Transcribed from the 1851 Religious Tract Society edition by David Price.
Many thanks to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Local
Studies, for allowing their copy to be used for this transcription.
THE
PALACE OF GLASS
AND THE
GATHERING OF THE PEOPLE.
A BOOK FOR THE EXHIBITION.
* * * * *
BY THE
REV. JOHN STOUGHTON.
Humani generis progressus,
Ex communi omnium labore ortus,
Uniuscujusque industriæ debet esse finis:
Hoc adjuvando,
Dei optimi maximi voluntatem exsequimur.
The progress of the human race,
Resulting from the common labour of all men,
Ought to be the final object of the exertion of each individual.
In promoting this end,
We are carrying out the will of the great and blessed God.
* * * * *
LONDON:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,
DEPOSITORY, 56, PATERNOSTER-ROW, AND 65, ST. PAUL’S
CHURCHYARD.
* * * * *
1851.
ADVERTISEMENT.
THE Writer of the following pages has, from the first announcement of the
project, taken a sunny view of the nature and tendency of the Great
Exhibition. Originating in the disinterested suggestions of the
Illustrious Prince Consort—designed and adapted to promote the interests
of art and commerce, and the fellowship of nations—supported by persons,
who, in addition to the distinctions of rank or wealth, are remarkable
for knowledge, benevolence, and piety—promoted generally from a desire to
advance the welfare of our country and mankind—responded to very
extensively abroad as well as at home with manifest cordiality and good
will—and calling forth and securing the prayers of Christians in
reference to the undertaking—it appeared to the Author to warrant
cheering and hopeful anticipations. The wonderful scene on the day of
opening—as must have been felt by those who have read the graphic
descriptions of it in the public prints, and especially by those who were
privileged to behold that unprecedented spectacle—was of a character to
strengthen favourable expectations of the result of the enterprise. The
order, harmony, and mutual kindness manifested by the vast multitude on
that occasion—the moral impression which it certainly made on many—and
the religious element introduced into the august ceremonial, evidently
awakening sympathy in thousands of hearts which then beat with strange
emotion—surely may be regarded as tokens for good!
The Author is far from intending to assume a tone of confident
prediction—remembering that only the Infinite and All-wise One can
embrace the entire bearings and tendencies of human events—but he may be
allowed to confess, that while he does not overlook the incidental evils
to which such a vast gathering of the people may give rise, his hopes
decidedly predominate over his fears. The following pages, expressive of
thoughts and feelings which are pervaded by the spirit thus indicated,
are now commended to the candid attention of the reader, with an earnest
prayer for the Divine blessing on their perusal.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
PAGE
THE POET’S DREAM 1
PART II.
CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE PAST AND PRESENT 29
PART III.
VOICES OF HOPE AND WARNING 51
PART IV.
ASSOCIATIONS, SECULAR AND SACRED 79
PART V.
BENEFICIAL RESULTS, PROBABLE AND POSSIBLE 115
PART VI.
LESSONS, PERTINENT AND PRACTICAL 145
PART I.
THE POET’S DREAM.
“The bard beholds the work achieved,
And, as he sees the shadow rise
Sublime before his wondering eyes,
Starts at the image his own mini conceived.”
KIRKE WHITE.
FIVE centuries ago there might have been seen in the streets of old
London, one of those gifted mortals who are now and then sent into the
world by the Father of spirits, to stamp their name upon the age in which
they live, and to enshrine its memory amidst the splendours of their own
genius. With a deep and luminous insight into the scenes of nature, the
works of art and the ways of men, did there look forth from those large
bright eyes of his a poetic soul of an order high and rare. As he passed
along the highways of his native city, to which he tells us he had “more
kindly love, and fuller appetite than to any other place on earth,” he
was gathering materials for a living picture of his times; or rather
forming a photograph representation of men around, catching in the magic
mirror of his verse the evanescent forms and colours, lights and shades,
of our Proteus-like humanity, and there retaining them in stedfast
imagery for ever.
Chaucer, though unhappily as a writer not free from moral blemishes, was,
like Hogarth, the great historic painter of his age, sketching not armies
in battle, or parliaments in conclave, but a people in their costume and
intercourse, their business and pastime, their private habits and daily
life. In turning over the black-letter volume of his works, we see and
hear our ancestors, and talk with them. It is as if the very glance of
the eye, the quivering of the lip, and the tones of the voice, had by
some strange process been preserved by this wonder-working artist.
But Chaucer often passed beyond the sphere of contemporary realities.
The lore of chivalry he was accustomed to weave into a rich tapestry of
verse; and ideal realms, and groups of visionary beings, he was wont to
sketch with the power and beauty of a Fuseli. It was in one of the
playful flights of his untiring fancy, that he touched on scenes and
objects strangely associated with the occasion of this little book;—it
occurs in a poem, well known as “Chaucer’s Dream.” Throughout the wild
revellings of his genius, which he has recorded in that production, it
would be beside our present purpose to follow him. The general plot and
machinery of the tale are in the extravagantly symbolic spirit of the
age,—utterly unlike what could happen at any period, and not at all
entering within the range of our conceptions now. In the nineteenth
century a poet’s strangest vision would not be like his. But amidst
associations out of all congruity with modern times did the bard we have
described fashion out a picture, almost the counterpart of what we have
lived to witness embodied in the actual work of men. He “had a dream
which was not all a dream.” He imagined, standing on an island, a
structure, whose wall and gate were “all of glass:”
“And so was closed round about,
That leaveless none came in or out—
And of a suit were all the towers,
Subtilly carven, after flowers
Of uncouth colours, during aye—
That never been, or seen, in May.”
This island of the Crystal Palace he represents under the sovereignty of
a beautiful lady, who becomes wedded to a royal knight, and he describes
a festival celebrated in tents on a large plain, by
“The Prince, the Queen, and all the rest,”
amidst a wood between “a river and a well,” continuing for three months,—
“From early rising of the sun
Until the day was spent and done.”
The coincidence between these parts of the poet’s dream and the reality
of 1851, with respect to the place, the Palace, the regal personages, and
the period of the year, is singular enough: it is one of those remarkable
exploits of thought, which appear sometimes in the form of reproductions
of the past, and sometimes in the form of anticipations of the
future,—exhibiting the counterpart of far distant things, now on the page
of history, then in poetic strains, and again in the records of
science—likenesses between what has been and what is, apparently without
any connexion whatever: likenesses which baffle the effort to explain the
law of their occurrence, and which seem to indicate the existence of
unfathomable sympathies between minds in ages present and remote, and
suggest to us yet once more the oft-told truth that there are more things
in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy. What was the
precise form and fashion of the structure Chaucer pictured in his charmed
isle we cannot tell; but we question whether, even in his boldest dreams,
he ever saw aught so marvellous as that which the people of all lands are
flocking, or will flock, to see in our Hyde Park the present summer.
Chaucer was not ignorant of the ways of building in the age in which he
lived, for he was appointed clerk of the works at Windsor Castle, in the
year 1390; but assuredly, among all the plans which were ever suggested
by his genius, or adopted by his judgment, as capable of being reduced to
realities, such a thing as the grand transparent Hall of Industry never
entered his mind.
It may indeed be said, that every beautiful work of art was once a
dream,—it floated in the imagination before it was fixed and made visible
by the hand. A picture by Corregio or Rubens is a painter’s dream
transferred to canvass. The Apollo Belvidere is a sculptor’s dream
carved in marble. Milton’s “Paradise Lost” is a poet’s dream committed
to paper. Strasburg Cathedral is an architect’s dream built up in stone.
Thousands of strange images arise in artistic minds which of necessity
never find expression in any actual work; some, also, worthy of being set
in ripe and lasting fruit, perish in the blossom: but all the great
productions of ancient and modern times assuredly constitute a harvest,
of which the seeds were only dreams. To whatever order of genius the
origin of the Crystal Palace belongs, it certainly embodies a beautiful
dream, which in a happy hour lighted on the fancy of Mr. Paxton. It was
shaping itself into form during the few days he thus describes:
“It was not until one morning when I was present with my friend Mr.
Ellis, at an early sitting in the House of Commons, that the idea of
sending in a design occurred to me. A conversation took place
between us, with reference to the construction of the New House of
Commons, in the course of which I observed that I was afraid they
would also commit a blunder in the building for the Industrial
Exhibition. I told him that I had a notion in my head, and that if
he would accompany me to the Board of Trade, I would ascertain
whether it was too late to send in a design. Well, this was on
Friday, the 11th of June. From London I went to the Menai Straits,
to see the third tube of the Britannia Bridge placed, and on my
return to Derby, I had to attend some business at the Board-room,
during which time, however, my whole mind was devoted to this
project; and, whilst the business proceeded, I sketched the outline
of my design on a large sheet of blotting-paper. Having sketched
this design on blotting-paper, I sat up all night until I had worked
it out to my own satisfaction.”
Thus was created in the inventor’s mind an image of his work, with a
rapidity precursive of the speed with which the work itself has since
been realized. The dream grew up and bore its ripened fruits in a few
hours: the Industrial Palace, in a few months, has attained its full
perfection; so that, as if by miracle, it now looks like the old
fig-tree,—
“Such as at this day to Indians known—
In Malabar or Deccan, spreads her arms,
Branching so broad and long, that on the ground
The bending twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree; a pillar’d shade,
High overarch’d, and echoing walks between.”
We do not know whether Mr. Paxton possesses what is generally understood
by a poetic mind; but, certainly, no one who has gazed on the stupendous
structure erected in Hyde Park, according to his plan, but must feel that
a poetical idea there stands expressed. So gigantic in its dimensions,
simple in its form, and graceful in its details, it awakens a sense of
vague wonder, which, on a careful survey of the object exciting it,
subsides into calm, intelligent admiration. It inspires a curiosity to
examine into the parts and proportions of so strange an edifice—into the
minute and delicate filling up of so bold an outline; and commends itself
to the taste and judgment of the spectator, as it spreads out before his
eye, like the pages of a volume, and reveals, on close inspection—
—“The subtle shining secrecies
Writ in the glassy margin of such books.”
Seen a little while ago, as the morning vapours rolled round its
base,—its far stretching roofs, rising one above another, and its great
transept, majestically arched, soaring out of the envelope of clouds, its
pillars, window-bars, and pinnacles enamelled with rich hoar-frost, the
trees around it all sparkling with the same bright ornament,—the
structure looked literally a castle in the air, like some palace, such as
one reads of in idle tales of Arabian enchantment, having about it all
the ethereal softness of a dream,—being itself “the fabric of a vision,”
rather than a structure of solid and enduring material. Looked at from a
distance at noon, when the sunbeams come pouring upon the terraced and
vaulted top, it resembles a regal palace of silver, built for some
eastern prince; when the sun at eventide sheds on its sides his parting
rays, the edifice is transformed into a temple of gold and rubies; and in
the calm hours of night, when “the moon walketh in her brightness,” the
immense surface of glass which the building presents, looks like a sea or
lake throwing back in flickering smiles the radiant glances of the queen
of heaven. Ever does it repose in its strong, though not stone-built,
foundations—the very image of beauty and strength.
The antecedent of this great work—the parent construction, of which it is
the offspring, nobler than its sire—had more than a dash of poetry about
it. The building we refer to is the glass conservatory at Chatsworth,
contrived for the preservation of the gigantic water-lily, found on
new-year’s day, 1837, on the river Berbice, in Demerara, and sent to
England by sir Robert Schomburgh. The arrival of the extraordinary
plant, with its six-foot leaf, shaped like an elegant salver, and adorned
with broad rims of green and crimson, was warmly welcomed by that patron
of botanical science, the duke of Devonshire, and forthwith committed to
the charge of Mr. Paxton, then and still the scientific and tasteful
horticulturist-in-chief at the far-famed paradise of the Peak. Improving
upon all his former improvements in the arrangement of glass-houses, he
contrived a fitting receptacle for this new specimen of the western
flora, surnamed the “_Victoria Regia_,”—and “so well had everything been
prepared for its reception, that it flourished as vigorously as if it had
been restored to its native soil and climate. Its growth and development
were astonishingly rapid, for on the 9th of November a flower was
produced a yard in circumference. In little more than a month after the
first seeds ripened, some of them were tilled; and on the 16th of
February succeeding, young plants made their appearance. The
extraordinary lily obeyed nature’s law of development with such
unexpected rapidity, that it outgrew the dimensions of its home in little
more than a month.” This circumstance gave rise to a new conservatory of
much greater extent, out of which has grown the idea of the present, and
much vaster one, for receiving the world’s industry—one which throws its
predecessor into the shade, and which, in addition to its other wonders,
included within its vitreous walls some fine old trees, above a hundred
feet in height.
To return again to Chaucer; we cannot help thinking how much there is in
this glass palace, and in what is connected with it, which would have
seemed even to his credulous fancy, more strange and startling than any
dream. Whence all the glass could come, needful for a building composed
chiefly of such material, and of length more than quadruple that of St.
Peter’s Abbey at Westminster, would have sorely puzzled our architect and
poet to divine, in days when glass windows were so little used, that his
great contemporary, William of Wykeham, who built Windsor Castle, was
hard put to it to find twelve glaziers to do the work there, and actually
had to _press_ men into the service from different counties! The unity
of principle, too, pervading the whole construction—everything in the
great building being a dividend or multiple of twenty-four {14}—so
different from the bold, yet not inharmonious, irregularity of the
cathedrals, churches, and castles which Chaucer had seen; and the variety
of uses sub-served by one and the same member of the edifice; columns
serving the purpose of water-drains, and the floor being at once a
ventilator and a dust-trap, securing conveniences of which he never
thought, and strangely different from the cumbrous contrivances employed
for such simple and necessary ends as were then contemplated,—would have
startled and discomposed him with a long-enduring surprise. And, then,
the haste with which the beautiful dream has been wrought out into
well-compacted wood and glass and iron, the few months taken for its
completion—rapid as the growth of the _Victoria Regia_; and the thousands
of men engaged in its erection,—the preparation of the parts before they
were brought together,—the strange machinery employed in the
preparation,—the fact of the structure serving as a scaffold for
itself—and the small expense of the whole, not amounting to more than one
halfpenny per cubic foot,—these items in the history of the building
would surely have made him open his eyes and lift up his hands in wild
astonishment.
But the strangeness of the dream ends not here. We must think of what is
included within this vast area, what is exhibited in its long aisles and
galleries where are gathered and arranged the productions of every art in
every clime—arts which five hundred years ago had no existence, and
climes then undiscovered. Articles, a list of which will fill a portly
volume; the handiwork of man and woman in every sort of usable material.
Works of strength and skill for necessity and convenience—for comfort and
luxury—for ornament and display—things carved, and moulded, and
woven—vast and minute, bold and elegant, simple and elaborate, running
through all the conceivable departments and grades of inventive industry!
Groups, heaps, masses of all manner of cunning work!
And the whole of the contents in this hive of the world classified
according to the clime from which they come! At the extreme east of the
edifice one sees the productions of America, our young and ardent rival
in ingenious toil. Next are the fruits of rising art in Russia, with
specimens of skilful labour sent by Norwegians and Swedes. There are
found rich stores from the shops of German craftsmen. The Zollverein
exhibits its treasures in close vicinity to these; and beyond are seen
contributions from the provinces of Austria. The Dutch, the Belgic, and
the French vie with each other further on; and close to them, Portugal,
Spain, and Italy also appear in friendly contest for the palm of
pre-eminence. Switzerland, in the contiguous space, spreads out her
various wares, beside which Brazil and Mexico deposit their rich
freights; and then Egypt, Turkey, China, Greece, Persia, and Arabia, in
close neighbourhood, exhibit a harvest of oriental taste. Crossing the
transept, at once a garden and a refectory—where, beneath over-arching
trees, and beside sparkling fountains, the spectator of this the world’s
great horn of plenty may refresh himself with various delicacies—he is
forthwith introduced to the products of the distant “Ind,” and the
numerous ramifications of our colonial dependencies, to terminate at
length this tour around the globe, performed under a case of glass, with
a sight of the immense assemblage of our home manufactures, gathered from
almost every town and village in the British Isles. Nine miles of
table-room are thus passed in review; and it would require days and weeks
to circumnavigate this epitome of the manufacturing world, and only to
glance with anything like intelligence at the various divisions of its
affluent stores. A traveller who has visited in detail the chief
manufactories of European countries must feel himself to be in a kind of
dream, when looking on these achievements of human industry brought
together, not merely from the English provinces, and the European
continent, but from the remotest regions of this and the other
hemisphere. A dream, then, indeed, would it have seemed to the father of
English poetry, with his limited knowledge of geography and art, could he
have paced along these spacious alleys, lined with the peaceful spoils of
all the earth.
The sight of these interesting objects is suggestive of important
reflections. Imagining oneself left alone in the vast building—permitted
to tread in silence the deserted halls—what musings might arise relative
to themes awfully beautiful, which the giddy portion of the daily crowd
within the walls have never entertained!
This repository of art, with all its varied contents, is the production
of the human mind. Its constructive skill is singularly exhibited in the
edifice itself; not such constructive skill as can be confounded with the
instinct of the bird or bee, not a blind impulsive power; but a
clear-eyed intelligence, which can survey, and consider, and contrive,
and adapt, and fashion, according to the exigency of the case, in ways
more various than art can classify. Of the power of human discovery, the
detection of latent qualities in nature, a remarkable example is afforded
in the history of the material out of which the building itself is
chiefly wrought.—That the vitrification of sand and nitrium, noticed
accidentally by the Phœnician mariners, according to the once generally
received account by Pliny; or that some other occurrence at a much
earlier period, as is now commonly believed, should have led men to
perceive, in materials perfectly opaque, capabilities of transformation
into a substance perfectly transparent; that out of dingy masses of
mineral could be spread forth sheets of liquid diamonds, broad as the
awning over the Coliseum at Rome; that it was possible to mould this
brittle material, as if it were so much wax or clay; that, hard as rock,
it might be blown into a bubble soft and light as a drop of water; that,
white as the sunbeam, it could receive and retain all the dyes of the
rainbow; constitute a series of marvels, forming but one out of a
thousand chapters included in the annals of human discovery. The plastic
power of the human mind is also here displayed in the almost infinitely
diversified forms which, under its touch, the rude materials of nature
have received. Timber and stone, cut into elegant shapes for useful
purposes, or with astonishing truthfulness made to resemble the most
delicate expressions of animated nature, even to the feather of a bird
and the petal of a flower! Earth moulded by hand or machinery, and
metals wrought or cast in a thousand mimic fashions!
Nor should we omit to notice, in these objects of art, a deep desire to
embody in material things the _beau idéal_, to rise above the dull
purpose of mere utility and convenience, to give a touch of beauty to the
commonest aids and implements of life, to lift art to a lofty sphere, and
to surround it with a brilliant halo. Man is seen as the lover of
artistic perfection, tasking his powers to conceive and execute what
shall at least approach a standard too lofty for him yet to measure, but
of the existence of which he has the consciousness, deep though dim. He
may be said to fight a battle with the obstinate resistance of material
nature, and though oft defeated, still struggles for the victory! The
spiritual takes possession of the physical, as a foreign realm, which it
seeks to subdue to its own purposes. The _distinct essence_ of the soul
is also asserted. Its attempt to rule over all around, and to enrich
itself with the spoils of the conquered region, is not a contest with a
co-ordinate and equal power, but it is the effort of a kingly nature so
formed by God, created in his image, and inaugurated into regal office,
at the beginning when the charge was given, “Replenish the earth and
subdue it.” The superiority of the mind over all material nature is thus
unequivocally proclaimed.
And amidst all this, does he not catch glimpses of things purer, nobler,
and more enduring than the things of earth? Does he not feel at times
that there are objects existing somewhere, incomparably more beautiful
than any work of art? Has he not raised within him a conception of
invisible and spiritual realms more wonderful than the material? And is
there not also to be recognised, in the ambition of the artist who
strives to produce a work which his admirers vainly call immortal, a
strong craving for some after-existence—a flinching from the thought,
that death is to put an end to all—a wish, at least, to impress some
characteristic idea of his own on some portion or particle of the great
whole of things, so that he may live by representation if not in
consciousness.
Yet, while such musings on the works of men open up to us deeps of power
and beauty in the soul, they only reveal a small division of the vast
world of human nature. We visit but a single province of the
intellectual realm: we leave unexplored the vast domains enriched by the
growths of literature and science; while the emotions, social affections,
moral feelings, and religious capacities of the soul remain untouched.
No account is here taken of conscience, and of the capability of knowing,
loving, and serving his Maker, which form the highest distinction of
man’s nature. Yet even from our partial and limited view of the subject,
we derive no slight conviction of the immortality of that nature to which
such attributes as we have described belong. Great as may be the mystery
of a future existence, most certainly the mysteries connected with the
denial of this truth are greater still. It involves the supposition that
what in nature, power, and capability is perfectly distinct from the
material form in which it dwells, and by which it works, is to perish
with it:—that the inmate is to die with the decay of his dwelling, the
artist expire with the breaking of his implement;—that a being possessed
of unbounded capacities of improvement is destined to advance only a few
steps in his proper career, and then be arrested in his course for
ever;—that a life of thought and feeling, which contains the germs of
higher thoughts and feelings, awaiting, as essential to their full
development, other influences than those which are shed on earth, is to
be succeeded by eternal unconsciousness and oblivion;—and that a soul
which finds in the present life a range too narrow for the full and
vigorous scope of its nascent powers and feelings, is to be disappointed
in its earnest longings and deep-seated hopes. It involves the
supposition of a Divine design intimated, and then thrown aside—a Divine
promise pledged and broken. The Great Architect would appear
constructing a portico as if introductory to a magnificent temple, and
then, suddenly stopping short in the work, breaking it down, and
scattering its beauty in the dust.
The construction of the Crystal Palace, with its contents, is a monument
to the superiority of mind over matter; and that superiority indicates
some great destiny hereafter. Immortality rises upon the eye of reason
in the hazy distance: but confidence in relation to the future state must
come from another quarter, through the exercise of faith. “Life and
immortality” are brought “to light through the gospel.”
Nor can we properly terminate reflections of this order without going
back to the source and origin of mind. If the material universe bears
witness to the existence and character of a Great First Cause; if “the
invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made;” if “the heavens declare
the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork;” if the earth
be full of his goodness; how much more does the soul of man, with all its
capacities and powers, its intellect and genius, and, above all, its
moral and religious susceptibilities, bear testimony to the being and
attributes of the Creator. The marks of design in the mind of man,
himself a designer, are more astonishing than those which we have in
visible things. The power and beneficence of God, in giving us faculties
of thought and susceptibilities of affection, appear with a plainness of
expression even beyond what we discover in any of the material provisions
for our comfort. While the whole universe is a volume in which God has,
as it were, written down his thoughts, what page in it is so wonderful as
the human mind? Whatever is great or beautiful in the imagination of
man—whatever there is to admire in the works of his hands, fashioned
according to the intellectual type within, must be traced up to the
infinite source of intelligence, as its origin. Man has nothing which he
has not received. What then must that unrevealed fount of beauty be, of
which all the choice thoughts and beautiful imaginings of men from the
beginning, however they have been expressed, are but as drops and spray!