manners and morals. Proud indeed he was, as a peacock, and ambitious as
a “climbing-boy,” desirous for ever of being at the top, as speedily
as possible, of every branch of his profession. He was the “professor
of dancing” in the Abingdon family, where his agreeable person, his
ready wit, his amiability, and the modesty beneath which he hid a world
of pretension, rendered him a general favorite. He was very soon the
friend of the house; and long before he had achieved _that_ rank, he
was the very particular friend of Lady Elizabeth Bertie. She loved her
mother’s soft Italian as Gallini spoke it; and in short she loved the
Italian also, language and speaker. Lady and Signor became one.
When the match became publicly known the “did you evers?” that reached
from box to box and echoed along the passages of the opera-house were
deafening. “A lady of quality marry a dancer!” Why not, when maids of
honor were held by royal coachmen as being bad company for the said
coachman’s sons? It was a more suitable match than that of a lady of
quality with her father’s footman.
Gallini happened to be in one of the lobbies soon after his marriage,
where it was being loudly discussed by some angry beauties. In the
midst of their ridicule of the bridegroom he approached, and exclaimed,
“Lustrissima, son io! Excellent lady, I am the man!” “And what does the
man call himself?” asked they with a giggle, and doubtless also with
reference to the story of the bridegroom considering himself a lord by
right of his marriage with a “lady”--“what does the man call himself?”
“Eccelenza,” replied Gallini with a modest bow, “I am Signor Giovanni
Gallini, Esquire.” In the midst of their laughter he turned upon his
heel, and went away to dress in flesh-colored tights, short tunic, and
spangles.
The marriage was not at first an unhappy one. There were several
children, but difficulties also increased much faster than the family.
Not pecuniary difficulties, for Gallini was a prudent man, but class
difficulties. The signor found himself without a properly-defined
position, or what is quite as uneasy probably in itself, he was above
his proper position, without being able to exact the homage that he
thought was due to him. The brother-in-law of the earl was in the
eyes of his own wife, only the dancing-master of their children.
Considering that the lady had condescended to be their mother, she
might have carried the condescension a little farther, and paid more
respect to the father. Dissension arose, and in a _tour de mains_
family interferences rendered it incurable. The quarrel was embittered,
a separation ensued, and after a tranquil union of a few years, there
were separate households, with common ill-will in both.
He felt himself no longer a “lord,” even by courtesy, but he resolved
to be what many lords have tried to be, in vain, or who ruined
themselves by being, namely, proprietor and manager of the opera-house.
This was in 1786, by which time he had realized a fortune by means of
much industry, active heels, good looks, capital benefits, monopoly of
teaching, prudence, temperance, and that economy, which extravagant
people call parsimony. This fortune, or rather a portion of it, he
risked in the opera-house--and lost it all, of course. He commenced
his career with as much spirit as if he had only been the steward of
another man’s property; and he made engagements in Italy with such
generosity and patriotism, that the Pope having leisure for a while to
turn his thoughts from divinity to dancing, became as delighted with
Gallini as Pio Nono was with Fanny Cerito. We are bound to believe that
his holiness was in a fit of infallible enthusiasm, when he dubbed
Gallini, Knight of the Golden Spur. The latter returned to London and
wrote himself down “Sir John.” Cards were just come into fashion, to
enable people to pay what were called “visites en blanc,” and “Sir John
Gallini,” was to be seen in every house where the latter had friend or
acquaintance. His portrait was in all the shops, with this chivalric
legend beneath it, and there are yet to be seen old opera libretti with
a frontispiece exhibiting to an admiring public the effigies of “Sir
John Gallini.”
The public liked the sound, liked the man, and sanctioned the title,
by constantly applying it to the individual, without any mental
reserve. They had seen so many fools made knights that they were glad
to see a spirited man make one of himself, by application of “Sir” to
a papally-conferred title. The law, however, no more allowed it than
it did that of the Romanist official who got presented at court as
“Monsignore something,” and whose presentation was cancelled as soon as
the pleasant trick was discovered. Gallini, however, continued in the
uninterrupted title until circumstances brought him, as a witness, into
the presence of Lord Kenyon. When the Italian opera-dancer announced
himself in the hearing of that judge as Sir John Gallini, the sight of
the judge was what Americans call “a caution.” His lordship looked as
disgusted as Lord Eldon used to do, when he heard an Irish Romanist
Bishop called by a territorial title. As far as the wrath of Lord
Kenyon could do it, metaphorically, the great judge un-sir-John’d Sir
John and chopped off his golden spurs in open court. Gallini was so
good-natured and popular, that the public opinion would not confirm the
opinion of the judge, and Sir John remained Sir John, in the popular
mouth, throughout the kingdom.
He was growing rich enough to buy up half the knights in the country.
He built the music-rooms in Hanover Square, for Bach and Abel’s
subscription concerts. That is, he built the house; and let it out to
any who required any portion of it, for any purpose of music, dancing,
exhibiting, lecturing, or any other object having profit in view. He
lodged rather than lived in it himself, for he had reserved only a
small cabinet for his own use, magnificently sacrificing the rest of
the mansion for the use of others, who paid him liberally for such use.
Therewith, Sir John continued his old profession as teacher as well as
performer, manager at home as well as at the theatre; wary speculator,
saving--avaricious, as they said who failed to cheat him of his money
on faith of illusory promises, with an admirable eye for a bargain, and
admirable care for the result of the bargain after he had concluded it.
Everything went as merrily with him as it did with Polycrates, and
ill-fortune and he seemed never to be acquainted, till one fatal night
in 1789, the Opera House was burned to the ground, and the tide that
had been so long flowing was now thought to be on the ebb. Sir John
was too heroic to be downcast, and he did what many a hero would never
even have thought of doing, nor, indeed, any wise man either. He put
down thirty thousand pounds in hard cash toward the rebuilding of the
opera-house, sent to Italy for the best architectural plans, left no
means unemployed to erect a first rate theatre, and worked for that
object with as much integrity as if the safety of the universe depended
on the building of an opera-house in the Haymarket. What the public
lost in one night was thus being made good to them by another.
Meanwhile fashion was in a deplorable state of musical destitution.
What was to become of London without an opera? How could the world,
the infinitesimal London world, exist without its usual allowance of
roulades and rigadoons? Our knight was just the champion to come in
beneficially at such an extremity. He opened the little theatre in the
Haymarket, and nobody went to it. Fashion turned up its nose in scorn,
and kept away; nay, it did worse, it acted ungratefully, and when some
speculators established an opera at the Pantheon, Fashion led the way
from the Haymarket, and a host of followers went in her train to Oxford
street. “I will victoriously bring her back to her old house,” said Sir
John. The knight was gallant-hearted, but he did not know that he had
other foes besides Fashion.
Sir John got into difficulties through law, lawyers, and false friends.
He ruled as monarch at the opera-house, only to fall, with ruin. But
he was not a man to be dismayed. His courage, zeal, and industry, were
unbounded. He applied all these to good purpose, and his life was
not only a useful but an honorable and a prosperous one. It ended,
after extending beyond the ordinary allotted time of man, calmly, yet
somewhat suddenly; and “Sir John” Gallini died in his house in Hanover
Square, leaving a large fortune, the memory of some eccentricities,
and a good name and example, to his children. For my part, I can never
enter the ancient concert-rooms in Hanover Square, without wishing a
“Requiescat!” to the knight of the Golden Spur, by whom the edifice was
constructed.
If Sir John Gallini, the dancer, could boast of having been knighted by
a pope, Crescentini, the singer, could boast of having been knighted
by an emperor. He received this honor at the hands of Napoleon I. He
had previously been accustomed to compliments from, or in presence of,
emperors. Thus, in 1804, at Vienna, he sang the _Ombra adorata_ in the
character of Romeo, with such exquisite grace and tenderness, that, on
one occasion, when he had just finished this admirable lyric piece, the
whole court forming part of his audience, two doves descended from the
clouds, bearing him a crown of laurels, while on every side, garlands
and flowers were flung upon the enchanted and enchanting warbler.
The Austrian Emperor paid him more honor than his predecessor had
ever paid to the Polish king who saved the empire from the Turks. The
reputation of Crescentini gained for him an invitation, in 1809, to the
imperial court of France. He played in company with Grassini, the two
representing Romeo and Juliet. The characters had never been better
represented, and Talma, who was present, is said to have wept--an _on
dit_ which I do not credit, for there is not only nothing to cry at
in the Italian characters, but Talma himself was in no wise addicted
to indulgence in the melting mood, nor had he even common courtesy
for his own actual Juliet. But the great actor was pleased, and the
great emperor was delighted; so much so, that he conferred an honor on
Crescentini which he would never grant to Talma--made a chevalier of
him. It is true that Talma desired to be made a knight of the Legion
of Honor; but the emperor would not place on the breast of a tragedian
that cross which was the reward, then, only of men who had played
their parts well, in real and bloody tragedies. The French tragedian
declined the honor that was now accorded to Crescentini, whom the
emperor summoned to his box, and decorated him with the insignia of
the knight of the Iron Crown. The singing chevalier was in ecstacies.
But the Juliet of the night had more cause to be so, for to her,
Napoleon presented a draft on the Treasury, for 20,000 francs. “It will
be a nice little dower for one of my nieces,” said the ever-generous
Grassini to one of her friends, on the following day. Several years
after this, a little niece, for whom she had hitherto done little,
came to her, with a contralto voice, and a request for assistance.
After hearing her sing, Grassini exclaimed, “You have no contralto
voice, and need small help. You will have, with care, one of the finest
mezzo-sopranos in the world. Your throat will be to you a mine of gold,
and you may be both rich and renowned, my dear Giulietta Grisi.” The
niece has excelled the aunt.
Knights of the shire are but sham knights _now_, and they originally
sprung from a revolutionary movement. Previous to the reign of Henry
III. the people had no voice in the selection of their legislators. In
that king’s reign, however, the legislators were at loggerheads. Simon
de Montfort, the aristocratic head of a popular party, was opposed to
the king; and the great earl and his friends being fearful of being
outvoted in the next parliament, succeeded in procuring the issue of a
writ in the name of the king, who was then their prisoner, directing
the sheriffs of each county to send two knights, and the authorities
in cities and boroughs to send citizens and burgesses, to represent
them in parliament. This was a fundamental change of a long-established
usage. It was, in fact, a revolution; and the foundation at least
of that form of a constitution on which our present constitutional
substantiality has been erected.
When the king became emancipated, however, although he continued to
summon “barons and great men,” he never during his reign issued a writ
for the election of knights of the shire. His son, Edward I., summoned
the greater and lesser barons, or his tenants in chief, according to
the old usage. This he did during, at least, seven years of his reign.
The last were not barons, but they were summoned as “barons’ peers, and
all these attended in their own persons,” and not as representatives of
the people. In the reign of John, indeed, the people’s voice had been
heard, but it may be stated generally, that until the forty-ninth of
Henry III., the _constituent_ parts of the great council of the nation
was composed solely of the archbishops and bishops, the earls, barons,
and tenants _in capite_.
It is a singular fact that, in the early elections, the knights of the
shire were elected by universal suffrage; and so, indeed, they are
now, in a certain way, as I shall explain, after citing the following
passage from Hallam’s State of Europe during the Middle Ages: “Whoever
may have been the original voters for county representatives, the
first statute that regulates their election, so far from limiting the
privilege to tenants _in capite_, appears to place it upon a very
large and democratical foundation. For (as I rather conceive, though
not without much hesitation) not only all freeholders, but all persons
whatever present at the county court, were declared, or rendered,
capable of voting for the knight of their shire. Such at least seems
to be the inference from the expressions of 7 Henry IV., c. 15, ‘all
who are there present, as well suitors duly summoned for that cause, as
others.’ And this acquires some degree of confirmation from the later
statute 8 Henry VI., c. 7, which, reciting that ‘elections of knights
of shires have now, of late, been made by very great, outrageous, and
excessive number of people dwelling within the same counties, of the
which most were people of small substance and of no value,’ confines
the elective franchise to freeholders of lands or tenements to the
value of forty shillings.”
The original summons to freeholders was, without doubt, by general
proclamation, so that, as Mr. Hallam remarks, “it is not easy to see
what difference there could be between summoned and unsummoned suitors.
And if the words are supposed to glance at the private summonses to a
few friends, by means of which the sheriffs were accustomed to procure
a clandestine election, one can hardly imagine that such persons
would be styled ‘duly summoned.’ It is not unlikely, however,” adds
Mr. Hallam, “that these large expressions were inadvertently used,
and that they led to that inundation of voters without property which
rendered the subsequent act of Henry VI. necessary. That of Henry IV.
had itself been occasioned by an opposite evil, the close election of
knights by a few persons in the name of the county.”
The same writer proceeds to observe that the consequence of the statute
of Henry IV. was not to let in too many voters, or to render election
tumultuous in the largest of English counties, whatever it might be
in others. Prynne, it appears, published some singular indentures for
the county of York, proceeding from the sheriffs, during the intervals
between the acts of the fourth and sixth Henry. These “are selected
by a few persons calling themselves the attorneys of some peers and
ladies, who, as far as it appears, had solely returned the knights of
that shire. What degree of weight,” says Mr. Hallam, “these anomalous
returns ought to possess, I leave to the reader.”
I have said that the universal suffrage system in the election of
these knights (and indeed of others) as far as it can be carried out,
in allowing all persons present to have a voice, is still strictly
in force. Appeal is made to the popular assembly as to the choice of
a candidate. The decision is duly announced by the highest authority
present, and then the rejected candidate may, if he thinks proper,
appeal from the people present to those who are legally qualified
to vote. The first ceremony is now a very unnecessary one, but it
is, without doubt, the relic of a time when observation of it bore
therewith a serious meaning.
From parliament to the university is no very wide step. Sir Hugh
Evans and Sir Oliver Martext were individuals who, with their titles,
are very familiar to the most of us. The knightly title thus given
to clergymen, was not so much by way of courtesy, as for the sake of
distinction. It was “worn” by Bachelors of Arts, otherwise “Domini,”
to distinguish them from the Masters of Arts, or “Magistri.” Properly
speaking, the title was a local one, and ought not to have been used
beyond the bounds of the University: but as now-a-days with the case
of “captains” of packet-boats, they are also captains at home; so, in
old times, the “Sir” of the University was Sir Something Somebody,
everywhere.
We laugh at the French for so often describing our knights only by
their surnames, as “Sir Jones.” This, however, is the old English form
as it was used at Cambridge. The Cambridge “Sirs” were addressed by
Christian and surname in their livings, and in documents connected
therewith. This practice continued till the title itself was abandoned
some time after the Reformation. The old custom was occasionally
revived by the elderly stagers, much to the astonishment of younger
hearers. Thus when Bishop Mawson of Llandaff was on one occasion
at court, he encountered there a reverend Bachelor of Arts, Fellow
of Bene’t College, and subsequently Dean of Salisbury. His name
was Greene. The bishop, as soon as he saw the “bachelor” enter the
drawing-room, accosted him loudly in this manner: “How do you do, Sir
Greene? When did you leave college, Sir Greene?” _Mr._ Greene observing
the astonishment of those around him, took upon himself to explain that
the bishop was only using an obsolete formula of bygone times. The most
recent courtesy title that I can remember, was one given to a blind
beggar who was very well known in the vicinity of Trinity College,
Dublin, where, indeed, he had been a student some five-and-thirty years
ago. He was invariably styled “Domine John,” and he could return a
suitable answer in good Latin, to the query, _Quo modo vales?_--or to
any other query.
“_Vale!_” is indeed what I ought to utter to the courteous reader; nor
will I detain him longer--supposing he has kindly borne with me thus
far--than with one brief chapter more, which, being miscellaneous, I
may not inaptly call “Pieces of Armor.”
PIECES OF ARMOR.
The word Pieces reminds me of a curious theatrical illustration of
Macedonian chivalry. When Barry used to play Alexander the Great,
he made a grand spectacle of his chariot entry. But it was highly
absurd, nevertheless. When he descended from the vehicle, his attendant
knights, bareheaded and unarmed, placed their hands upon it, and in an
instant it went to pieces, like a trick in a pantomime, and left in
every warrior’s possession, swords, javelins, shields, and helmets,
supplied by the spokes of the wheels, the poles, the body of the
car and its ornaments. This feat was very highly applauded by our
intellectual sires.
This act, however, was hardly more unnatural than the sayings of some
real chevaliers, particularly those of Spain.
Among the Spanish Rhodomontades chronicled by Brantome, we find none
that have not reference to personal valor. There is the choleric
swordsman who walks the street without his weapon, for the good reason
that his hand is so ready to fly to his sword, if the wind but blow
on him too roughly, he is never able to walk out armed without taking
two or three lives. “I will hoist you so high,” says another Spanish
cavalier to his antagonist, “that you will die before you can reach
the earth again.” It was a fellow of the same kidney who used not
only to decapitate dozens of Moorish heads every morning, but was
wont afterward to fling them so high into the air, that they were
half-devoured by flies before they came down again. Another, boasting
of his feats in a naval battle, quietly remarked, that making a thrust
downward with his sword, it passed through the sea, penetrated the
infernal region, and sliced off a portion of the moustache of Pluto!
“If that man be a friend of yours,” said a cavalier to a companion,
referring at the same time to a swordsman with whom the cavalier had
had angry words, “pray for his soul, for he has quarrelled with me.”
The self-complacency also of the following is not amiss. A Spanish
captain in Paris, saw the haughty chevalier d’Ambres pass by him. “Is
he,” said the Spaniard, “as valiant as he is proud?” The reply was in
the affirmative. “Then,” remarked the Iberian, “he is almost as good a
man as myself.” We hear of another, less gallant, perhaps, than brave,
who made it a great favor to ladies when he put off a combat at their
request, and passed a pleasant hour with them, in place of knocking
out brains upon the field. It was a knight of similar notions who
cudgelled his page for boasting of the knight’s valor. “If thou dost
such foolish things, Sir Knave,” said the doughty gentleman, “the whole
female sex will perish of love for me, and I shall have no leisure left
to take towns and rout armies.” This was a full-developed knight. It
was probably his youthful squire who remarked, when some one expressed
surprise that one so young had mustaches of such unusual length. “They
sprung up,” said the young soldier, “under the smoke of cannon; they
grew thus quickly under the same influences.”
Some of the old Spanish cavaliers used to maintain that their very
beauty dazzled their enemies. However this may have been, it is a fact
that the beauty of Galeozo Maria, Duke of Milan, was sufficiently
striking to save him for a while, against the daggers of conspirators.
One of these, named Lampugnano, longed to slay him, but did not dare.
He was, nevertheless, resolved; and he employed a singular means
for giving himself courage. He procured a faithful portrait of the
handsome duke, and every time he passed it, he looked steadfastly at
the brilliant eyes, and graceful features, and then plunged his dagger
into the canvass. He continued this practice until he found himself
enabled to look the living duke in the face without being dazzled by
his beauty; and this done, he dealt his blow steadily, and destroyed
his great and graceful foe.