towards a sinking fund for the enormous outlay incurred. As for the theatres, the English are the best-tempered audiences on the face of the earth. A visitor is expected to wear a ball dress: he must hire a carriage, and he must pay for leaving his overcoat; for the use of an opera-glass; for a programme; for a libretto; for being admitted into his seat, and, of course, for any refreshment he may need; therefore the performance costs him about 50 francs—£2, which is fortyseven francs more than in Italy; and whatever he sees he applauds. If the impresario stretches or cuts down the operas according to his requirements; if the tenor or primadonna fails, and a gentleman or lady in black is summoned, and, with music in hand, he or she makes love to, or upbraids a hero or heroine attired in Roman robes; if a Mario at sixty-six takes it into his head to court Lucia di Lammamoor with no more voice than a statue; or if Adelina Patti thinks fit to improve upon Rossini, and invent a new Rosina, who leads astray Almaviva, who drags with him Figaro, who is followed by Don Bartolo, and Don Basilio, until confusion worse confounded arises, and the shade of Rossini looks on with sorrow and dismay, if any or all these events occur, the audience is satisfied, and whatever happens is greeted by the same monotonous applause. Drury Lane is a pale reflection of Covent Garden. There are many English theatres mostly named after Queens, Princes, and Princesses; and the Alhambra, with its intoxicating sights and sensuous dances, transport one into. a harem. Our author considers that, according to Pliny, the chief desiderata in human habitations are solidity,convenience, and beauty. In describing London dwellings, he finds them, according to his standard, entirely deficient in all these qualifications. In order to shelter five families with in a given area there are two ways. The one is to build a large house, with five horizontal divisions or flats, each intended to harbour one family, and complete in itself in all domestic offices; the other is, to divide the space into five vertical compartmentst, giving to each home, a long slit all to itself. The former system is adopted in most continental cities, Paris, Milan, Vienna, &c. The latter is followed in London and Venice. Our writer does not pretend to decide which of the two plans is in the abstract superior, but he certainly does not admire our residences. The basements remind him of caverns, and the area railings of cages for wild beasts. Air, light, and space are mostly wanting. The rooms are narrow and cramped, and being built of wood and covered with carpets and ornamented with curtains, there is every facility given for fire to consume them, a facility of which that element frequently avails itself. Everything is Lilliputian in these houses; doors, staircases, apartments, gardens; the only objects worthy of imitation are the pretty porcelain boxes full of flowers on the window sills. Due admiration is expressed for the British and Kensington Museums, whose only faults are that they are too rich and too vast to be duly appreciated. The Turner drawings form a curious study, and ought to be preserved, but not in an institution that should be devoted to the teaching of real art to those who are desirous of learning. Nature one day placed all its gifts in an urn, which it shook well, and then proceeded to open it and to distribute them at random. To England fell the love of labour, steadiness, perseverance, respect to the laws, and earnestness in business pursuits. This is enough to satisfy any nation. But as to seeking supremacy in the Fine Arts, it is really looking for the impossible; it is endeavouring to struggle against nature and circum stances. True it is that industry, study, and perseverance, do much towards expunging the term impossible from the vocabulary of man, but they cannot infuse the divine spark of genius. Sculptors are more promising than painters, and the time may soon be expected when the great men who in bronze and marble adorn the squares of London, would no longer feel compelled, if they came to life again, to spur their horses and flee, to hide their hideousness far from the rest of mankind. The description given by our author of the Crystal Palace is so vivid and graphic, that we cannot forbear giving some extracts from it in his own terms: dows, are they a fine sight? I will tell you. If to plan that edifice required the daring of genius; if to construct it required special knowledge, to beautify it required the highest ingenuity, and its monotony was broken by judicious expedients ..... And what was the original use of that curious and gigantic construction? "If you wish to preserve a valuable object from dust, what do you do? You place it under a glass case, and desiring to be able to observe it from every side, you move it to a small table close to the window. Have you never remarked in galleries how many pictures are under a false light, and how many objects in museums are against the light? Therefore, having many pictures, works of art, and numerous varied articles, large and small, to display, to protect from dust and rain, and to be examined before ample and welldiffused light, what better could be devised than a Crystal Palace? . . . . "But when the Exhibition was concluded, what could be done with that immense transparent edifice ?" After relating how the palace was transplanted to the slopes of Sydenham, our author proceeds in lively strains thus: "And what was done with the Palace at Sydenham ? "Picture yourself as the possessor, in the midst of your garden-if you do possess a house and a garden -of a certain number of rare plants, which bloom in the bright summer sun, and perish in the cold winter winds. To preserve exotics without removing them, you summon to your assistance an architect whom we will call Paxton. He measures the space occupied by your plants; he places in the four corners, as many cast-iron columns; he connects them with cast-iron frames, which are filled up with glass; he covers the four transparent walls with a small cupola of iron and glass; he paints the iron-work blue, and behold there is a miniature Crystal Palace. If you say, 'Now that I am about it, I may as well have it made larger, so that I may enclose more plants or have a sheltered promenade where I may lounge safe from wind or rain,' you have only to order your architect to add more glass and more iron, and to make the building larger and loftier. With this system you may cover a space as long as the Corso of Rome, as wide as the Piazza San Pietro, as and styles of decoration, that were lofty as the cupola of that church, and call it the Crystal Palace-precisely like that of Sydenham. "But those rows of glass win "I will tell you. The great nave was embellished with magnificent fountains, and basins, and aquatic plants, and statues, and vases, and monuments, and life-size models of ancient races and distinct types of man, and it was converted into a beautiful promenade, unique in the world. Laterally to the right and to the left were created so many courts, with porticos and saloons, each serving as an example of all the different orders of architecture followed by different nations at the different periods in which they flourished. Moreover, a succession of different halls connected toge gether, furnished copies of the repective masterpieces in statuary, groups, and reliefs, and became thus a most instructive and agreeable lounge. "To render the resort still more delightful, the extensive grounds surrounding the building were converted into a park, with great fountains, and with all the accessories requisite to render it a park worthy of a monarch. "Nevertheless, any one having at command one shilling, may spend a whole day there, and of these fortunate individuals there are daily five and six thousand, and sometimes twenty and thirty, and a hundred thousand. "And how are they attracted thither? Well, the concern belongs to the Crystal Palace Company, and the shareholders were not merely satisfied with having preserved Paxton's handiwork. In England, nobody spends money for the pleasure of spending it; everybody has an eye to business, and the shareholders began seeking a return for the capital invested. Then the company commenced letting every inch of available space inside the building. And then arose shops of every description, bazaars of every kind, depôts of numberless articles; and then were established restaurants, pastry-cooks, cafés, and taverns; and then sprang up theatres, amphitheatres, and concert rooms; and then appeared galleries, so called, of fine arts, and reading-rooms, and schools for children, and an equestrian circus, and a billiard room, and a rifle-ground, and a fishing-pond, and a typographic establishment, and a post-office, and a telegraph-station, and a police station-house. And the company opened three railways to the capital, and called to the people to come and cast their shillings into its hands. And when the company found the shillings pouring in, it rejoiced. But the spirit of evil suggested that the work was imperfect; and the company completed it by adding monkeys and parrots those delights of the fair sex-to other spe cimens of animal nature in the tropical department. "When the old ways began to attract less, new ways had to be sought, and the arms of Briareus were busily at work in providing exciting amusements for the people. An orchestra of three thousand first-rate performers was collected-every one of them really first-rate. Then followed a monster concert of two thousand voices-a gathering of five thousand children—a melodramatic reception to Garibaldi, and a high comedy ovation to M. de Lesseps, to whose scheme the British public had refused to subscribe a single penny. The exhibition of two thousand dogs came next, and afterwards that of thirty thousand roses without plants, and plants without roses. Then there were a display of tables exquisitely arrayed for dinner, the only thing wanting being the dinner; and balloon ascents, and pyrotechnic displays, and performances of wild animals; and, finally, the whole city of Pompeii was dug from the neighbourhood of Naples, conveyed to London, and shown the size of life through the process of photo-sculpture. "It is a pity that the able men at the head of the company should have condescended to all the tricks of mere showmen in order to draw large audiences." The author wished to try English dinners, and he accepted three several invitations; one from a duke, one from a man of science, and one from a carpenter. At his grace the Duke of W-'s, who is a perfect gentleman, and the heir of a great name, he found great cordiality, under-done meat, Strasburg pie, real champagne, fine pineapples.... and no napkin. At Sir's, a most worthy person, distinguished in literature and in science, he found great cor diality, under-done meat, good wine, and no napkin. At W's, an honest workman, he found free cordiality, under-done meat, sparkling beer.. and no napkin. However, the want of that useful piece of linen is not felt by the English, for they are scrupulously neat in their mode of eating, and their table-cloths are always remarkably clean. In all households, to dinner invariably succeeds tea. The firstnamed repast concluded, the Duke led the writer to inspect his gallery, which contained many masterpieces of the Italian school, including a statue by Canova. At the corresponding period, the literary and scientific man took him into his library, to examine his choice collection of books; and the carpenter left him in company with his daughter, an attractive girl of twenty, who brought him an elegantly-bound album, containing some sketches and autographs, and begged him to leave a few lines in memory of his He willingly complied with her request; and not being a young man, he assumed a father's privilege, and imprinted a kiss on her forehead. London Sundays seemed to have been a great grievance with our author, and we repeat his opinions in his own words : visit. : All "If you meet with an accident, where will you find an apothecary to sell you a restorative? If you are hungry, where will you find bread? Postmen and newsvendors' boys, I presume, have assisted in creating the world, and must also rest. is silence; everything is hermetically sealed; and if a tradesman opens his door for a few minutes, he must be prepared to open also his purse, for he is liable to be fined. With all due deference to the British Government, this condemning a whole population to enforced rest fifty-two times a-year, is a flagrant contradiction to all principles of liberty. . . . . "Sundays, in London, commence at two o'clock on Saturday after noon, and end on Monday morning at ten. At two o'clock on Saturdays, then, the shops are hastily closed, excepting those of eatables and public-houses; but many thoroughfares are converted into markets until twelve o'clock at night, when the lights are suddenly extinguished, and profound darkness ensues. "On Sunday morning the whole city sleeps profoundly until eleven, and only then awakes to go to church. The majority of churches are small, and possess one altar and one minister, who is never old, but who is usually accompanied by his wife and an unlimited number of daughters. There is always an inevitable sermon, but the minister is generally a man of learning, and sometimes of eloquence, and one might do worse than spend an hour in listening to him...... If during the day even the innocent Crystal Palace is closed, you will find that in the evening the chess-board is carefully put away. As for theatres, exhibitions, concert-halls, of course they are out of the question. The silence of death reigns around; and the only resource left is to go to bed, where the greater part of the day has already been spent." The horrors of a British winter are described to surpass the horrors of a British Sunday. Let us again quote the text : "Whole months without light; whole days without being able to go out without incurring unknown dangers of various descriptions: fog so dense as to render you unable to distinguish your own hand; fog that you can cut with the knife. If halfasphyxiated and poisoned by a large coal fire, in a small room, you feel half-faint, you long for some fresh air, never mind how cold and damp, and you open the window to breath freely, you are compelled to close it hastily, unless you wish to be smothered by the smoke from the chimney, which rushes in and soon fills your little room. "And such horrible winters last eight and nine months; during the other three or four months one must work doubly and trebly, like ants, to make a store for the winter, during which period it would be vain to expect anything else than to spend money on physic and physicians. Our author warmly praises, and does justice to many of our institutions. He greatly admires the excellent organisation and speed of our railways, the skill and ingenuity manifested in their construction; the efficiency and bravery of the firebrigade; the energy, enterprise, and talent employed in the management and editing our newspapers; the orderly behaviour of the crowds, and their respect for moral force, and the total absence of the means of material coercion; the regularity and punctuality of postal and telegraphic communication, and, generally speaking, the cordiality and hos pitality of the English. In conclusion, he exhorts his countrymen to send their children to be brought up in England—whither are going his two sons-where they will become earnest men, who are greatly needed in Italy, a country which is constituted but not organised, and where they will learn trade and manufacturing pursuits. But he recommends that they be not sent to England to seek their fortunes, for wealth is not acquired suddenly, now-a-days, by honest means in any country; but activity, perseverance, and fair abilities lead to competence everywhere: a maxim not always remembered in the British Islands. J. P. |