THE ARISTOCRACY OF WEALTH AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS
Contrast between the London of the forties and the London of to-day.
Gas and steam chiefly mark the century. City traders still living at
Islington. The theatre not yet an institution. The parks still uncared
for. Thames pollutions still recall Dickens' description of Quilp's
home. The future South Kensington cabbage beds or waste ground.
Absence of enormous fortunes outside commercial millionaires. Evidence
of increasing national prosperity afforded by statistics of picture
sales. The growth of these sales from Charles I. till to-day. The
Beckford, the Horace Walpole and other sales. Gradual rise in value of
great masters. Memorable sales and personages at Christie's.
Gainsborough's Duchess of Devonshire episode.
The chief resemblance between the London which Queen Victoria first knew,
and the capital as it was seen by her subjects on her jubilee anniversary
in 1887, is the appearance of the steam locomotive at the railway termini
and upon the waters of the Thames. Passing to more permanent
characteristics, only the great national buildings would enable those
present at Her Majesty's coronation to identify the pre-Exhibition
Metropolis with the capital of to-day. Even Hyde Park, that, as has been
seen, was then, as now, the recreation ground of polite London, presented
an aspect very different from its appearance on the approach of the
sixtieth commemoration of the commencement of the reign. Like all the
other Royal enclosures, the Hyde Park of the forties or fifties was
decorated by no flower beds and was in other respects habitually ill-kept.
General sanitation had yet to reach its infancy. The Thames remained
almost as unwholesome and repulsive a stream as at an earlier epoch the
Fleet Ditch had been. Dickens' description in _The Old Curiosity Shop_ of
'Quilp's' haunts was a sketch from life equally graphic and accurate of
the condition of the river's shore between London Bridge and the Strand.
The site of the river embankments of to-day swarmed at low water with
mudlarks gathering fragments of coal and other refuse which had dropped
from the wharves that lined the banks on both sides of the river. If the
ladies who to-day take tea on the Terrace of the House of Commons had
exposed themselves so persistently on the spot where that structure now
stands, instead of catching a catarrh, they might have feared a
pestilence. Even in the course of the short suburban drives made by the
coaches of the Four-in-Hand Club after their meet at the Magazine, the
ladies who to-day occupy the box seat would have run the risk of being
shocked by the sight of corpses hanging on the gallows. Lord Grey's Reform
Act had been added to the Statute Book before this relic of barbarism
disappeared. The midlands were busy with preparations for the first appeal
to genuine constituencies when certain electoral canvassers, merrily
pursuing their work outside Leicester were horror-stricken amidst their
fun by the sight of a lifeless form fashionably dressed in blue coat and
gilt buttons swinging to and fro on a gallows tree by the roadway. The
body was that of a young master printer, who had been hung for a
particularly abominable murder. More decent times happily were near. This,
which many men now living can remember, was the last gibbet that ever
disgraced the Queen's highway. The city workers when they did not dwell
above their offices, lived for the most part at Islington, still a country
suburb, or took the bus or coach to and fro between the more rural
Tottenham or Highgate and their counting room or shop. The ground which is
to-day covered by the mansions, the hotels, and the flower beds of South
Kensington was then either used as cabbage gardens, nursery grounds, and
riding schools, or was given up to the loafers and ruffians of the
streets, who chose the forenoon of Sunday as the time for settling their
differences with their fists.
As a popular institution the theatre was practically unknown to the early
Victorian era. The old patent houses were supported precariously. Their
rivals of more recent date were on the chronic verge of bankruptcy. Night
after night popular actors and actresses performed to empty benches.
Pleasure seekers from the West were more likely to make up a party to see
a man hanged than to make up a party for the play.
The new millionaires came in with the new gold. At this earlier date, the
men who had realized great fortunes in business, who did not belong on the
one hand to the wealthy territorial noblesse, or to the financial
plutocracy on the other might be counted on the fingers of a single hand.
The Rothschilds had been settled among us for a century. Their opulence
had passed into a proverb. Other names belonging to the millionaire
category were Arkwright, Strutt, Jones Lloyd, better known to the present
generation as Lord Overstone, and Hope. The forerunners of that
aristocracy of wealth which sways society to-day, of the Guests, the
Crawshays in the iron trade, had not yet appeared. Half a century had
passed since the second Pitt had declared that 'every man with forty
thousand a year had a right to a peerage.' The Listers, the Holdens, and
others were already prosperous manufacturers in the Bradford district. The
brewing interest already knew its Basses and its Guinnesses. The peerages
and the baronetcies with which these families have since been decorated
were reserved for a much later stage of the reign. Even the uncrowned
kings of the Australian or Californian gold mines had no subjects in
London till the World's Show of 1851 had passed into history. The gradual
advancement of the great retail traders typified by the name Peter
Robinson, or Maple, to a corresponding dignity on a different level did
not take place till our own decade. The social polish and refinement which
are the attributes of the new wealth to-day, had not half a century since
become dreams of fancy. Rude plenty and coarse splendour characterized the
entertainments and the dwellings of the early Victorian plutocracy, as
they had marked the hospitality of our Saxon or Norman ancestors. It is a
commonplace of conversation to say that none can foretell where the
movement which during the last half century has set in with all classes is
to stop. Not only the wages of the working classes, but the payments of
professional and every kind of skilled industry have increased at a rate
predicted to be impossible; but every shilling buys from thirty to fifty
per cent. more than formerly of the necessaries and comforts of life. The
Prince Consort, as has been already said, did more than any other
individual of his day to quicken English workmanship with the artistic
sense. The task that waits for accomplishment now is seemingly to develop
intelligence and thrift in the masses. If this work be carried to the
point which may be expected from the progress made during the last half
century, the conditions of the national life in England cannot fail to
improve more rapidly than anywhere else in the world.
The new municipal buildings which have risen in all the great towns of the
kingdom during the last four or five decades; the warehouses, offices, and
shops that, if seen in Venice, would be admired for the artistic splendour
of their exteriors, but which pass unnoticed on the Thames, the Mersey,
and the Irwell; these are some among the outward and visible signs of the
progressive prosperity of all classes of the community, since the
treasures of Australia and California first were poured into England, and
since the Serbonian bog of Chat Moss was turned into a safe and solid
track for the steam engine. Other indications, not less conclusive and
perhaps more picturesque, of the same truth are the decoration of the
outskirts of every town with private villas set in landscape gardens which
half a century ago would have seemed worthy of Chatsworth, and with public
parks not less cared for than Royal pleasure grounds, the acquisitions of
corporate enterprise, or the gifts of individual munificence. The hard
facts and figures which have accumulated since in 1846 the British ports
were opened to the merchandise of all nations explain in detail the
transformation that has been witnessed. During the quarter of a century
before the repeal of the Corn Laws, the total value of English exports, of
products, of manufactures was one thousand and eighty-five millions.
During the twenty-five years that followed the repeal, the value was three
thousand and thirty-one millions; in other words, an increase of nearly
two hundred per cent. The second quarter of a century since Free Trade,
that is from 1871-1896 has raised the total value of our exports to six
thousand two hundred and ninety-nine millions; and this in the face of the
great and continuous fall of prices during recent years. Our import trade
has expanded even in greater proportion. The total value of imports of
merchandise during the years between 1871-1895 was nine thousand seven
hundred and sixty-three millions. These figures do not exhaust the
national profits of Free Trade. Our increased business with the great
markets of the world abroad has meant a vast extension of employment among
the masses at home. There is not only more work to be done. It is paid for
at a higher rate than was ever known. Articles of necessity, not more than
of luxury never before known in industrial households, are to-day common
beneath the workman's roof. With comfort, sobriety, and thrift, which are
indeed the parents of comfort, have increased too. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer in his last Budget stated that within ten years the deposits of
the savings banks have more than doubled. The evidence furnished by
statistics of pauperism is not less significant. In the spring of 1896
poor relief was given to 739,021 as compared with 897,370 in 1857. And
this although the population had grown in forty years from nineteen
millions to over thirty millions. In 1857 the ratio of paupers to
inhabitants was more than 47 in 1,000. In 1896 the ratio is 24 in 1,000.
The proof of national prosperity afforded by the income-tax returns was
given at length in the preceding chapter. Entirely to exhaust the
statistical evidence available for the propositions now advanced there may
be cited the figures connected with the National Debt. This is being paid
off out of the successive surpluses of annual revenue over expenditure. In
1856 after the Crimean War, the Debt stood at eight hundred and
twenty-nine millions, or about L29, 12s. per head of the population. In
1895 it had been reduced to six hundred and sixty millions, or about L17,
6s. per head of the population. The amount of the Debt in March 1896 was
six hundred and fifty-two millions. Thus, in the last thirteen years, the
money responsibilities of the nation have been reduced by one hundred
millions. Enthusiasts for Richard Cobden's memory have therefore some
reason for declaring that since the measure which the genius of himself
and John Bright conceived, and the statesmanlike energy of Mr Villiers
promoted, was written on the Statute Book, a new England has been created.
Nor has anyone seriously denied the connection during the regime of
Protection between wheat at from 53s. to 112s. a quarter and the
intolerable distress of the working classes in town and country expressed
in ricks blazing and Riot Acts read. With the first relaxation in the
Protective Tariff, some improvement began. It continued very gradually but
certainly till at last the new prosperity as shown by the figures and
facts already cited was fairly established.
The prices commanded by famous pictures at the great art sales of the
present and preceding periods have not uniformly attested the correctness
of the popular criticism. They have, however, at all times afforded a
practical criterion of the growing wealth of the country, and above all of
the standard of expenditure current among the educated classes; seen in
this light, the figures are not irrelevant to the present purpose. Picture
sales have been a feature in the social and artistic life of England
during more than two centuries. In 1649, by order of the Parliament, the
collection of Charles I., the most discriminating and perhaps the greatest
of Royal patrons of art, was offered to public competition. It realized a
trifle less than fifty thousand pounds, probably not half of what it cost
its original owner, who is said to have paid for the 'Mantua' pictures
alone eighty thousand pounds. At a later sale, however, many of these
paintings found purchasers at from L500 to L800 apiece. Thus, even in
these early days, was the coming rise in artistic values faintly
foreshadowed. But no continuous increase was yet noticeable. Not quite a
century after this, Harley, Lord Oxford's celebrated collection was
dispersed. The polite education of the well-to-do classes had then made
considerable advances. The first of the Indian Nabobs had returned home
with the spoils of the Pagoda Tree in his pocket to end his days in the
coffee houses of St James's. The commercial classes were generally
prosperous. Many Sir Vistos, complying with the whisper of the familiar
demon 'had a taste.' The conditions of the time were therefore not
unfavourable for prices conspicuously higher than had been given for the
Stuart collection. Nevertheless, the interest aroused by the Oxford sale
was so languid, art fanciers were so little enterprising, that the highest
price recorded on this occasion was eighty-nine pounds, five shillings for
the 'Jacob and Laban' of Sebastian Bourdon. The Italian masters commanded
on an average only five guineas apiece. A superb specimen of Claude
Lorraine encouraged no bidder beyond twenty-seven pounds, six shillings.
Holbein's since famous portrait of the Duchess of Suffolk went for fifteen
pounds, four shillings and sixpence. Rembrandts scarcely found purchasers
at twelve guineas or even six. Pictures then supposed to be by Michael
Angelo could be had for a few pounds. The highest price paid at the Oxford
sale, the only one running into three figures was one hundred and
seventy-five pounds, five shillings, for Van Dyck's 'Sir Kenelm Digby and
family.' On the other hand, a second Van Dyck of unrecorded title went for
five pounds, fifteen shillings. This was the period in which Hogarth's
masterpieces were bought for prices ranging between a maximum of
eighty-eight pounds and a minimum of twenty-seven pounds. This
depreciation did not continue long. Soon after the Oxford sale of 1741,
the paintings by which Hogarth is best known were readily purchased at a
thousand pounds apiece. Even, however, after the nineteenth century had
opened, no sudden rise in art values took place. In 1823, at Beckford's
Fonthill sale, the principal treasures only realized an average of
thirty-one pounds each, the whole collection of pictures, four hundred and
twenty-four in number, produced thirteen thousand two hundred and
forty-nine pounds, fifteen shillings. In the year before the great
Exhibition at the King of Holland's sale, a 'Holy Family' attributed to
Raphael found no bidder beyond two hundred and fifty pounds.[10] A
European sensation was created by the agent of the Russian Emperor giving
on this occasion, three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three pounds
for a chef d'oeuvre of Leonardo da Vinci. But the 'Trinity' by Rubens was
not considered specially cheap at six hundred and fifty-eight pounds.
Famous portraits by Dutch masters at three hundred and thirty pounds each
were looked upon as extravagant. The characteristic profusion of the
famous Marquis of Hertford in paying fourteen thousand pounds for some ten
or twenty pictures furnished during some weeks the talk to the town. In
another quarter of a century, in 1876, at the Bredel sale, the 'Enamoured
Cavalier' by an artist not of the highest distinction, realized a price
almost unprecedented then, but often repeated and increased since, of four
thousand, three hundred pounds. That the upward movement of prices, to
culminate some time later as will presently be seen in a memorable
transaction of the saleroom, had fairly started twenty years ago, is
evident from the details of the present retrospect. That the new
development was at that date in its infancy may be inferred from the fact
that at the Albert Levy sale in 1876 a landscape by Gainsborough which has
since changed hands for thousands secured only a few shillings over three
hundred and sixty-seven pounds. Eight years later at the Quilter sale of
1884, the enhanced value of foreign masters formed a much more conspicuous
testimony to the growing affluence of the classes which supply the
virtuosi of these later days. On that occasion the 'Heidelberg' of Turner
was after a keen competition knocked down for not much less than two
thousand pounds. The same artist's 'Zurich' in the same year went for
twelve hundred and sixty pounds, nearly twice as much as it had secured
only a decade earlier. Incidentally for those to whom such facts and
figures are interesting on artistic, and not social, grounds, the
conclusion from such an analysis as has now been attempted seems to be
that since the Strawberry Hill sale and later the Bernal sale, the best
works have continuously and conspicuously increased in value, but that,
especially in the case of later Italian painters, Guido, etc., pictures of
moderate merit have become a drug in the market. If Sir Robert Walpole was
the first of modern parliamentarians, his son was equally the eighteenth
century founder of the existing race of art connoisseurs. During the April
and May of 1842, the collection of the toy villa whose Gothic pinnacles
overlook the Thames yielded in round numbers thirty thousand pounds. After
an interval of fourteen years the treasures of Ralph Bernal, whose death
deprived the House of Commons of a Chairman of Committees as that of his
son was afterwards to eclipse its gaiety, formed the event of the season
of 1856. In the course of a thirty-one days' sale the total realized was
twice that of the Walpole sale, in other words more than sixty thousand
pounds.
These figures seem insignificant when contrasted with the heroic prices of
our own epoch. Of these only a few and not the highest have yet been
glanced at. Compare with the modest totals just mentioned the competition
and the sums of money, both without precedent, expended in Christie's
salerooms during the seventies and eighties of the century. The rostrum
mounted by the auctioneer may be, as is said, identical with that used in
the earliest days of the house a century ago. It is the only visible link
with the past still remaining. The quality of the crowd of buyers is not
more changed than the prices which they are prepared to give; or the
national opulence which these prices indicate. In those earlier days the
salerooms were in Pall Mall instead of King Street, St James's. These
premises were only vacated, as many now living can remember to clear the
way for the still youthful Royal Academy before it had, on its journey to
Burlington House, reached the stage of Trafalgar Square. The keen Celtic
face of Doyle, director of the Irish National Gallery; the strikingly
handsome and Venetian profile of Sir Frederick Leighton; the delicately
chiselled and thoughtful features of Woolner, more than creditable as a
sculptor, far more than merely graceful as a poet; these among the company
of possible buyers represented the professionally expert element. The
late Sir William Gregory with his fine brow and leonine head, whose
many-sided culture suggests the complete man of the Herbert of Cherbury
type whom our ancestors worshipped; another Irishman on whom a picture
acts as a magnet on steel, Lord Powerscourt; among Scots Lord Rosebery;
the Duke of St Albans whose physiognomy in those days recalled his Stuart
ancestry; the interested and intelligent presence of a representative of
that exotic wealth which has encouraged English industry and art so much,
Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild; these are among the best known members of
the general circle. Nor should there be omitted the form of a tradesman
whose position next to the auctioneer, and whose telegram and account book
in hand proclaim his occupation. This is Mr Agnew, pre-eminently a
creation of the new wealth of the Victorian epoch, as well as the promoter
of not a few artists' prosperity. To-day the enterprising trader is to
prove himself the idol of the saleroom by paying the largest sum ever
known to have been given for a single painting. And that in opposition to
the peer of the longest purse of the day, the late Lord Dudley. That noble
connoisseur by his bid of ten thousand guineas seems at first to have
secured for Park Lane Gainsborough's portrait of the Duchess of
Devonshire, who won by her kiss the Westminster election for Charles Fox.
Just as the hammer of fate is about to descend, the dealer intimates an
advance. Amid applause, such as salutes the Derby winner on Epsom Downs,
Mr Agnew[11] is declared the possessor of the incomparable canvas for the
price, as yet unheard in any saleroom, of ten thousand one hundred
guineas. Three years before this, in 1873, 'The Sisters,' also by
Gainsborough, had brought six thousand, six hundred and fifteen pounds.
Fourteen years after its first sale, in 1887, the same painting realized
nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five pounds. Recent changes in the
law of entail have undoubtedly tended to promote these unprecedented
prices. The chief cause, however, is the general augmentation of wealth
and the more lavish scale and ideas of expenditure that have penetrated
all classes of the community.[12]