “It is, of course,
desirable, and is admitted to be so by every party, that _all_ educated
men shall be voters; the difficulty is to name any ostensible
qualifications which shall include them, and them alone. But though we
cannot frame a criterion which shall include all, there is no reason why
we should not accept one which will include a considerable number of
whose fitness to possess the franchise there can be no question. We
would propose, therefore, that the franchise be granted to all
_graduates of Universities_,” &c.—_Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1852, p. 473.
Another hint adopted by Sir Fretful Plagiary! Next we come to a more
serious matter:—
_Source of Lord John Russell’s proposal for disfranchising the lesser
English boroughs._—“The great majority of them are notoriously
undeserving of the franchise, and those who know them best are least
disposed to undertake their defence. The plan of combining a number of
them into one constituency would be futile or beneficial according to
the details of each individual case. If a close or a rotten borough were
amalgamated with an open or a manufacturing town, much advantage might
possibly result; if two or three corrupt or manageable constituencies
merely united their iniquities, the evil of the existing things would
only be spread farther and rooted faster. We should propose, therefore,
at once to reduce the 61 boroughs with fewer than 500 electors, and now
returning 91 members, to one representative each.”—_Edinburgh Review_,
Oct. 1852, p. 496.
We shall see presently that this proposal was amended, as not being
sufficiently sweeping. Only thirty seats are here proscribed; but it was
afterwards found expedient to increase the black list to the number of
sixty-six. Pass we to the next instance of palpable cribbage.
_Source of Lord John Russell’s proposal that Members accepting office
shall not be obliged to vacate their seats._—“The most desirable man
cannot be appointed Colonial Minister, because his seat, if vacated,
might be irrecoverable. Administrations cannot strengthen themselves by
the alliance of colleagues who possess the confidence of the general
public, because the place for which they sit has been offended by some
unpopular vote or speech. We need add no more on this head: the
peculiarity of the case is, that we have no adverse arguments to
meet.”—_Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1852, p. 501.
The writer is decidedly wrong about the non-existence of adverse
arguments; and we shall be happy to convince him of the fact if he will
be kind enough to accord us a meeting. In the mean time, however, he has
humbugged Lord John, which was evidently his special purpose. Even while
we deprecate the morality of his proceeding, we can hardly forbear
expressing our admiration of his skill. We know not his earthly name or
habitation; but he _is_ a clever fellow, for he has led, with equal
audacity and success, the ex-Premier of Great Britain, and the father of
Reform, by the nose!
But we have not yet done. The article last referred to was penned and
published before the new Parliament met, towards the close of 1852, and
before the balance and state of parties could be ascertained. The result
of the election showed that parties were in effect almost equally
balanced—so much so, that, but for the junction of the Peelites with the
Liberals, Lord Derby would have obtained a majority. The election, it
will be remembered, took place under circumstances peculiarly
unfavourable to the Government; and never perhaps was misrepresentation
of every kind more unscrupulously employed than by the Liberal press on
that occasion. Still it became evident that Conservatism was gaining
ground in the country; and it was a natural inference that, after the
question of Protection was finally set at rest, its progress would be
still more rapid. This was not exactly what the writer in the _Edinburgh
Review_ had calculated on. He now saw that it would be necessary, if the
Liberal party was to be maintained in power, to go a good deal further
than he at first proposed; and accordingly, when he appears again before
us in October 1853, we find him armed this time, not with a
pruning-hook, but with a formidable axe. We hear no more about
“theoretical propriety”—he is evidently determined upon mischief. Now,
then, for his developed views, as adopted by his docile pupil.
_Source of Lord John Russell’s proposal that freemen shall have no
votes._—“There is no doubt in the mind of any man, we imagine, that
incomparably the most openly and universally venal portion of borough
constituencies are the old freemen, so unhappily and weakly retained by
the Reform Act of 1832.... The disfranchisement of the freemen is,
perhaps, of all steps which will be urged upon Parliament, the most
clearly and indisputably right and necessary, and, added to the plan
already suggested for pursuing individual cases of venality, will
probably sweep away the most incurably corrupt class of
electors.”—_Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1853, p. 596.
We have already seen that, in Oct. 1852, the reviewer proposed to
abstract thirty members from the smaller English boroughs. It became
evident, however, that so paltry a massacre of the innocents would not
suffice, more especially as it had become part of the scheme to swamp
the English counties. Accordingly we are told, in an off-hand and easy
manner: “To all that we said on a former occasion as to the theoretical
propriety and justice of the _small_ borough representation, we
unreservedly adhere. But, unfortunately, it is too notorious that these
boroughs are generally in a condition which, for the sake of electoral
purity, imperatively demands their disfranchisement, partial or entire.
_Here again it is true that parliamentary statistics do not altogether
bear out our conclusion._ Of the seventy-two boroughs convicted of
bribery between 1833 and 1853, only twenty-one can properly be called
small—as having fewer than five hundred electors—while some of the more
constantly and flagrantly impure places number their votes by
thousands.” So, according to the admission of even this writer, there is
no case established, on the ground of corruption, for the wholesale
disfranchisement of the small boroughs. Nevertheless we are to assume
them to be impure, because he says it is notorious that they are so; and
by this short and summary process of assertion he gets rid of the
trouble of investigation. The boroughs are not put upon their trial, for
there is no specific charge against them; but they are condemned at once
because the writer has a low opinion of their morality. This is worse
than Jeddart justice, where the trial took place after the execution. In
the case of the boroughs there is to be no trial at all. The following
conclusion is therefore easily arrived at: “There can be no doubt in the
mind of any reformer that, in some way or other, these small boroughs
ought to be suppressed; that we must have, if possible, no more
constituencies under one thousand electors.” So much for the
disfranchisement; now for the redistribution.
_Final scheme suggested to Lord John Russell for disfranchising the
small boroughs and swamping the counties._—“The third method proposed is
to merge all these small boroughs into the county constituencies, by
depriving them of their members, and reducing the county franchise to a
£10 occupancy. In this way the class would still be represented, and the
individuals would still retain their votes, and the electoral lists of
counties would be considerably modified and greatly enriched. This plan
would, we think, be far the fairest and most desirable, inasmuch as it
would give us constituencies large in number and varied in character,
and, therefore, to a great extent secure against illicit and undue
influences.”—_Edinburgh Review_, Oct. 1853, p. 602.
The next and last point which we shall notice is the representation of
minorities. We do not know to whom the credit of having invented this
notable scheme is really due. There are various claimants in the field.
Mr G. L. Craik, of Queen’s College, Belfast, asserts that he was the
original discoverer, having propounded a plan of this nature so early as
1836. Ingenious as the idea may be, it will hardly rank in importance
with the discovery of the steam-engine, nor do we think that its
originator is entitled to any exorbitant share of public gratitude or
applause. We shall give it as we find it in the _Review_.
_Source of Lord John Russell’s proposal to give members in certain cases
to minorities._—“The mode by which we propose to insure the constituent
minorities their fair share in the representation—_i. e._ to make the
majorities and minorities in the House of Commons correspond as nearly
as may be to majorities and minorities in the country, or in the
electoral bodies—is, to give (as now) to each elector as many votes as
there are members to be chosen, and to allow him to divide these votes
as he pleases among the candidates, _or to give them all to one_. But as
at present most places return two members, it is obvious that, under the
proposed arrangement, wherever the minority _exceeded one-third_ of the
total number of the electors, they would be able to return one member,
or to obtain _one-half_ the representation, which would be more than
their fair share, and would place them on an equality with the majority,
which would never do; while, if they _fell short of one-third_, they
would be, as now, virtually unrepresented and ignored. To obviate this,
it will be necessary so to arrange our electoral divisions, that as many
constituencies as possible should return _three_ members: one of these a
minority, if at all respectable, could always manage to secure.”—_Edin.
Review_, Oct. 1853, p. 622.
Here, at all events, is the notion about the representation of
majorities, and the establishment of as many constituencies as possible,
returning _three_ members. Lord John Russell’s method of working this,
is to restrict each elector to two votes.