to everything one eats in it to know that it has been celebrated
by Shakspeare, that from the year in which it was built (1466) it
was associated with whatever has been most romantic in the history
of London. Here Sir John Rest was installed as Lord Mayor in the
days (1516) when the Lord Mayor’s Show meant something. The civic
procession which accompanied him contained four giants, one unicorn,
one dromedary, one camel, one ass, one dragon, six hobby-horses, and
sixteen naked boys. Here resided Sir Thomas More, Under-treasurer and
Lord High Chancellor of England. Here he wrote his best works, and
received the visits of Henry VIII. Here Erasmus visited the author
of _Utopia_, whose domestic life he described: “With him you might
imagine yourself in the academy of Plato; but I should do injustice
to his house by comparing it to the academy of Plato, where numbers
and geometrical figures, and sometimes moral virtues, were the
subjects of discussion; it would be more just to call it a school
and an exercise of the Christian religion. All its inhabitants, male
and female, applied their leisure to liberal studies and profitable
reading, although piety was their first care. No wrangling, no idle
word, was heard in it; every one did his duty with alacrity, and not
without a temperate cheerfulness.” In 1672 the hall was arranged for
Non-conformist meetings. For ninety-seven years it was devoted to
this purpose, and among those who preached here was Thomas Watson,
who wrote the famous tract (_Heaven Taken By Storm_) which converted
Colonel Gardiner. It is not wonderful that its old splendors then
began to depart. The _Mercury_ of May 23, 1678, advertised a sale at
Crosby Hall, where would be disposed of, among other things, “tapestry
hangings, a good chariot, and a black girl about fifteen years of
age.” Then it became the office of the old East India Company; next a
literary and scientific institute; next a wholesale wine warehouse;
and at length came into the hands of its present proprietors, who have
restored it to its original purpose by making it a banqueting-hall.
They have preserved it, and stained its windows with portraits and
pictures representing all its history. The decorations are in perfect
keeping with the beautiful Gothic style of the building, and the colors
seem to have expanded on it as a flower on its stem. One seems to be
dining here in an older Guildhall and at a daily Lord Mayor’s banquet,
with ancient Shakspearian characters for company. It is particularly
entertaining to observe what a rich frieze can be secured for a hall
in England by a skilful arrangement of the historic shields and coats
of arms which belong to the country; while if some beautiful central
figure on wall or glass is desired, it may be obtained in any one of
the suggestive and mystical devices which are associated with the olden
time--the boar, the lamb with its flag, and so on.
But neither the Criterion nor Crosby Hall furnishes, as I think, the
same degree of beauty appropriate to dining-halls as may be found at
the South Kensington Museum. Here one of the rooms was intrusted for
decoration to Mr. Poynter, for a time President of the Art School
there. He has made exquisite designs for the tiles of which the walls
are altogether composed. The simple blue and white colors, and the
purely decorative character of the figures thus made, make one almost
regret that these figures are not Chinese instead of classic or
allegorical, in which case one might eat with a feeling of comfortable
seclusion in a china dish. The regular dining-room in the Museum
was intrusted to Morris & Co., who have placed on the upper part
of the walls a rich floral decoration of embossed plaster, colored
(gray-green) by hand. The lower part of the wall, extending over two
yards from the floor, consists of panels, on each of which is painted,
on a gold ground, some allegorical figure. These figures represent
the sun, the moon, and signs of the zodiac; they were designed by
Burne Jones, and bear too much of that mystical light and expression
which invest all forms and faces evoked by his magic touch to be
gastronomically suggestive. In this respect neither Burne Jones nor
the young artist (Murray) who painted his designs could rival the
decorator of the Criterion; but one may dine at South Kensington amid
one of the pleasantest little picture-galleries in existence. When
Ralph Waldo Emerson was last in London, a poet who wished to give him a
dinner conceived the happy thought of bringing him here, and the sage
of Concord no doubt approximated his friend Alcott’s ideal of “dining
magnificently;” even the “bowls of sunshine” with which A. would
replace wine were supplied by the rich stained windows of Morris, and
by the brilliant white-and-gold of the restaurant which separates the
two rooms so exquisitely decorated.
[Illustration: ALBERT MEMORIAL--CONTINUATION OF EAST FRONT. PAINTERS.]
[Illustration: ALBERT MEMORIAL--SOUTH FRONT. POETS AND MUSICIANS.]
There is no doubt that the barbaric element in English taste received
a fresh accession of vigor with the advent of the Georges to England.
What it was capable of, and what it found pleasing to the aristocratic
butterflies who flitted around him whom they adored as “the first
gentleman in Europe,” may be discovered in the Pavilion, at Brighton.
That building may be regarded as the physiognomical monument of George
IV. It is his cerebral interior projected into stone and decoration.
The secret stairways and passages leading up to fictitious wardrobes,
really door-ways to rooms which his majesty desired to visit, represent
the prince that sent horsemen to trample down laborers at Peterloo,
whose only guilt was to discuss their wrongs; the bizarre carvings,
which make fine stone look like terra-cotta, illustrate the fop who
had come to prefer figment to fact. The interior decorations do not
represent so well the monarch whom Thackeray analyzed, and found in his
h nds only a heap of pad, paint, gold-lace, but no man at all. Those
frescoes were made during the first furor which occurred in England
about Chinese and Japanese art; and, though ludicrously gorgeous, they
are not without a certain interest, arising from the boundless freedom
of their design and colors. How this can be it will be difficult for
my reader to imagine, when he is told that the walls are covered with
large dragons (life size, one might say, if dragons existed), serpents,
wild cormorant-like birds, all having a grand field-day amid ladies
and pleasure-grounds. The pillars are like barbers’ poles, with the
archæological serpent twined around each instead of the red stripe. The
Pavilion is said to have found in Mr. P. T. Barnum its only admirer.
English critics have been rather hard upon it. Sydney Smith said that
the structure looked “as if the dome of St. Paul’s had come down to
Brighton and pupped.” William Cobbett thought that “a good idea of the
building might be formed by placing the pointed half of a large turnip
upon the middle of a board, with four smaller ones at the corners.”
The main intent of the building is to imitate a Chinese pagoda, and
it was with that aim that the Prince of Wales (for he seems to have
been mainly his own architect) committed this enormity. Two years
ago the British Association for the Advancement of Science gathered
for its charming summer _séances_ at Brighton, and the rooms of the
Royal Pavilion were placed at their service. Never were the sessions
of the Association so well housed, but it was amusing to witness the
difficulty which even eminent savants had in the rivalry between the
attractions of the wall-papers and the scientific papers. On the
whole, it is to be feared that the grotesque ornaments left by the
Regent carried the day. On one occasion, when a discussion occurred
in the anthropological section on serpent-worshippers, the dragons
and serpents on the wall were so appropriate that the room had the
appearance of being frescoed for the archæological purposes of the
day. But the ordinary contrast between the severe disquisitions of the
scientific men and the luxuriant and barbaric colors and forms of the
Pavilion was not so great as I witnessed recently in the same place.
In the room which above all the rest might be regarded as the temple
of vanity, a hundred ritualistic gentlemen and ladies had gathered to
hold a prayer-meeting! In the evening there was a ball in the same
room, and then it appeared plainly what had been the final cause of
the Brighton Pavilion. I may add that the large building which George
IV. erected for his stable, and whose roof is a vast dome, is now the
chief concert-room of Brighton, and that another outlying building of
the place is occupied by a fair picture-gallery, a good museum, and a
capital library. Huish, in his _Memoirs of George IV._, says: “Nothing
could exceed the indignation of the people when the civil list came
before Parliament, in May, 1816, and £50,000 were found to have been
expended in furniture at Brighton, immediately after £534,000 had been
voted for covering the excess of the civil list, occasioned entirely by
the reckless extravagance of the Prince Regent, whose morning levees
were not attended by men of science and of genius, who could have
instilled into his mind wholesome notions of practical economy; but
the tailor, the upholsterer, the jeweller, and the shoemaker were the
regular attendants of his morning recreations.” These mechanics were no
doubt the worthiest folk who frequented the building they had made so
fine, and probably most of them had to take their pay in royal smiles;
but it would have relieved the indignant minds of the middle classes,
who chiefly had to supply the exorbitant civil list, if they could
have foreseen that their money was destined in the end to supply their
favorite watering-place with an agreeable, instructive, and useful
institution.
[Illustration: ALBERT MEMORIAL--CONTINUATION OF SOUTH FRONT. MUSICIANS.]
When the English people now look upon the Royal Albert Hall they are
quite warranted in drawing pleasant conclusions as to the change which
has come over the spirit of royalty since the Pavilion was erected.
Here we have the real monument of the late Prince Consort, who, however
he may be estimated, certainly did have the ambition to be associated
with the progress of science and art in England. Since the erection
of the Coliseum in Rome no building so stupendous and noble has been
built as this. It is a pile worthy of Rome in its palmiest days; and,
with its superb oval form, and external frieze and cornice moulded
after the Elgin Marbles, devoted to international industrial and art
exhibitions and to music, it stands as grandly amid the European
civilization of to-day as the Parthenon stood in Greece. This palace of
art, and the Albert monument in the park opposite, make the beauty-spot
of London. The latter is beyond question the finest monumental
structure in Europe. This afternoon, while the golden sunset of a
balmy spring day was glorifying the sky, I walked to it, passing by
the old Kensington Palace, where the little girl was informed that she
was Queen of England who has since had her name associated with her
country’s longest period of peace and prosperity, passing beneath the
ancient patriarchal trees and through the gardens beautified by flowers
and plants from every region of the world, until at length I saw the
spire of the monument shining like flame through the boughs. There
against the clear, orange-tinted sky the monument stood forth, with
its grand marbles at the four corners--Asia, with its genius mounted
on a camel; America on her buffalo, Europe on her bull, Africa on her
elephant, and each the centre of a representative group--and its noble
reliefs and frescoes rising up to the winged angels at the top; and
it appeared to me that every one of the one hundred and sixty-nine
life-size portrait figures--the painters from Cimabue to Turner, the
architects from Cheops to Gilbert Scott, who designed this monument;
the sculptors from Chares to Thorwaldsen; nay, the very composers and
poets from St. Ambrose to Rossini, from Homer to Goethe--had done
something to raise this triumphal pile, about which their forms seem
to move in stately procession. The architects and sculptors are the
work of Philip; the poets, composers, and painters by Armstead; and
while both have done admirably, it must be said that the reliefs by
the latter are not surpassed by any modern sculpture. The group of
Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci, the kneeling form of
Fra Angelico, are works such as can only be ascribed to that fine
degree where intellect passes beyond ordinary analysis, and is called
genius. Its central figure--Prince Albert--under the grand canopy,
seems at first a conspicuous example of contemporary Hero-worship,
showing that its highest and costliest homage is paid, not to any
great Englishman--not to Shakspeare, not to Turner--but to a German,
of whom it is certain that, had he not been a prince, he could never
have excited so much attention as a hundred others of his fellow-men.
At present the figure, not yet tested by time, is brassy enough, and is
throned in brass; never was man more gilded over! But there is another
side to this. The inscription runs: “Queen Victoria and her people to
the memory of Albert, Prince Consort, as a tribute of their gratitude
for a life devoted to the public good.” The Prince received no such
credit during his life; he got smirching enough then; but, if time
tells as well on his statue as it has on his reputation, this figure
will become increasingly worthy of its environment. Though no great
man, he will sit there surrounded by the allegorical representations
of art, commerce, and the various types of peaceful civilization, to
which he did unquestionably devote himself. And it is something that
the noblest monument in Europe, though better deserved by some who
have no monument but their work, has at any rate been raised, not to
any brilliant devastator of human homes, not to any royal oppressor or
scheming diplomatist, but to an ordinary man, who used the position and
means intrusted to him for the refinement and moral well-being of the
country that adopted him. While the legend of one section of Europe
is Napoleonic, there is some significance in the fact that Albert
should have transmitted that of another section; and the essential--the
moral--beauty of every admirable monument is thus not wanting to that
which graces the largest and wealthiest city of the civilized world.
If the spirit of Prince Albert revisits the glimpses of Rotten Row,
his once favorite haunt, he must long for the day when wind and
weather shall have subdued some of the obtrusive glitter of his
statue. It is too bad to be seen with too little light during life,
and too much after death. It is sufficiently curious, while gazing on
this overpowering mass of gilded metal, to remember what his private
feelings were when some snobbish officials of London City proposed to
erect a monument to him twenty-three years ago. The following letter,
all the more creditable because necessarily private--the matter never
having assumed such shape that he could speak of it publicly--was
written at a time when its writer was believed by many to be the real
instigator of the proposed monument to himself. It was addressed to
Lord Granville, and is as follows:
“Windsor Castle, 3d November, 1853.
“MY DEAR LORD GRANVILLE,--Many thanks for your letter,
evincing such kind interest in what concerns me.
“I did not see the letter in the _Times_, but I read yesterday’s
leading article, which led me at once to considerations similar
to those which struck you. Moreover, it is evident to me that
the Lord Mayor started the plan chiefly as the means of bringing
himself into notice, after other Mayors had gone to Paris, taken
the lead in education, etc., and that the _Times_ is attacking
the plan chiefly to hit the Lord Mayor, as it had hit his
predecessors. My unfortunate person will thus probably become
their battle-ground; and, although the first article of the
_Times_ is civil, its music generally goes on crescendo, and the
next may be purposely offensive, and meet with shouts of applause
from a portion of the audience.
“Still, I do not see how I can, with any dignity or respect for
myself, take notice of the squabble, and cry out for mercy, or to
whom I could write such a letter as you suggest. I have never been
consulted in any way in the matter, and the people have a perfect
right to subscribe for and erect a monument in remembrance of the
Great Exhibition; nor could I volunteer to say, ‘You must not
connect it in any way with me.’
“I can say, with perfect absence of humbug, that I would much
rather not be made the prominent feature of such a monument, as
it would both disturb my quiet rides in Rotten Row to see my
own face staring at me, and if (as is very likely) it became an
artistic monstrosity, like most of our monuments, it would upset
my equanimity to be permanently ridiculed and laughed at in effigy.
“The _Times_ argument, however, that it would be premature to
place a statue to me, is of no great force in this instance, as
I suppose it is not intended to recognize general merits in me,
which ought yet to be proved, and might possibly be found wanting
on longer acquaintance, but rather to commemorate the fact of the
Exhibition of 1851, over which I presided; which fact will remain
unaltered were I to turn out a Nero or a Caligula.
“As in all cases of doubt what to do it is generally safest to do
nothing, I think it better to remain perfectly quiet at present.
If I were officially consulted, I should say, ‘Mark the corners
of the building by permanent stones, with inscriptions containing
ample records of the event, and give the surplus money to the
erection of the museums of art and science.’
Believe me, etc.,
“ALBERT.”
Foley’s statue would be nobler if the last paragraph of this letter
could be read on it, and if he could have contrived some plan to let
every observer know that the book held by the Prince is the Catalogue
of the Great Exhibition of 1851.
There is some reason why the English artists should have done their
best work upon the monument of Prince Albert. He may be regarded as
the first man to teach this country that money might well be largely
expended for the encouragement of fine art, and that it had artists
capable of the best work, if the means were adequately supplied
to them. He was the means of employing scores of fine brains that
had otherwise been unable to make their mark on the country, and he
extorted from a grumbling, shop-keeping public the splendors which now
render the South Kensington Museum and its surroundings institutions an
art university for the world. Very different have been the resources
and rewards of the artists who have built and adorned the structures
I have been mentioning from those which were alone available when the
frescoes were placed in the corridors of the Houses of Parliament.
Nevertheless, the Prince Consort himself had to be taught by a German
artist to look around him for the ability which was needed for English
work. When he was appointed the commissioner for the decoration of the
Houses of Parliament (1841) he made overtures to Cornelius to come
over and do the work. The German artist replied, “Why should you come
to me when you have the man by your side--Dyce?” Dyce, who had studied
at Rome with Cornelius and Overbeck, was then professor in the School
of Design at Somerset House; but he was little known as an artist, and
had not competed when designs for the decoration of Westminster Hall
had been invited. The Prince Consort at once suggested to him that he
should send in a design; and having too little notice to make a new
one, he sent in a study he had made for a fresco for the Archbishop’s
palace at Lambeth. It was severely criticised, as too German, too
papistical, etc.; but it was selected; and the result is the beautiful
frescoes of the Baptism of Ethelbert, in the House of Lords, and of
the Morte d’Arthur, in the Queen’s robing-room. How slowly the ability
of Dyce was recognized in England may be estimated by the fact that
one of his most admired works--“Paul Preaching to the Gentiles”--now
in the South Kensington Museum, was employed at an art exhibition in
Manchester as background to an umbrella-stand!
But Prince Albert does not appear to have required a hint from Germany
to appreciate the Scotch artist--son of a shoemaker--whose superior
genius overshadowed that of his wealthy Irish brother. Already, while
Dyce was as yet undiscovered, Maclise had been appointed to set about
those grand works which adorn the passage to the House of Commons.
But the poor sums which were paid to both of these artists, and the
grudging way in which they were dealt with, are now remembered only
as a scandal. Dyce was sharply censured because he would not promise
exact dates for the completion of his seven frescoes whose payment had
been fixed by the Treasury at stated periods. Being rich, he offered
to refund; but the Treasury, knowing that this would arouse some
indignation, found it convenient to reply that “no precedent” could
be found justifying its acceptance of his offer! Any one who looks
upon Maclise’s two pictures--“Trafalgar” and “Waterloo,” the latter
with three hundred figures, each perfect in line and expression--can
but feel scandalized that Parliament proposed to pay him only £2000.
Goaded by the outcry among the artists, it at length raised the sum to
£10,000, but then grew sulky and cut off many of the commissions. In
reality Maclise paid £30,000 for the honor of making those pictures.
He gave the whole of four years to them at a time when his regular
work never brought him less than £10,000 a year. When Cornelius passed
through a South German town the ovation was such as no prince could
command. When Maclise had completed his frescoes the artists of London
presented him with a gold chalk-holder. The Prince Consort did all he
could to raise an enthusiasm for decorative art in this country, and
to raise the wages and the position of the artist and of the artisan,
and he succeeded measurably; but time has sadly shown that he must
have imported the climate of Italy rather than its schools to make
this a country of beautiful frescoes. Although Cornelius magnanimously
declined the overtures made to him, as above stated, in favor of
Dyce, he consented to come to London and give advice concerning the
proposed works. It was owing to him that frescoes were determined upon.
He had seen the glory of the great frescoes of Munich; he could not
see that in a few years they would be peeling off (as they are now)
even there. Fortunately, Maclise resolved to put on his frescoes in
silica, and they are yet fairly preserved; but all the pictures in the
Houses of Parliament have had to be retouched from time to time, and
the silica has such an attraction for the atmospheric moisture that
the effect of the colors is frequently diminished. While it is thus
manifest that the corroding damp of the English climate is hostile
to mural ornamentation, and fatal to external frescoes, there is a
steady increase of the desire for such things. This has been especially
manifested among the English nobility, who have everything in the wide
world that their hearts can desire, excepting only the climate that
might comport with luxury and beauty.