Chapter X: Part II: The Social Fabric (4)

This was the age of flounces and crinolines; it was also the age of ringlets. Bands and braids and hair nets are features of early Victorian _coiffure_, but ringlets were undoubtedly the favourite mode for full dress occasions. The fashion lasted for a good many years. You will find it in the ballroom scene depicted by Leech in 1847, and Leech illustrated Surtees's novel _Plain or Ringlets?_ in 1860. Of the "plain" variety of hairdressing there are several good examples in _Punch_, notably the head given above, with which we couple the ringleted belle illustrated at the foot of the same page.

[Footnote 28: "Æsthetical" was noticed as early as 1847 in a dig at _New Curiosities of Literature_, and in 1853 we read of an "æsthetic tea," at which "the atmosphere was one of architecture, painting, stained glass, brasses, heraldry, wood carving, madrigals, chants, motets, mysticism and theology."]

[Sidenote: Coiffures in the Fifties]

MRS. TURTLEDOVE: "Dearest Alfred! Will you decide now what we shall have for dinner?"

MR. TURTLEDOVE: "Let me see, poppet. We had a wafer yesterday--suppose we have a roast butterfly to-day."]

In the mid-'fifties, it may be noted, it was the fashion for women to wear gold and silver dust in their hair. In 1854 it was often dressed _à l'impératrice_ in imitation of the Empress Eugénie, and _Punch_ satirizes as an absurdity the general adoption of a _coiffure_ unsuited to people of certain ages, features, and positions--a wide scope for his wit. Tight lacing is seldom noted, and in one respect the ladies of the time were exempt from censure: high heels had not yet come in, or, if they had, they escaped _Punch's_ vigilant eye. In the main Leech, on whose pencil the burden of social commentary fell, was a genial satirist of feminine foibles. Whether they were dancing or riding or bathing, walking or doing nothing, the young women he drew were almost invariably comely to behold. And that reminds me that the decorum of sea-bathing in the 'fifties was promoted by the apparatus known as the awning, attached to bathing machines. Children were handed over to the rigours of old bathing-women as depicted in the terrifying picture opposite.

[Sidenote: MERMAIDS AT PLAY]

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_]

PERCEPTIVE CHILD: "Mamma, dear! Why do those gentlemen dress themselves like the funny little men in the Noah's Ark?"]

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_]

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_]

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?

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_]

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!

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.]

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_]

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_]

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.

A FEW FRIENDS TO TEA AND A LYTTLE MVSYCK]

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

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.

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