[Illustration: BATHING WOMAN: "Master Franky wouldn't cry! No! Not

he!--He'll come to his Martha, and bathe like a man!"]

Turning to male attire we have to note that the main features of men's

dress as we know it was already established, though in regard to colour,

details, and decoration the influence of the Regency period still made

itself felt. Trousers were first generally introduced in the Army (see

Parkes's _Hygiene_) at the time of the Peninsular War, but

pantaloons--the tight-fitting nether garments which superseded

knee-breeches late in the eighteenth century, and were secured at the

ankles with ribbons and straps, were fashionable in the 'forties. You

will see no trousers, as we know them to-day, in the illustrations to

_Pickwick_, and in the early 'forties pantaloons appear in _Punch's_

illustrations of fashionable wear at dances. The cut of the

"claw-hammer" dress-coat does not differ from that of to-day, but it was

often of blue cloth with brass buttons; shirts were frilled, and

waistcoats of gold-sprigged satin. The bow tie was larger, resembling

that worn by nigger minstrels. "Gibus," or crush hats, did not arrive

till the late 'forties--they are mentioned in Thackeray's _Book of

Snobs_, and gentlemen always carried their tall hats in their hands at

evening parties, and habitually wore them at clubs. For morning wear

blue frock-coats, with white drill trousers and straps, were fashionable

in 1844. Stocks and cravats and neck-cloths had not been ousted by ties.

The _dégagé_ loose neck-cloth of the "fast man" in 1848 is ridiculed by

_Punch_, who traces its origin to the neck-wear--as modern hosiers

say--of the British dustman. Amongst overcoats the Taglioni, a sack-like

garment, called after the famous dancer, is most frequently mentioned;

the Petersham, a heavy overcoat named after Lord Petersham, a dandy of

the Waterloo period, still held its own. The Crimea brought Alma

overcoats, Balaklava wrappers, and Crimea cloaks, and about the same

time _Punch_ caricatures a long garment reaching nearly to the heels,

which gave the wearer the appearance of a toy figure from a Noah's Ark.

There is a mention of the "Aquascutum" waterproof ten years earlier. One

Stultz was the fashionable tailor of the time. The chief hatter, however

(according to _Punch_), was Prince Albert, whose continual and

unfortunate experiments with headgear have been mentioned elsewhere.

_Punch_ speaks of his obsession as a monomania; he only abstained from

calling him "the mad hatter" because that engaging personage had not yet

emerged from the brain of Lewis Carroll. But _Punch_ himself was much

preoccupied with hats. There was a certain elegance about the tall

beaver hat which tapered towards the crown. There was none in the rigid

"chimney-pot" or cylinder silk hat, the ugliest of all European

head-dresses, with its flat, narrow brim, which was "established" by

1850. _Punch_ warred against it almost as vigorously and as

ineffectually as against the crinoline. Indeed, in 1851 he even went to

the length of suggesting the form and materials suitable for an ideal

hat:--

Take an easy and well-cut morning jacket of the form no longer

confined to the stableyard or barrack room, but admitted alike into

breakfast parlour and country house, or the hanging paletot with a

waistcoat, not scrimp and tight, but long and ample, and wide and

well-made trousers of any of the neutral-tinted woollen fabrics

that our northern looms are so prolific in; and we assert

fearlessly that a broad-leafed and flexible _sombrero_ of grey, or

brown or black felt may be worn with such a costume, to complete a

dress at once becoming and congruous.

[Sidenote: _Fashions for Men_]

[Illustration: WHY, INDEED!

PERCEPTIVE CHILD: "Mamma, dear! Why do those gentlemen dress themselves

like the funny little men in the Noah's Ark?"]

[Illustration: A MOST ALARMING SWELLING!]

The resources of modern newspaper enterprise were not then available to

enable _Punch_ to realize his ideal, but he continued to tilt at the

"chimney-pot," though he never succeeded in dethroning it. High collars

are caricatured in 1854. At first they were wide as well as high, but

the "all round collar" of which _Punch_ has a picture in 1854

approximates to the lofty cincture worn by the present Lord Spencer when

a member of the House of Commons. The monocle was not uncommon; but the

caricature of Colonel Sibthorp, one of _Punch's_ favourite butts, shows

that the square shape was still used. White waistcoats were noted as the

emblem of the blameless life of the "Young England" party. For the

grotesque extravagances of fashion Oxford undergraduates, forerunners of

little Mr. Bouncer, are singled out for satire, but if we are to believe

_Mr. Punch_, caricature was unnecessary.

[Sidenote: _The Ideal Hat_]

[Illustration: "SIBBY"--1843]

If this was the age of ringlets for women, it was the age of whiskers,

short but ambrosial, for men. The long "Piccadilly weepers" of Lord

Dundreary were a slightly later development, but Leech's "swells" all

wear whiskers in the 'forties and 'fifties. (Is not the habit

immortalized in the mid-Victorian comic song: "The Captain with his

whiskers cast a sly glance at me"?) They wore small moustaches, too, and

occasionally chin-tufts. Under the head of "Moustaches for the Million,"

_Punch_, in 1847, ironically suggests the placing of sham moustaches on

the market for the benefit of seedy bucks, swell-mobsmen, inmates of the

Queen's Bench prison, and all impostors who affected a social status to

which they had no claim or which they had forfeited. But what he calls

the "Moustache Movement" in the early 'fifties was undoubtedly inspired

by military example, and was followed by the fashion of growing beards.

The necessity of campaigning became the adornment of peace, and in 1854

and 1855 we find pictures of tremendously bearded railway guards and

ticket-collectors, whose appearance terrifies old ladies and gentlemen.

[Sidenote: _Uncomfortable Uniforms_]

[Illustration: PROCTOR (to Undergraduate): "Pray, Sir, will you be so

good as to tell me whether you are a member of the University, or a

Scotch terrier?"]

The vagaries of military uniforms--apart from the intrusions of Prince

Albert--call for separate treatment. The new and very skimpy

shell-jacket introduced in 1848 evokes imaginary protests alike from

stout and lean officers. The short, high-shouldered military cape is

guyed in 1851. In 1854 _Punch_ throws himself with great energy into the

movement for the abolition of the high stock and the adoption of more

rational and comfortable clothing--witness the verses, "Valour under

difficulties," depicting the sufferings of a half-strangled militia-man;

the caricature of the "New Albert Bonnet"; the cartoon in which Private

Jones in a bearskin, black in the face from the strangulation of his

stock, is afraid that his head is coming off; the ridiculous frogged

tunic with a very low belt; and the comments on the Army Order, issued

by Sidney Herbert in 1854, providing white linen covers for helmets and

shakos as a protection against the heat. The sufferings endured by

soldiers owing to their heavy packs and marching kit are not forgotten.

But these abuses, like the story of the bad and rotten boots provided by

contractors for the Crimea, do not belong to a chronicle of fashion, but

to the scandalous history of commerce. Did history repeat itself in some

measure in the Great War?

[Illustration: RUDE BOY: "O, look 'ere, Jim!--If 'ere ain't a Lobster

bin and out-growed his cloak!"]

THE DRAMA, OPERA, MUSIC, AND THE FINE ARTS

One must not expect to find a detached, impartial, or coldly critical

survey of the drama in the pages of _Punch_. Most of his staff had

dabbled in play-writing; Douglas Jerrold was a prolific, accomplished,

and, so far as prestige went, a successful dramatist, but he had reaped

a singularly meagre reward for his industry and talent. He had fallen

out with managers, and his quarrel with Charles Kean was not without its

influence on _Punch's_ persistent disparagement of that actor. Yet, when

all allowance has been made for these personal motives and the querulous

tone which they occasionally inspired, _Punch_ may fairly claim to have

rendered valuable service to the British drama in this period. He was

sound in essentials: in his whole-hearted devotion to Shakespeare and

loyal support of those, like Phelps and Mrs. Warner, who under great

difficulties, and with no fashionable patronage, gave good performances

of Shakespearean plays at moderate prices; in his unceasing attacks on

"Newgate plays," "poison plays," the cult of the criminal whether native

or foreign, stage buffoonery, over-reliance on mere upholstery, dramatic

_clichés_, and solecisms in pronunciation.[29] He was also a reformer in

his advocacy of improvements for the comfort and convenience of the

play-goer, such as the abolition of the rule of evening dress. And, as

we have seen, he rebuked mummer-worship, holding that "the players'

vanity has been the curse of the modern drama." His continued and

pointed remonstrance with the Court for discouraging British plays and

British-born players has been already noted. It runs through the first

ten years of _Punch_ with little intermission and was largely

justified. _Punch_ was able to congratulate Prince Albert on subscribing

to the fund raised to purchase Shakespeare's house for the nation in

1847, but in the main his grievance was genuine. Foreign artists and

freaks were far too freely patronized and encouraged at Court. The

balance has long since been redressed, and another grievance--the

dependence of managers on translations and adaptations from French plays

as set forth in the following extract--has been largely remedied, though

the remedy, so far as the importation of American plays is concerned, is

by some critics considered worse than the disease:--

_Galignani's Messenger_ says of the French theatre:--

"There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of Paris,

191 new pieces."

* * * * *

_Punch_ says of the English theatre:--

"There were produced in 1842 at the different theatres of London

about _ten_ new pieces; the rest being hashed, fricasseed,

devilled, warmed up, from old stock brought from France or stolen

from the manufactory of Bentley and others!"

[Footnote 29: See the protest against "skee-yi," "blee-yew," "kee-yind,"

"dis-gyee-ise," for "sky," "blue," "kind," "disguise."]

Censure is impartially bestowed on home-made and imported specimens of

the Newgate drama--_Jack Sheppard_ and _Madame Lafarge_.[30] Of the

latter we read that besides being revolting it was "disgusting and

filthy." The play is compared, to its great disadvantage, with _The

Beggar's Opera_, which is defended as being "real satire and not

wallowing in vice." George Stephens's tragedy _Martinuzzi_ comes in for

frequent ridicule, though the chief _rôles_ were taken by Phelps and

Mrs. Warner, and the ridicule seems to have been well deserved. On what

grounds Stephens gained a place in the D.N.B. is not evident, as his

dramas soon died beyond all possibilities of resurrection. Lord Mahon's

"petition" to Parliament on behalf of the drama in the year 1842 met

with _Punch's_ support. It amounted to this, that Parliament in the

bounty of its wisdom would permit what were then called the minor

theatres to play the very best dramas they could obtain; as it was they

were only open to the very worst. Douglas Jerrold writing under his

signature of "Q" then develops the argument:--

Virtue, decency, loyalty, and a bundle of other excellences, are

only valuable in Westminster. In that city of light and goodness,

the Lord Chamberlain deputes some holy man to read all plays ere

they are permitted to be produced before a Westminster audience.

There is no such care taken of the souls of Southwark or Islington.

The Victoria audiences may be the Alsatians of play-goers, and

laugh, and weep, and hoot, in defiance of Law. They get their _Jack

Sheppards_, unlicensed and unpaid for; but the strait-laced

frequenters of the Adelphi and Olympic have the satisfaction of

knowing that their _Jack Sheppard_ has been licensed by a Deputy,

for a certain amount of Her Majesty's money. There, the beauties of

Tyburn are exhibited with a _cum privilegio_.

Will Lord Mahon's petition have the effect of altering this

wickedness, this stupidity, this injustice and absurdity? We _hope_

it may; but, we repeat it, we have little faith in the enthusiasm

of Parliament. With the worthy gentlemen who compose it, the

playhouse is become low and vulgar. Were they called upon to debate

what should be the statute length of Cerito's petticoats, we should

have greater hope of their activity, than when the subject involves

the true interests of the English dramatist, and the real value of

the English stage.

[Footnote 30: Madame Lafarge (1816-52) achieved a sinister

immortality by the famous poisoning case which bears her name, "one

of the most obscure in the annals of French justice" (Larousse).

After being imprisoned for twelve years she was released and died

in 1852.]

[Sidenote: _Lord Mahon's Petition_]

_Punch's_ pessimism was fortunately not justified by the sequel, for in

the following year, 1843, the Theatres Act abolished the monopoly of the

patent theatres--which for more than a hundred years had confined the

legitimate drama to Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket--and

thus inaugurated a policy of free trade.

Déjazet's London _début_ in 1843 provoked the comment, applied by a

later humorist to one of the plays of Aristophanes, that she was "as

broad as she was long"; and the production of a ballet on Lady Macbeth

in the same year prompted the really prophetic suggestion that the only

way to get a five-act tragedy performed was to omit the whole of the

dialogue and give the _rôle_ of heroine to a _première danseuse_. As a

matter of fact Taglioni appeared in _Electra_ in 1845.

In 1844 _Punch_ took a very gloomy view of the dramatic outlook; French

dishes predominated, Shakespeare was "Cibberized," and comedy vulgarized

at the Adelphi and the Olympic. Nor was he cheered by the activities of

a society called the Syncretics, "whose boast it is that they can write

tragedies which no company can act, and no audience can sit out"--a

boast which might be triumphantly re-echoed by similar societies to-day.

A Greek play, the _Antigone_, produced at Covent Garden in 1845 was an

early harbinger of the fruitful movement which began at the end of the

'seventies. _Punch's_ spirits, however, had already revived somewhat

when "Shakespeare though banished from Drury Lane and Covent Garden

found the snuggest asylum near the New River"--at Sadler's Wells under

the enterprising management of Samuel Phelps and Mrs. Warner in 1844,

and in the following year he notes that Shakespeare, expelled from

England to make way for the ballet, had been welcomed in Paris in the

person of Macready. The public knowledge of Shakespeare at the time was,

according to _Punch_, confined to "elegant extracts."

A curious sidelight is thrown on the composition of theatrical

programmes in the 'forties by the ironical regret expressed at the

passing of the old school of comic song: "The old comic song was a

description in lively verse of a murder or a suicide or some domestic

affliction, and if sung at a minor theatre just after the half-price

came in, never missed an encore." At the major theatres, and especially

Drury Lane, the cast in spectacular plays was already reinforced by

four-footed performers, and processions of animals through the streets

were a familiar mode of theatrical advertisement. Managerial enterprise

has always had its menagerial side. Foreign bipeds, however, were not

always popular, and when _Monte Cristo_ was produced at Drury Lane in

1848, with French performers, there was a patriotic hostile

demonstration.

[Sidenote: _The Passing of Pantomimes_]

Judged by modern standards salaries were modest. Well-known actors are

charged with extortion in demanding £60 a week, but it must be

remembered that £60 was exactly all that Douglas Jerrold ever made out

of his most popular and successful play--_Black Eyed Susan_. Those

simple souls who lament the decadence of the harlequinade will be

comforted to learn that as early as 1843 _Punch_ deplores the triumph of

scenery over fun, the supersession of Grimaldi by Stanfield; and he

returns to his complaint in 1849 in "Christmas is not what it ought to

be":--

Pantomime's quite on the wane,

Though vainly they try to enrich it,

By calling, again and again,

For "_Hot Codlins_" and "_Tippetywitchet_."

The stealing of poultry by clown

Has ceased irresistible sport to be,

If he swallowed a turkey it wouldn't go down;

Christmas is not what it ought to be.

The red-hot poker business has at any rate taken an unconscionably long

time in dying, and it is not dead yet. But clowns, outside pantomime,

have taken on a new lease of life thanks to Marceline and Grock. The

present writer ventures to predict wonderful possibilities for

harlequinade if revived and developed on the romantic and grotesque

lines of the Russian ballet, to say nothing of the opportunities which

it affords for satire. The craze for child actors and marionettes in

1852 led _Punch_ to bestow an ironical commendation on the latter on the

ground that they never squabbled in the greenroom.

_Punch_ was all for clean plays, but he was no stickler for puritanism

or prudery. In this same year of 1852 he indulges in well-deserved

satire on the performances in Passion week. All theatres were supposed

to be shut, with the result that while the legitimate drama was

suppressed, acrobats or mountebanks of any sort could give

entertainments. We may note that in 1853 _Punch_ suggested that

theatrical performances should begin at 8 instead of 7 p.m.; 6.30 p.m.

is mentioned as the usual dinner hour. Besides the actors already noted

Charles Mathews and Vestris, J. B. Buckstone and Paul Bedford are

constantly mentioned and in the main with good will. The feud with

Charles Kean was kept up to the end; _Punch_ speaks of his "touchiness,"

and certainly spared no means of getting him on the raw. When Kean was

made an F.S.A. in 1857 it was maliciously suggested that the initials

stood for Fair Second-rate Actor. It was otherwise with Charles Kemble,

that "first-rate actor of second-rate parts," as Macready styled the

father of the gifted and delightful Fanny, and Adelaide the successful

opera singer. After his retirement from the stage Kemble gave readings

from Shakespeare at Willis's Rooms and elsewhere in 1844-45, and on his

death in 1854, _Punch_ paid him this graceful tribute:--

He linked us with a past of scenic art,

Larger and loftier than now is known;

Less mannered, it may be, our stage has grown,

Than when he played his part.

But where shall we now find, upon our scene,

The Gentleman in action, look and word,

Who wears his wit, as he would wear his sword,

As polished and as keen?

Come all who loved him: 'tis his passing bell:

Look your last look: cover the brave old face:

Kindly and gently bear him to his place--

Charles Kemble, fare thee well!

[Sidenote: _The Reign of Italian Opera_]

[Illustration: LABLACHE]

A whole volume might be written on the glories, the splendours, and the

absurdities of Italian opera in the 'forties and 'fifties as revealed,

applauded, and criticized in the columns of _Punch_. We say Italian

opera advisedly, because the domination of Italian composers and singers

and of the Italian language was as yet practically unassailed. Germany,

it is true, had already begun to knock at the door. Lord Mount Edgcumbe

in his _Reminiscences_ mentions the visit of a German operatic company

in 1832. Staudigl, who "created" the title-_rôle_ in Mendelssohn's

_Elijah_ when it was produced at Birmingham in 1846, is mentioned by

_Punch_ as singing in opera in London in 1841. Weber's _Der Freischütz_

was given at the Haymarket in the summer of 1844. But the greater

lights in the operatic firmament, judged by the test of fashionable

patronage and indeed general popularity, were all Italian. The meteoric

Malibran--Spanish by race but Italian in training--died suddenly and

tragically in 1836, and Pasta, her great rival, withdrew from the stage

shortly afterwards. The retirement of the famous tenor Rubini is

mentioned in _Punch's_ first volume, but his popularity was eclipsed by

that of Mario, who reigned without a rival in virtue of his triple

endowment of voice, good looks, and elegance. His triumphs were shared

by Grisi, and the kings and queens of song on the lyric stage in these

two decades were either Italians by birth--e.g., Grisi, Alboni, whom

_Punch_ likens to a "jolly blooming she-Bacchus," Persiani, and

Piccolomini--or trained in the Italian school and distinguished by their

association with Italian opera, such as Sontag and Jenny Lind, Duprez

the French tenor, and Lablache, who was born and bred in Italy though of

Franco-Hibernian parentage, the greatest in bulk, in volume and beauty

of voice, in dramatic versatility and in genial humour of all operatic

basses. So too with the composers. It was the heyday of Rossini,

Donizetti, Bellini and the earlier Verdi, whom _Punch_ in 1852

irreverently styles the "crack composer" as he cracked so many voices.

_Punch_ cannot be blamed if he failed to foresee in the crude vigour of

_Nabucco_ and the hectic sentimentality of _Traviata_ and _Trovatore_

possibilities of that wonderful Indian summer of genius which began with

_Aïda_ and culminated in _Otello_ and _Falstaff_. Michael Costa was the

conductor _par excellence_, who took outrageous liberties with scores,

but was none the less a most efficient operatic drill-sergeant. Here our

debt to Italy was ingeniously expressed--though not by _Punch_--in the

Latin tag: _Costam subduximus Apennino_. Balfe, it is true, had scored a

resounding success in 1843 with _The Bohemian Girl_, which still holds

the boards. The fact that it is commonly known in the profession as "The

Bo Girl" is perhaps the best index to its artistic value. But Balfe was

at least equally well known as a conductor of Italian opera. _Punch_

supported the claims of native and national opera, and regretted that

Adelaide Kemble, "our first English operatic singer," should not have

made an effort in its behalf in connexion with the venture at Drury Lane

in 1841, when a Mr. Rodwell was the only native composer represented.

The reason alleged for the rejection of other English operas submitted

was the badness of the _libretti_. Italian opera _libretti_ were often

satirized by _Punch_, but those of Fitzball and Bunn were, if possible,

worse.

Italian opera, however, the only opera which really counted in the

social world, was the luxury and appanage of the nobility and gentry.

The importance and significance of the institution at this time, and for

many years afterwards, are really very well summed up in an article

which _Punch_ reproduced from the _Morning Post_ in 1843 with italics

and comments of his own at the expense of "Jenkins":--

"The Opera is the place of rendezvous of those persons who, _de

facto_, as well as _de jure_, are, in their several different

spheres, the leaders and models of society. It is not only to hear

an Opera which they may have seen a hundred times that the

distinguished subscribers assemble. There, most men of consequence

_literary and artistical_ (pretty egotist) as well as the noble and

fashionable, have agreed to meet during the season. There, the fair

tenants of the boxes receive those friendly and agreeable visits

which do not consist in the delivery of a _piece of engraved

postcard to a servant_. Charming _causeries_ are constantly

proceeding _sotto voce_ (of course Jenkins listens), the music

filling up the pauses of a conversation which the more often it is

interrupted by the bright efforts of the singers--with the more

zest and piquancy _it is resumed_. We, whose office it is to record

daily events--things as they are--and hold the _glass up to

fashion_ (whilst fashion arranges its evening tie) can but seek to

imitate this course of things--and we do so with only one

regret--that motives of delicacy compel us to reflect rather the

general sentiments that prevail, than those private opinions which

have most piquancy."

[Sidenote: _"Jenkins" as Musical Critic_]

For sheer ecstasy of flunkeydom "Jenkins" was unsurpassed and

unsurpassable, but at least he was capable of recognizing native talent,

as may be gleaned from his notice of _Semiramide_ in English in the

winter of 1842:--

We cannot omit another little extract from a notice of

_Semiramide_:--

"Of the gems of this sublime opera we must particularly direct

attention to Mrs. Alfred Shaw's manner and divinely expressive way

of singing her Cavatina, 'Ah! that day I well remember,' where her

sublime contralto, controlled by the most scientific skill, and

whose soft diapason tones fall like seraphs' harmony, penetrates

the heart with chastening ardour and inspiring effect. Again the

contralto and soprano duet, 'Dark days of Sorrow,' between Miss

Kemble and Mrs. Shaw; what deep pathos! what eloquence discoursing!

Mark the clear, brilliant, towering sublimity of expression as

Semiramide holds on the C in alt., while the thirds and fifths of

Assaca's deep mellow notes from D to G in a full octave and a half

are filling in a sublime harmony of melody of the most touching and

refined order."

But if extravagant homage was paid to the queens of song much was also

expected of them. The truth of this is seen in the episode chronicled

under the heading "Persiani at Sea":--

An enthusiastic audience is assembled to hurrah Persiani--to cry

_brava_--to throw bouquets, etc. The crowd open their mouths to

receive the honeyed voice of a _prima donna_, and Doctor Wardrop

throws blue pills into them. The following notice proves the truth

of our metaphor:--

"Madame Persiani continues to _suffer so severely from the effects

of sea-sickness, accompanied with violent retching_, that it is

impossible for her to appear this evening.

"JAMES WARDROP, M.D."

On this, says _The Times_, "the audience were at first disposed to

grumble, and gave many signs of dissatisfaction."

The audience were perfectly right. They were justified in becoming

very savage at the violent retching of a sea-sick St. Cecilia; and

had she had the effrontery to die, they would, we are convinced,

have been perfectly exonerated, by all the laws of English freedom,

in breaking the chandeliers and tearing up the benches!

[Illustration: THE SKATING BALLET]

The private life of operatic celebrities was as a rule no concern of the

opera-going public, but the line was drawn at Lola Montez, whose

engagement to dance at Drury Lane in 1843 was cancelled in deference to

general protests. The ballet was an integral part and commanding

attraction of the old Italian opera. The most wonderful account of this

"explosion of all the upholsteries" has been given by Carlyle at a

slightly later date. In the 'forties the shining lights were

Taglioni--whose skirts were quite long--Cerito, Fanny Ellsler and

Carlotta Grisi, cousin of the _prima donna_, a wonderful quartet on

whose gyrations and levitations "Jenkins" showered all the adulatory

epithets in his polyglot vocabulary. The skating ballet in _Le

Prophète_, popular in 1849, is the subject of a charming little sketch

in _Punch_, and this production was notable vocally for the appearance

of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, the greatest actress, the most accomplished

and enlightened musician, and the most interesting personality of all

nineteenth century _prime donne_. Henriette Sontag, however, was the

popular operatic heroine of the year, graceful, charming and still

handsome, though no longer in her first youth,[31] a perfect singer, an

incomparable _Susanna_ (as _Punch_ admitted), though lacking dramatic

force--Sontag, of whom Catalani said that she was the first in her

_genre_, but that her _genre_ was not the first.

[Sidenote: Jenny Lind]

Great singers came and went but _Punch_ never wavered in his allegiance

to Jenny Lind. Though her career on the lyric stage was brief, she is

more often and more enthusiastically mentioned than any other singer,

and for reasons which are revealed in the following lines:--

THE NIGHTINGALE THAT SINGS IN THE WINTER

Sweetest creature, in song without rival or peer,

Far more inwardly vibrate thy notes than the ear,

For there speaks in that music, pure, gentle, refined,

The exquisite voice of a beautiful mind--

Of a spirit of earnestness, goodness and truth,

Of a heart full of tender compassion and ruth,

Ever ready to comfort, and succour, and bless,

In sorrow and suffering, in want and distress.

Now this Nightingale rare, in the winter who sings,

Being not yet a seraph, is one without wings;

And her name, which has travelled as wide as the wind,

Is kind-hearted, generous, dear JENNY LIND.

When her retirement was rumoured _Punch_ declared that the Bishop of

Norwich should rather persuade her to remain on the stage than quit it,

because of her example. Reports of her engagement to a Mr. Harris

prompted the remark that "the people would never permit it." Indeed

there were some persons as sceptical of his existence as Mrs. Gamp was

of his female namesake. Her last appearance was in May, 1849, to assist

Lumley, the unlucky _impresario_, then in difficulties, in response to

appeals which were especially vehement in _Punch_. He asserted that her

secession was a national calamity: she "made the stage better without

making herself worse"; and Mozart's aid was invoked in an imaginary

address from the composer of _Don Giovanni_.

[Footnote 31: She had already been twenty-five years on the stage and

was a link with Beethoven, having sung the soprano part in both the

Ninth Symphony and the Mass in D at the historic production of these

great works in Vienna in 1824. Lablache's generous homage to Beethoven's

genius on the occasion of his funeral is too well known to need more

than a passing word of grateful recognition.]

[Illustration: TO JENNY LIND

FROM PUNCH]

The engagement to Mr. Harris was "declared off" immediately afterwards,

but Jenny Lind, in spite of _Punch's_ repeated appeals, adhered to her

decision to quit the stage. As late as 1856 _Punch_ still hoped she

would reconsider her verdict, and her farewell concerts at Exeter Hall

in the summer of that year inspired the characteristic remark that "if

any sweetening process could purify the building it would be such

singing as hers."

[Sidenote: _Popular Favourites in 1844_]

In the early 'forties _Norma_ was the opera most frequently mentioned.

_Punch_ published the stories of several of the most popular operas in

verse. A fragment from _Linda di Chamouni_ may suffice:--

Then Mario warbles a beautiful bar

About the revenge of his cruel mamma,

Who, finding to Linda his faith has been plighted,

Resolves to another to get him united:

He curses his fate in a charming _falsetto_,

Gives way to despair in a _voce di petto_.

And, rather than grief in his bosom should fester,

He calls out for death in a _voce di testa_:

Of life his farewell he seems willing to take,

And gives on _addio_ a delicate shake.

The passage is managed with exquisite skill;

And Linda--acquainted with Mario's trill--

Lets him hold it as long as he's able to do,

Awaiting its finish to take for her cue.

Opera singers were great public favourites, but if _Punch_ is to be

believed they did not stand first. In a list of the great features of

the season of 1844 he puts the Polka and Tom Thumb first, followed by

Cerito (the dancer), Grisi, Mario, Persiani, Lablache and the Ojibbeway

Indians, who were "horrid but interesting." The ways and personalities

of the operatic stars are genially hit off in an article on "the

Migration of the Italian Singing Birds." It is pleasant to find

Lablache--Stentor and male Siren in one--put first as a bird unrivalled

for the combined power and richness of his song. "He is a bird that can

sing, and will sing, never requiring any compulsion to make him sing."

_Punch_ alludes to his genial disposition, his magnanimity in

undertaking small parts to secure a perfect ensemble, but omits to

mention his humour. Lablache was once living in the same house with Tom

Thumb, and a stranger who came to visit the "General" strayed into

Lablache's room. Aghast at the bulk of the inmate the visitor explained

"I thought Tom Thumb lived here." "Yes," said Lablache, "but when I am

at home I take it easy." Lablache had as much brains as body, and

elsewhere _Punch_ happily quotes in his praise the line of Virgil:

_ingentes animos ingenti in pectore versat_. The notices of Grisi and

Mario are worth transcribing:--

"THE GRISI"

Among Italian singing birds the female is equally musical, to say

the least, with the male. The song of the Grisi is remarkable for

its variety, strength and sweetness. The habits of the Grisi, from

what we have been enabled to glean respecting them, seem to be

those of a bird that continues, in a considerable measure, to enjoy

its own existence. Whether rising with the lark is one of them, or

not, we do not know, but we are certain that singing with it is;

for the Grisi may undoubtedly be said to vie with the lark, or even

the nightingale, in singing. The Grisi is evidently a bird of a

kind disposition, and susceptible of affection and attachment; but

we should conjecture that she would be apt to peck if ruffled. The

kind of food best adapted for this very fascinating songstress is

to be obtained at M. Verrey's.

"THE MARIO"

A very pleasant vocalist. He is now regarded as an efficient

substitute for the Rubini, to whose note, his own, in point of

quality, is somewhat similar. He differs, however, from the latter

bird, in singing, like a good bullfinch, the airs which he has

acquired without any admixture of certain "native wood-notes wild"

which, however well enough in their way, are no embellishment to

such music as Mozart's. We lately had the pleasure of hearing him

deliver "Il mio tesoro" with very commendable fidelity. He is in

the habit of being frequently encored; which is the only habit our

knowledge enables us to ascribe to him. So highly are these Italian

singing birds prized that many of them fetch, on an average, fifty

pounds a night for a mere performance. The sum that would be

required to buy one of them up altogether would be enormous.

Whether it is the length of John Bull's ears that causes him to pay

so dearly for their gratification, we do not know. Would he give as

much to relieve the national distress? Perhaps: if it were set to

music and sung at the Italian opera.

[Sidenote: _Musical Grab_]

The last lines of this passage lend point to a sardonic remark in an

earlier volume:--

The following extract is as honest as it is true. It is written by

Monsieur Henri Blanchard, in the _Gazette Musicale_:--

"Are you aware," he asks, "that the Italian singers, the French and

German instrumentalists, visit your shores solely for the purpose

of exercising that spirit of commerce which presides over

everything with you, and not to ask for the opinion of Englishmen

on the subject of art? They come to make amends in Paris, as they

all say, for the trading system they have been carrying on in

England, and to spend the money which they have earned with so much

_ennui_."

_Punch_ begs to lay the above on the reading-desk of his gracious

mistress the Queen, and humbly prays that her Majesty will

mercifully consider the condition of the French, German and Italian

_ennuyés_--and dispense for the future with their services.

This familiar wail is repeated in 1849 when London was likened to a

musical Babel with two Italian, one German, and one French operas;

Hungarian, French and other foreign _prime donne_; Strauss's band and

Styrian minstrels. M. Blanchard's view was further confirmed by a

curious episode worthy of note for the first introduction of the name

Wagner to _Punch's_ readers and indeed to the British public. It was not

the great Richard, however, but his niece Johanna, an opera singer of

considerable repute, who was concerned. In 1852 she simultaneously

accepted engagements at both opera houses, a policy which led to

protracted litigation in Chancery. Her father was so frank as to say

that "England was worth nothing except for her money," and _Punch_ in

his frequent references to the incident employs the term "Wagnerism" to

express the point of view of opera-singers who would not abide by their

contracts. The unfortunate Johanna, "the wandering minstrel," as _Punch_

called her, never appeared in opera in London, but apparently did sing

at Court. The engagement of Richard Wagner to conduct the concerts of

the Philharmonic Society in 1855 left _Punch_ not merely cold but

pugnaciously antagonistic.

The "music of the future" prompted him to rude remarks about "long-eared

musicians," and he returns to the seat of the scornful in a curt notice

headed "NOT a Magic Minstrel":--

Herr Wagner, Professor of the "Music of the Future," appears, in

conducting at the Philharmonic, to have made strange work with the

music of all time. He alters Mozart, it appears, if not exactly as

a parish clerk once said that he had altered Haydn for the singing

gallery, yet in a manner nearly as audacious, altering "_allegro_"

to "_moderato_"; "_andante_" to "_adagio_"; "_allegretto_" to

"_andante_"; and "_allegro_" again to "_prestissimo_." Wagner would

seem strongly to resemble his namesake in _Faust_, in the

particular wherein that _Wagner_ differs from his master--that is,

in the circumstance of being no conjuror.

The sudden disappearance of that Italianized Westphalian, the fiery

Cruvelli, was a nine days' wonder in the operatic world in 1854 and is

duly chronicled in _Punch_. Towards the end of this period Piccolomini,

a singer of small calibre but attractive personality, achieved great

popularity in the _rôle_ of the consumptive heroine of _La Traviata_,

and _Punch_ celebrated the craze of "Piccolomania," as he called it, in

the following travesty:--

Art is long and time is fleeting,

But of genius the soul,

Ordinary talent beating,

Reaches at one stride the goal.

In the operatic battle,

In the _Prima Donna's_ life

Quit the herd--the vocal cattle,

Be a Grisi in the strife.

Trust no promise, howe'er pleasant,

Not who may be, but who are;

Piccolomini at present,

Is the bright particular star.

[Sidenote: _Jullien_]

[Illustration: JULLIEN'S DESPAIR]

Outside the opera houses, music in the period under review in this

volume may be said to begin and end with Jullien, so far as _Punch_ is

concerned. Jullien is roughly handled in the very first number of

_Punch_. In the autumn of 1857 satire has given place to affection and

generous recognition. And _Punch_ was right, for underneath all his

superficial buffooneries Jullien was a great educator and reformer. The

present writer vividly remembers an anecdote told him by the late Sir

Charles Hallé in the 'eighties. After giving a description of Jullien's

flamboyant attire--on one occasion he wore a shirt front embroidered

with a picture of a nymph playing a flute under a palm tree--and his

habit, after performing a solo on his golden piccolo, of flinging

himself with a _beau geste_ of exhaustion into a gorgeously upholstered

armchair, Sir Charles Hallé went on to recall how Jullien had once said

to him: "To succeed in music in England, one must be either a great

genius like _you_, or a great charlatan like _me_." Now Jullien had been

a failure as a student at the Paris Conservatoire--but so had Verdi at

Milan. But there is no warrant whatever for Punch's statement that he

was "a _ci-devant_ waiter of a _quarante-sous traiteur_." Of the

charlatan side of Jullien, the love of noise and, again to quote

Carlyle, of the "explosion of all the upholsteries," _Punch_ gives a

graphic if severe picture in the verses which appear in his first

number:--

MONSIEUR JULLIEN

"One!"--crash!

"Two!"--clash!

"Three!"--dash!

"Four!"--smash!

Diminuendo,

Now crescendo:--

Thus play the furious band,

Led by the kid-gloved hand

Of Jullien--that Napoleon of quadrille,

Of Piccolo-nians shrillest of the shrill;

Perspiring raver

Over a semi-quaver;

Who tunes his pipes so well, he'll tell you that

The natural key of Johnny Bull's--A flat.

Demon of discord, with moustaches cloven--

Arch-impudent _improver_ of Beethoven--

Tricksy Professor of _charlatanerie_--

Inventor of musical artillery--

Barbarous rain and thunder maker--

Unconscionable money taker--

Travelling about both near and far,

Toll to exact at every _bar_,

What brings thee here again

To desecrate old Drury's fane?

Egregious attitudiniser!

Antic fifer! com'st to advise her

'Gainst intellect and sense to close her walls?

To raze her benches,

That Gallic wenches

Might play their brazen antics at masked balls?

[Sidenote: _Early Promenade Concerts_]

[Illustration: "GENTS" AT THE PROMENADE CONCERT]

But when _Punch_ assails Jullien for leaving his "stew-pans and

meat-oven To make a fricassee of the great Beet-hoven" and "saucily

serve Mozart with sauce-piquant," and bids him "put your hat on,

_coupez votre bâton, Bah, Va_!!!"--_Punch_ was both rude and ungenerous.

From the very first at his Concerts d'Eté and then at the Promenade

Concerts, Jullien was a popularizer of good music. He gave his public

waltzes, "Row Polkas," and explosive Army Quadrilles, but he also

sandwiched Beethoven and Mozart between the coarser viands of his

musical _menu_. So while he was credited with the intention of bringing

out _Stabat Mater_ waltzes--by no means a difficult feat with Rossini's

work--and a _Dead March_ gallopade, we must never forget that he was the

first conductor to introduce symphonic music to the masses and the

authentic pioneer of the movement which Sir Henry Wood has carried on at

the Queen's Hall for the last twenty years and more. Modern music

strikes heavily on the naked ear, but Jullien was in the habit of

reinforcing instruments of percussion with explosives, and _Punch_

suggests in 1849 that his _Concerts Monstres_ should be held on

Salisbury Plain to give elbow room for his "stunning performances." His

_chevelure_, his waistcoats and waistbands were too conspicuous to

escape _Punch's_ vigilant eye, and Jullien was no doubt content that it

should be so, for he was a master of the art of _réclame_. He is

habitually alluded to as "the Mons," primarily as the diminutive for

"Monsieur," but mainly because he was "the Mont Blanc of Music." The

excesses of Jazz Bands of to-day are foreshadowed in a description of

the "tongs and bones" music at the Promenade Concerts. But the author of

the notice of Jullien[32] in the D.N.B. conveys a wrong impression when

he speaks of _Punch_ as only ridiculing Jullien. Already _Punch_ had

learned to recognize his merits, and, while rebuking him for his

extravagant conducting of flashy and trashy pieces, renders homage to

his reverence for good music. Thenceforward the references to "the Mons"

are in the main friendly. The _Almanack_ for 1852 speaks of the "Julian

(Jullien) Era" in music. Jullien's opera _Peter the Great_ is tenderly

handled in the autumn of the same year, and, when he set out for his

tour in the States, _Punch_ sped the parting minstrel in some verses

which are an admirable and faithful summary of his services to musical

education in England:--

FAREWELL TO JULLIEN

Composer of _Peter the Great_,

Ere over Atlantic's broad swell

The steamer shall carry thee, proud of her freight,

Let me bid thee a hearty farewell.

With ophicleides, cymbals, and gongs

At first thou didst wisely begin,

And bang the dull ears of the popular throngs,

As though 'twere to beat music in.

With national measures of France,

With polka, with waltz, and with jig,

The "gents" thou excitedst to caper and dance,

As Orpheus did ox, ass, and pig.

Then, leading them on, by degrees,

To a feeling for Genius and Art,

Thou mad'st them to feel that Beethoven could please,

And that all was not "slow" in Mozart.

[Footnote 32: Jullien was, we assume, a naturalized British subject,

though he appears in Larousse.]

[Sidenote: _John Hullah_]

The end of the poor "Mons" was pitiful. He was, when he chose to lay

aside his mountebankery, an excellent and inspiring conductor. But he

was hopelessly extravagant and improvident, and always in money

difficulties. In the fire which destroyed Covent Garden Theatre in 1856

he lost all his musical library and other possessions, and a disastrous

venture at the Royal Surrey Gardens completed his ruin. There is no

"ridicule" in the tribute paid to the unlucky Jullien in the autumn of

1857, when _Punch_ describes him as "a most worthy fellow, at whose

eccentricities I have made good fun in his days of glory, but whom I

have always recognized as a true artist and a true friend to art." But

things went from bad to worse with the eccentric artist, and Jullien

died bankrupt and insane in a lunatic asylum in Paris in 1860, at the

age of forty-eight.

Another musical pioneer on far more orthodox lines whom _Punch_

recognized was John Hullah, whose singing classes for the people at

Exeter Hall in 1842 prompted the comment: "If music for the people be a

fine moral pabulum, is the drama for the people to be considered of no

value whatever?" More sympathetic is the reference, under the heading of

"Io Bacche," to the performance of Bach's Mass in B minor at one of

Hullah's monthly concerts in St. Martin's Hall in March, 1851. Hullah,

who devoted his life to popular instruction in vocal music, well

deserved the commendation: no fewer than 25,000 pupils passed through

his singing classes between 1840 and 1860. The standard of taste in

vocal music was not high in the early 'forties: _Punch_ satirizes the

prevalent sentimentality in songs by suggesting in 1842 as a title

"Brush back that briny tear." On the instrumental side we have to note

the entrance of the banjo in the same year. Musical eccentricities and

monstrosities are duly noted. There seems to have been a special

effervescence of them in 1856, when a performer who hammered out tunes

on his chin, and Picco, the blind Sardinian penny whistler, enjoyed a

fleeting popularity. In the same year American negro dialect ballads

were much in vogue, a tyranny from which we are not yet relieved. The

concertina became fashionable much earlier, in 1844, owing to the

remarkable performances of the Italian _virtuoso_ Giulio Regondi, but

is seldom heard nowadays outside of music halls. Turgenieff said that

the zither always reminded him of a Jew trying to sing through his nose.

Without going so far as that, one may say that it would be hard to carry

out Sir Edward Elgar's favourite expression-mark _nobilmente_ on the

concertina. With regard to fashionable music _Punch_ complains in 1849

that execution was everything, composition little or nothing. He only

anticipated the complaint of a later satirist who wrote:--

Spare, execution, spare thy victim's bones--

Composed by Mozart, decomposed by Jones.

[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849

A FEW FRIENDS TO TEA AND A LYTTLE MVSYCK]

[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Taste in Music_]

[Illustration: TASTE IN 1854--VILLIKINS AND HIS DINAH IN THE

DRAWING-ROOM

YOUNG LADY (who ought to know better): "Now, William, you are not low

enough yet. Begin again at 'he took the cold pizen.'"]

Specimens of fashionable musical criticism have already been given under

the head of opera. _Punch_ had the root of the matter in him but was

lacking in technique, and confesses himself unable to make out what a

critic meant by alluding to a new tenor's "admirable _portamento_." He

was on much more sure ground when he attacked Balfe for mangling

Beethoven at the Grand National Concerts at Her Majesty's Theatre in

1850, when trivial rubbish was sandwiched between movements of the

_Eroica_ Symphony. A second visit, however, enabled him to withdraw his

censure, as the _Eroica_ and C minor Symphonies were performed without

being cut in two. _Punch_ had "no use for" Wagner, as we have seen, but

he fully appreciated his romantic forerunner Weber; his salutation of

Spohr and Hummel as classics was perhaps a trifle premature. The names

of the various musical celebrities who figure in the pages of _Punch_ in

this period afford a striking illustration of the transitoriness of the

fame of the executant. Who but experts in musical biography know of

Sivori and Ole Bull now? Even the laurels of the great Thalberg, the

most "gentlemanly" of all the great pianists, author of the most

fashionable variations, have withered sadly in the last half century.

_Punch_ does not seem to have been specially impressed by Liszt, the

greatest of them all, and misspells his name "Listz" on the occasion of

a perfunctory reference to him in 1843. The favourite composers of

waltzes were Strauss, the founder of the dynasty of the Viennese

waltz-kings, and Labitzky. To the present generation the name Strauss

has totally different associations; and we live so fast that an

enlightened writer has recently declared that the once redoubtable

Richard is also dead. It would be an overstatement to say that

conductors were of no account in the 'forties and 'fifties, in view of

the notoriety of Jullien and the prestige of Costa, who was both an

autocrat and a martinet, but they did not loom nearly so large in the

public eye as the great singers. The balance of repute has long since

been decisively redressed and the popular conductor of to-day has no

reason to complain of lack of homage, whether in the form of applause or

official recognition.

[Sidenote: _Turner as Painter and Poet_]

The low opinion which _Punch_ entertained of contemporary architects and

sculptors and of their ability to design or execute a public building, a

monument, or a memorial, has been noted in our brief survey of London.

He made an exception in favour of Paxton, but does not seem to have

recognized the genius of Alfred Stevens, and here at any rate was not in

advance of public or expert opinion of the time. Stevens's design for

the Wellington monument was only placed sixth in order of merit by the

adjudicators of the competition in 1857, and though ultimately the

execution of the monument was entrusted to him, it was not placed in the

position intended for it till twenty-seven years after his death. As a

judge of painting and painters _Punch_ showed greater independence,

intelligence and enlightenment. His earlier volumes abound in references

to forgotten names, but he was at least no indiscriminate worshipper of

established reputation. In a notice of the Suffolk Street Gallery in the

autumn of 1841 he prints a most trenchant criticism of Maclise's

"Sleeping Beauty" as showing "a disdain for both law and reason and

avoiding an approximation to the vulgarity of flesh and blood in his

representation of humanity." Landseer falls under his lash for his

"courtier pictures" at the R.A. in 1844, and in the same article we find

the first of many satirical references to Turner's poetic titles.

_Punch_, we regret to say, wholly failed to recognize that a bad poet

might be a very great painter. In his "Scamper through the Academy" we

read:--

No. 77 is called _Whalers_, by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and embodies

one of those singular effects which are only met with in lobster

salads, and in this artist's pictures. Whether he calls his

pictures _Whalers_, or _Venice_, or _Morning_, or _Noon_, or

_Night_, it is all the same; for it is quite as easy to fancy it

one thing as another. We give here two subjects by this celebrated

artist.

[Illustration: VENICE BY DAYLIGHT,--RETURNING FROM THE BALL

MS. "Fallacies of Hope" (An Unpublished Poem).--TURNER.]

And again:--

We had almost forgotten Mr. J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and his

celebrated MS. poem, the _Fallacies of Hope_, to which he

constantly refers us as "in former years," but on this occasion he

has obliged us by simply mentioning the title of the poem, without

troubling us with an extract. We will, however, supply a motto to

his _Morning--returning from the Ball_, which really seems to need

a little explanation; and as he is too modest to quote the

_Fallacies of Hope_, we will quote it for him:

"Oh! what a scene!--Can this be Venice? No.

And yet methinks it is--because I see

Amid the lumps of yellow, red and blue,

Something which looks like a Venetian spire.

That dash of orange in the background there

Bespeaks 'tis Morning! And that little boat

(Almost the colour of tomato sauce)

Proclaims them now returning from the ball!

This in my picture, I would fain convey,

I hope I do. Alas! _what_ FALLACY!"

But there is some good "horse sense" mixed up with frivolity in an

article on the canons of criticism a few pages later:--

GENERAL MAXIMS

I. The power of criticism is a gift, and requires no previous

education.

II. The critic is greater than the artist.

III. The artist cannot know his own meaning. The critic's office is

to inform him of it.

IV. Painting is a mystery. The language of pictorial criticism,

like its subject, should be mysterious and unintelligible to the

vulgar. It is a mistake to classify it as ordinary English, the

rules of which it does not recognise.

V. Approbation should be sparingly given: it should be bestowed in

preference on what the general eye condemns. The critical dignity

must never be lowered by any explanation why a work of art is good

or bad.

[Sidenote: _Rules for Art Critics_]

CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICULAR STYLES

1. _To criticise a Picture by Turner._--Begin by protesting against

his extravagance; then go on with a "notwithstanding." Combine such

phrases as "_bathed in sunlight_," "_flooded with summer glories_,"

"_mellow distance_," with a reference to his earlier pictures; and

wind up with a rapturous rhapsody on the philosophy of art.

2. _To criticise a Picture by Stanfield._--Begin by unqualified

praise; then commence detracting, first on the score of "_sharp,

hard outline_"; then of "_leathery texture_"; then of "_scenic

effect of the figures_"; and conclude by a wish he had never been a

scene painter.

3. _To criticise a Picture by Etty._--Begin by delirious

satisfaction with his "_delicious carnations_" and "_mellow

flesh-tones_." Remark on the skilful arrangement of colour and

admirable composition; and finish with a regret that Etty should

content himself with merely painting from "_the nude Academy

model_," without troubling himself with that for which you had just

before praised him.--N.B. Never mind the contradiction.

4. _To criticise a Picture by E. Landseer._--Here you are bound to

unqualified commendation. If the subject be Prince Albert's Hat or

the Queen's Macaw, some ingenious compliment to royal patrons is

expected.

_Punch_ will be happy to supply newspaper critics with similar

directions for "doing" all the principal painters in similar style.

He subjoins some masterly specimens of artistic criticism:--

The "_facile princeps_" of daily critics of art (he of the Post)

has the following, in a criticism of Herbert's _Gregory and

Choristers_:--

"There is a want of _modulative melody_ in its colours and

mellowness in _its hand_ (whose?), pushed to an _outré_ simplicity

in _the plainness and ungrammatical development of its general

effect_. The handling is firm and simple, though in the drapery

occasionally too square and inflexible."

[Illustration: MANNERS AND CVSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHE IN 1849

YE EXHYBITYON. AT YE ROYAL ACADEMYE.]

The neglect and rough handling of the treasures of the National Gallery,

where pictures presented to the nation were buried in a vault, is a

frequent source of indignant comment throughout this period--note for

example "The Pictures' Petition" in 1853. But in another sense

contemporary pictures were roughly handled by _Punch_. Thus in 1849 he

puts in an effective plea for realism as against Wardour Street "Old

Clo'," and appeals to artists to "paint human beings instead of

clothes-horses." There is indeed a strangely familiar ring in "Mr.

Pips's" notes on the R.A. Exhibition of the year:--

"The Exhibition at large I judge to be a very excellent middling

one, many Pictures good in their kind, but that Kind in very few

cases high. The Silks and Satins mostly painted to admiration, and

the Figures copied carefully from the Model; but this do appear too

plainly; and the action generally too much like a Scene in a Play."

The same complaint recurs in the following year, when _Punch_ is moved,

as the result of visiting all the exhibitions then open to ask certain

questions:--

Is painting a living art in England at this moment?

Is there a nineteenth century?

Are there men and women round about us, doing, acting, suffering?

Is the subject matter of Art, clothes? Or is it men and women,

their actions, passions and sufferings?

If Art is vital, should it not somehow find food among living

events, interests, and incidents? Is our life, at this day, so

unideal, so devoid of all sensuous and outward picturesqueness and

beauty, that for subjects to paint we must needs go back to the

Guelphs and Ghibellines, or to Charles the Second, or William the

Third, or George the Second?

[Sidenote: _The P.R.B._]

[Illustration: CONVENT THOUGHTS]

But much more interesting than these generalities--sound and sensible

though they are--is the first reference to "certain young friends of

mine, calling themselves--the dear silly boys--Pre-Raphaelites" in the

same volume. It must certainly be admitted that in his earlier

criticisms of the P.R.B.'s _Mr. Punch_ managed to dissemble his

affection pretty effectively. The initial compliment in the notice of

1851 is largely discounted by what follows:--

Our dear and promising young friends, the Pre-Raphaelites, deserve

especial commendation for the courage with which they have dared to

tell some most disagreeable truths on their canvases this year. Mr.

Ruskin was quite right in taking up the cudgels against _The Times_

on this matter. The pictures of the P.R.B. _are_ true, and that's

the worst of them. Nothing can be more wonderful than the truth of

Collins's representation of the _Alisma Plantago_, _except_ the

unattractiveness of the demure lady, whose botanical pursuits he

has recorded under the name of CONVENT THOUGHTS.... By the size

of the lady's head he no doubt meant to imply her vast capacity of

brains--while by the utter absence of form and limb under the robe,

he subtly conveys that she has given up all thoughts of making a

figure in the world.

Mr. Millais's "_Mariana_ in the moated Grange" is obviously meant

to insinuate a delicate excuse for the gentleman who wouldn't

come--and to show the world the full import of Tennyson's

description:--

_then said she, "I am very dreary."_

Anything drearier than the lady, or brighter than her blue velvet

robe, it is impossible to conceive.

[Illustration: MARIANA IN THE MOATED GRANGE]

[Sidenote: _Commercialism in Art_]

But Punch _makes_ the _amende_ most handsomely in 1852:--

Before two pictures of Mr. Millais I have spent the happiest hour

that I have ever spent in the Royal Academy Exhibition. In those

two pictures [_Ophelia_ and _The Huguenot_] I find more loving

observation of Nature, more mastery in the reproduction of her

forms and colours, more insight into the sentiment of our greatest

poet, a deeper feeling of human emotion, a happier choice of a

point of interest, and a more truthful rendering of its appropriate

expression, than in all the rest of those eight hundred squares of

canvas put together.

In 1852 _Punch_ singles out, from a wilderness of niggling landscapes

and highly-coloured and meretricious upholstery, Watts's "marvellous

chalk drawing of Lord John Russell." For the rest,

Art is more of a trade now, than it was when Raphael's studio had

no other name than _bottega_--in English, shop; and moreover, it is

an emasculate and man-milliner sort of a trade, instead of one

demanding strong brains, and a brave and believing heart. It is a

trade mainly conversant with miserable things and petty aims--with

vanity, and ostentation and vulgarity, and sensuality and

frivolity--no longer dealing with themes of prayer and praise, with

the glories of beatitude, or the horror of damnation, with the

perpetuation of family dignities and devotions, the recording of

great events, the dignifying of public and national, or the

beautifying of private and individual life. It is a trade in

ornament, and its Academy is a shop, and its Exhibition a display

of rival wares, in which the best hope and the sole aim of the many

is to catch the eye of a customer; and he who "colours most highly,

is sure to please."

As a comprehensive indictment of the commercialism and triviality of

Victorian art this leaves little to be desired. For an illustration of

_Punch's_ altered opinion of the P.R.B.'s it may suffice to quote his

palinode in 1853:--

Will you consider me ridiculous or blind when I assure you, on my

honour as a puppet and a public performer, that these young

gentlemen have written for me this year four of the sweetest and

deepest and most thoughtful books I have read since I laid down Mr.

Millais's historical romance of _The Huguenot_, last year? I am

sensible of the omniscience of the daily, and some of the weekly

papers, and I am aware that this is an opinion which should not be

breathed within ear-shot of places where they take in _The Times_,

and the _Morning Post_, and the _Examiner_. But I am a sort of

chartered libertine, and nobody will believe anything I say is

serious, so I can enjoy the luxury of saying what I feel, having no

character to keep up. Then I tell you frankly--not forgetting Edwin

Landseer's two grand cantos of his Highland Poem, _Night and

Morning by the Lochside_, or Stanfield's noble paean-picture of the

Battered Hull that carries the body of Nelson, like a Viking with

his ship for bier--not forgetting these and other picture-books

well worth reading--I tell you that Hunt's _Claudio and Isabella_

is to me _the_ book of the collection, though it records in colours

what Shakespeare has written in words; and that little, if at all

after it, comes Millais's _Order of Release_, and then the _Strayed

Sheep_ and _Proscribed Royalist_ of the same authors. I do not mean

to put either after the other, so I bracket them."

In accepting the principles of the P.R.B.'s _Punch_ shows all the zeal

of the convert, as may be gathered from the following discourse

published shortly afterwards:--

Art must adapt itself to the conditions of the time and the life it

has to reflect.

See what follows.

If pictures are to be hung in rooms instead of churches, and public

halls and palaces, they must be small.

Work on a small scale, being meant for the satisfaction of a close

eye, must be highly finished.

These conditions did not affect the old painters and must affect

the moderns, and these conditions my young friends the

Pre-Raphaelites appear to be conscious of and to submit to, for

which I cannot blame them, but praise them rather, for wisely

recognising the necessity of adapting Art to surrounding

circumstances.

What have they recognised besides?

That the truest representation and grandest creation may and must

be combined by the great artist; that as man works in a setting of

earth and air, all the beauties and fitness of that setting must be

rendered--the more truthfully the better--and that the most

accurate rendering of these need not detract from the crowning

work--the creation of the central interest which sums itself in

human expression.

The practice of painting hitherto has seemed to challenge the

possibility of combining these two things--human expression and

accurate representation of inanimate or lower nature. These young

men take up the gauntlet, and say, "We are prepared to do this--at

least to try and do it." Their first-fruits are before the world,

and already it has felt that the undertaking is new and startling

and cheerfully courageous: nay, more: that to a certain point--and

further than might be expected from such beardless champions--it

has already succeeded.

So God speed these young Luthers of the worn-out Art-faith; they

have burnt the Bull of the Painter-Popes of their time. They have

still enough work before them, such as their spiritual father

before them went through--devils of their own creating to hurl

their palettes at, and many mighty magnates to wrestle with, and

confute, and put to shame--by trust in their gospel truth that

Accurate Representation is the first requisite of Art.

[Sidenote: Enthusiasm of a Convert]

It may be added that when French medals were conferred on English

artists in 1855, _Punch_ complained that the newer school, i.e. the

P.R.B.'s, had been overlooked in favour of Court painters such as

Landseer. As a set-off to these examples of _Punch's_ artistic and

aesthetic _flair_ and enlightenment, it must be owned that in 1854 he

had expressed high praise for Frith's _Ramsgate Sands_ (which was bought

by the Queen) on account of its realism. But it may be accounted to him

for righteousness that he supported Lord Stanhope's National Portrait

Gallery Bill in 1856, and entered a vigorous protest against the vile

"Germanism" of the title "Art Treasures Exhibition" instead of

"Treasures of Art" for the show at Manchester in 1857. The more modern

and equally vile Germanism "Concert-Direction Smith" or whoever the

musical agent may be, has apparently been washed out by the War of 1914.

With all deductions and limitations _Punch's_ record as a critic of the

fine arts acquits him handsomely of the charge of Philistinism.

PERSONALITIES

Towards the end of the period reviewed in this volume, _Punch_

enumerates his special _bêtes noires_ as "Humbug, Cant, Sleek Hypocrisy

and Brazen Wrong." But as has already been abundantly proved, the list

would have to be considerably extended to include all the personages,

notable and notorious, who came under his lash. In earlier years he is

much more specific. Thus in 1850 his amiable catalogue of the gentlemen

and public bodies who have kindly consented to furnish him with game in

the ensuing year contains Colonel Sibthorp, the bearded reactionary who

sat for Lincoln, Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament,

all quack-medicine vendors, tyrants and woman-floggers (the Tsar

Nicholas and Haynau are specially aimed at), Madame Tussaud, Lord

Brougham, R.A.'s, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, Smithfield and all

City nuisances, and all sinecurists and pensionists. In 1852 Panizzi

(for his long deferred catalogue of the British Museum of which he was

Chief Librarian), Cardinal Wiseman, and Lord Maidstone are added,

together with Railway Directors, Homoeopathists and Protectionists.

[Illustration: PEEL AS THE KNAVE OF SPADES]

Among the various devices adopted to ventilate his personal animosity

may be noted _Punch's_ list of "desirable emigrants," and the ingenious

suggestion that "Penal Statues" should be erected to commemorate the

misdeeds of great offenders, obstructionists, bigots and anti-reformers.

Of some of _Punch's_ butts it may be said that they were rescued from

oblivion by his satire and caricature--Sibthorp for example, though he

was by no means the merely reactionary buffoon who appears in _Punch_.

He was eccentric in dress and figure, opposed all the great measures of

Reform, and was the incarnation of ultra-Tory tradition. But he was

frequently witty, and as truculently courageous as _Punch_ himself. Sir

Peter Laurie, Alderman and Lord Mayor of London, stood to _Punch_ for

all that was pompous, officious, meddlesome and even odious in City

administration. We rub our eyes on reading in the D.N.B. that Sir Peter

throughout his public life "devoted himself largely to schemes of social

advancement, was a good magistrate and a disciple of Joseph Hume." But

the explanation of this and other divergent records is simple enough.

_Punch_ was often too angry or enthusiastic to be just or

discriminating. He wrote on the spur of the moment, with the result that

he often had to revise his verdicts. We have seen this change in regard

to Prince Albert, the Duke of Wellington, and Palmerston, and already

_Punch_ had reluctantly begun to admit that Disraeli was a force in

politics and not a mere mountebank. The bitter attacks on Bulwer Lytton

as a pinch-beck writer and padded dandy, which abound in the 'forties,

ended in reconciliation and amity. We have seen the process at work

again in the altered estimates of Jullien. Bunn was severely let alone,

but only when it was found that the animal, as in the French saying, was

so evil as to defend himself when he was attacked. Sometimes, however,

_Punch_ was implacable and impenitent. He never appears to have had a

really good word to say for Daniel O'Connell, but regarded Repeal

throughout as a fraud, and the "Liberator" as a self-seeking and

grasping agitator. When Dan promised in 1845 to achieve Repeal in six

months or lay his head on the block, and did neither, _Punch_ only

jeered at his "brazen boasting," and depicted him later on as the real

"Potato Blight" of Ireland. Impenitence, too, marked his attitude

towards both "Henry of Exeter" (Dr. Phillpotts), Pusey, and Wiseman; and

his distrust of Louis Napoleon, after a brief period of reticence

imposed during the Crimean War, revived in full force in the later

'fifties. We have also seen the converse of the process described above

in the treatment of Cobden and Bright, who were rudely hauled down from

their pinnacles when _Punch_ the peace-loving Free Trader developed in

the Crimean War into the bellicose patriot. The change was made in the

contrary direction with Peel, but the grace of recognition was

grievously impaired by its delay. Posthumous honours are a sorry

reparation for continual abuse of the living, and _Punch's_ treatment of

Peel is one of the worst blots on his scutcheon. In _Punch's_ early

volumes no abuse was too bad for the Conservative statesman. Even the

Bible was ransacked for invidious parallels, which only stopped short of

Judas. He was a "political eel," a "quack," a "genius or Janus," and

there is a curious foreshadowing of the recriminations of our own time,

in the way in which Peel, in virtue of his inveterate policy of

temporizing, is saddled with the watchword "wait awhile."

[Sidenote: _"Punch's" Injustice to Peel_]

[Illustration: THE ROYAL RED RIDING HOOD]

If "Jenkins" was _Punch's_ "chief butler"--in the sense of the supreme

flunkey--Lord Brougham was his chief butt throughout these years. And

certainly no public character in the nineteenth century ever played

better into the hands of the satirist. His nose in the most literal

sense lent a handle to the caricaturist. His tweed trousers figure as

regularly in _Punch's_ portraits as the straw in Palmerston's

mouth--which, by the way, is generally traced to a trick that "Pam"

acquired in visiting his stables. Palmerston's nickname was "Cupid" from

his gallantry: the mythological parallel for Brougham would have been

Proteus. One of the earliest references to him in _Punch_ appears in the

composite Preface to Vol. vi., in which each of the contributors

ascribes to _Punch_ his own characteristics, Brougham praising him for

"forswearing like a chameleon every shade of opinion, when for the

moment he has ceased to wear it." Thereafter the fun becomes fast and

furious. Brougham is charged with writing the flamboyant advertisements

of George Robins, a veritable Barnum among auctioneers. His tweed

trousers are explained as a cause of his always wanting to get back to

the woolsack. He is credited, in virtue of his versatile activities,

with the attempt to discover perpetual motion. Brougham's vanity,

craving for office at all costs, meddlesomeness, and subservience to the

Duke of Wellington are held up to contempt, and in "Rational Readings

for Grown-up People" (an early anticipation of the Missing Word

Competition) we read:--

If people may, without rebuke,

Call Wellington the "Iron----,"

Why then we safely may presume

The "Brazen Peer" to term Lord----.

[Illustration: QUEEN CANUTE REPROVING HER COURTIERS]

The snobbishness of Brougham's arguments on behalf of royal princes in

his Debtors' Bill again infuriates the democratic _Punch_, who in 1849

was even more disgusted by Brougham's fulsome championship of Radetzky

and the Austrians when they defeated the Piedmontese. But _Punch's_

hostility reaches its height in the verses (accompanying a cartoon which

represents Brougham standing on his head) describing the amazing farrago

of inconsistencies which composed the mind of one who was at once a

charlatan and encyclopædist, a reformer and a courtier. In the same year

_Punch_ suggests a Bill should be promoted for "the better behaviour of

the erotic and learned lord,"

Who'd rather mount the mountebank's stage than be laid on the shelf,

Who does with ease the difficult task of turning his back on himself.

Brougham's perversely obstructive attitude towards the Exhibition of

1851 excited _Punch's_ wrath, when he himself had become converted to

the scheme, but already the tone of the paper had changed; and the

turning point was reached on the occasion of Brougham's visit to America

in 1850, when _Punch_ printed the following unofficial letter of

introduction to the President of the United States:--

To General Taylor, President of the United States,

Favoured by Henry Lord Brougham, Member of the French Institute.

"Dear Taylor,

"I have much pleasure in making yourself and my friend

_Brougham_--the _Brougham_ whose fame is _not_ European but

world-wide--personally acquainted. With all his little drolleries,

he is an excellent fellow; and with all his oddities, he has worked

like a Hercules stable-boy at our Augean Courts of Law. He has

cheapened costs; he has well-nigh destroyed the race of sharp

attorneys. Indeed, if you would seek Brougham's monument, look

around every attorney's office; and you will _not_ see Brougham's

picture."

[Sidenote: _A Palinode to Brougham_]

_Punch_ had already welcomed Brougham's espousal of the anti-Sabbatarian

cause, but the full avowal of reconciliation is to be found in the

following graceful verses printed in 1851:--

A PALINODE

From _Punch_ to Henry Brougham

"During the last five or six weeks, he had with the utmost

difficulty, and against the opinion of his medical advisers,

attended the service of their Lordships' House. During the last ten

days the difficulty had increased and become more severe. In the

hope of assisting in this great measure, in a cause to which his

life had been devoted, he had struggled to the last, until he found

he could struggle no more."--_Lord Brougham's last speech on Law

Reform in the House of Lords._

And is the busy brain o'erwrought at last?

Has the sharp sword fretted the sheath so far?

Then, Henry Brougham, in spite of all that's past,

Our ten long years of all but weekly war,

Let _Punch_ hold out to you a friendly hand,

And speak what haply he had left unspoken

Had the sharp tongue lost naught of its command,

That nervous frame still kept its spring unbroken.

Forgot the changes of thy later years,

No more he knows the Ishmael once he knew,

Drinking delights of battle 'mongst the Peers--

Your hand 'gainst all men, all men's hands 'gainst you.

He knows the Orator whose fearless tongue

Lashed into infamy and endless scorn

The wretches who their blackening scandal flung

Upon a Queen--of women most forlorn.

He knows the lover of his kind, who stood

Chief of the banded few who dared to brave

The accursed traffickers in negro blood,

And struck his heaviest fetter from the slave;

The Statesman who, in a less happy hour

Than this, maintained man's right to read and know,

And gave the keys of knowledge and of power

With equal hand alike to high and low;

The Lawyer who, unwarped by private aims,

Denounced the Law's abuse, chicane, delay:

The Chancellor who settled century's claims,

And swept an age's dense arrears away;

The man whose name men read even as they run,

On every landmark the world's course along,

That speaks to us of a great battle won

Over untruth, or prejudice or wrong.

Remembering this, full sad I am to hear

That voice which loudest in the combat rung

Now weak and low and sorrowful of cheer,

To see that arm of battle all unstrung.

And so, even as a warrior after fight

Thinks of a noble foe, now wounded sore,

I think of thee, and of thine ancient might,

And hold a hand out, armed for strife no more.

This is a fine summary of Brougham's services as the friend of humanity,

the champion of free speech and popular education, and the great legal

reformer, erring, if at all, in the over-generous estimate of his

disinterestedness as an advocate. Brougham recovered from his breakdown

and lived for seventeen years longer--years crowded with multifarious

activities, legal, scientific, literary. He was, in many ways, a unique

figure in public life, though, when the lives of the Lord Chancellors

are brought up to date in the next generation, he will not be able to

avoid rivalry on the score of early advancement, versatility,

vituperation, and vulgarity.

Sir James Graham is not mentioned nearly so often as Brougham, but in

respect of concentrated hostility of criticism he occupies the first

place amongst _Punch's_ pet aversions. No cartoon in this period held up

any politician to greater contempt and ridicule than the repulsive

picture of the Home Secretary as "Peel's Dirty Little Boy," who was

"always in trouble." The predominating cause of _Punch's_ resentment was

the historic episode of the opening of suspect correspondence, notably

that of Mazzini; but Sir James Graham could do nothing right in

_Punch's_ view: _nihil tetigit quod non foedavit_. Peter Borthwick,

the advocate of the slave-owners, M.P. for Evesham from 1835 to 1847,

and editor of the _Morning Post_ from 1850 till his death in 1852, was

no favourite of _Punch_. He was, however, as the date shows, not

editorially responsible for "Jenkins"; and by introducing the Borthwick

clause into the Poor Law Amendment Bill in 1847, under which married

couples over the age of sixty were not, as theretofore, separated when

they entered the poor-house, he so far expiated his pro-slavery

heresies that _Punch_ granted him "six months immunity from ridicule for

this good act." _Punch's_ antipathy to Urquhart is curious, for they

were united in their Russophobia. But _Punch_ was often intolerant of

competitors, and he was never an extravagant Turcophil as Urquhart was.

[Sidenote: _"Punch" Designs a Statue_]

[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S DESIGN FOR A STATUE TO MISS NIGHTINGALE]

If a paper, like a man, is to be fairly judged by its heroes and

favourites, _Punch_ emerges from the test with considerable credit. Most

of them have been mentioned incidentally elsewhere, and the list[33]

might easily be added to. Let it suffice, however, to give the names of

Jenner, Stephenson, Rowland Hill, Paxton, Faraday, and Livingstone;

Mazzini and Kossuth; Jenny Lind, Florence Nightingale, and William

Russell, of whose lectures _Punch_ wrote an enthusiastic and

well-merited encomium in the summer of 1857.

[Footnote 33: It is perhaps worthy of note that with the exception of

Paxton none of those mentioned belonged to the decorated or decorative

classes. Stephenson refused a knighthood in 1850; it was not bestowed on

William Russell till more than forty years later. Rowland Hill was made

a K.C.B. in 1860.]

_A complete Index will be found in the Fourth Volume._

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