Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

Among the many exquisite books, manuscripts, and paintings--the latter being oftenest upon the covers of the finest books--there is one of surpassing beauty. It is a copy of the works of Sâdi, a modern manuscript with six illuminated pages forming the head-pieces of the six books, all the pages being bordered in gold and colors. The covers have been painted by the artist Nadjaf, who lived about fifty years ago, on the outside with certain battles between some shahs, sultans, and their like; but on the inside of one cover is a picture of the poet Hafiz surrounded by his friends; on the inside of the other cover is a picture of Sâdi conversing with his pupils. What grace, what honor, was in the heart of him who drew these pictures! Amidst such tints Sâdi might be saying to his pupils one of the passages that are here written: “I saw a peacock’s feather in the leaves of the Koran. I said, ‘I consider this an honor much greater than your quality deserves.’ He replied, ‘Be silent; for whosoever has beauty, wherever he puts his foot doth not every one receive him with respect?’ A little beauty is preferable to great wealth.”

I hear of some prosaic young Englishmen who are wandering about the banks of the Euphrates to try and find the locality of Eden. I venture to affirm that with the Kaliān, plenty of Tombaku, Sâdi’s Gulistan, and this rose-garden manuscript, I can get nearer Eden reclining on yon English grass than those young gentlemen seeking it so far away. Yet it is pleasant, in a melancholy way, to see the never-failing fascination which the Oriental world has for these Northern races. The hardest, least imaginative Englishman will feel some sweeter pulsation about his heart when he sees one of Holman Hunt’s pictures of Palestine, or hears the solemn roll of Oriental poetry.

“A pine-tree’s standing lonely
In the North, on a mountain’s brow,
Nodding with whitest cover,
Wrapped up by the ice and snow.

“He’s dreaming of a palm-tree,
Which, far in the Morning Land,
Lonely and silent sorrows
‘Mid burning rocks and sand.”[D]

But here my rambles through these unlimited fields must draw to a close. One must, amidst such numberless treasures gathered from the great streams of Time, more especially remember Sydney Smith’s advice, based on the post-diluvial brevity of human life, that writers should “think of Noah, and be brief.” It is with a certain distress that I feel compelled to pass by the great galleries of pictures, including some of the finest Turners, Wilkies, and Gainsboroughs, and a large number of historic paintings. The Forster bequest, with its charming souvenirs of famous actors, actresses, and authors, in the shape of portraits, character-sketches, and autographs--among the latter the MSS. of most of the works of Dickens--were of itself the sufficient theme for a treatise.

No collection in the museum is more deserving of attention than that of the musical instruments, which show the entire evolution of the art, from the first savage bark drum and the pipe that Pan might have played to his flocks, up to the last grand piano; but for twelve shillings the reader may procure Mr. Carl Engel’s admirable _résumé_ of this department. Since it was written an interesting series of instruments has been added (Indian section), and it is to be hoped that these will be included in a new edition of Herr Engel’s work. The Indian instruments have not changed in many centuries, some not for two thousand years; their harp (chang) is identical with one represented in the Nineveh sculptures. Unfortunately there is no catalogue to the museum; but there may be had full works on the ancient ivories (one guinea), textile fabrics (one and a half guineas), majolica (two guineas), furniture and woodwork (one guinea). There are small shilling “Handbooks,” giving succinct histories of the arts of working in gold and silver, bronze, pottery, etc., with general reference to objects in the museum, which are useful and interesting. There also exists a full catalogue of books on art (two guineas); and I may mention that at the present moment it is possible to collect in London an admirable art library for a moderate sum--an advantage that will soon disappear. The present art library in the museum is the only one possessing anything like completeness in Europe; it contains 45,000 volumes. This is quite distinct from the educational library, which has an equal number of volumes.

But we must not part from South Kensington without considering how fares therein the aim and purpose out of which it grew, namely, culture and training in every variety of art. It will at once be recognized that the art schools, enjoying such an unparalleled environment as to examples, carried on also in rooms of vast extent, perfectly lighted, heated, ventilated, and furnished, must be judged by a higher standard than other institutions of the kind in Europe or in America. And, retrospectively, the schools must be conceded to have done wonders. For one thing, it may be claimed that it found the art education of the nation at zero and raised it enormously. By wisely using its power to send floating through the provincial cities a loan exhibition, and by a judicious distribution of the annual fund (now about £2500) granted it by Parliament to aid institutions of a like character, which are willing also to aid themselves, the Commission has been the means of establishing throughout the kingdom schools devoted to art, and in forming classes in colleges to teach art, to an extent which has increased by 150 per cent. the number of those who study art to prosecute it for itself, or to apply it to make their work more artistic. Between the years 1855-‘77, 27,000 objects of art and 24,000 paintings were circulated by the museum through the United Kingdom. In the various provincial towns and cities where they have been left for several months at a time, these works have been visited by over 6,000,000 of persons and copied by many students, the cost to the Science and Art Department being over £100,000. In order to tempt Schools of Art to acquire permanent objects for museums of their own, the Department offers a grant in aid of fifty per cent. on the cost of such objects. Parliament is continually inquiring into the means of increasing the utility of the collections in this direction. South Kensington has already awakened a higher taste throughout the nation, and especially in London. The number of visitors has increasingly exceeded a million each year; and should the museum be opened on Sunday afternoons--a step which can hardly fail to be taken ere long--this number must be vastly increased. These crowds, however, never make the rooms seem crowded; their decorum is equal to that which is preserved in the best drawing-rooms; there have been only two cases in the history of the museum where persons have been ejected (the fault being tipsiness); and no article of value has ever been missed. In strolling through the building with George Boughton we concluded to follow some very rough-looking youths and observe what objects attracted their attention. We were surprised to find them passing by King Koffee’s umbrella and trinkets to devote all their time to the statues of Michael Angelo. I have repeatedly observed similar phenomena in the picture-galleries--the roughest people crowding around the best works of art.

The way in which all this has told upon the work of the country has been jealously watched, and also fairly recognized by foreign critics. The first gold medal awarded on the Continent for art education, awarded to South Kensington, was not given by any favor, and it was won by a great deal of hard work. In the introduction to the seven-volume report presented to the French Government in 1862, M. Chevallier says: “Rivals are springing up, and the pre-eminence of France may receive a shock if we do not take care. The upward movement is visible, above all, among the English. The whole world has been struck with the progress they have made since the last Exhibition in designs for stuffs, in the distribution of colors, also in carving and sculpture, and generally in articles of furniture.” M. Rupet urged the establishment of a museum in Paris similar to that at South Kensington, saying: “It is impossible to ignore the fact that a serious struggle awaits France from this quarter.” The report from Lyons--whose School of Design was, to a large extent, the model copied by England--says: “With Great Britain we shall have some day to settle accounts, for she has made great progress in art since the Exhibition of 1851.” These statements are much more true now than when they were written. In the direction to which they refer--that of decorative art--South Kensington has certainly taken a leading position in Europe. The evidences of this are appearing daily. For example, the firm of Messrs. Corbière & Sons, which was established in London about twenty-eight years ago as an importing house for French patterns and goods, has now been almost changed into an exporting house, sending to France patterns and designs for goods which it obtains from South Kensington. Even this is hardly so grateful to the English as a report lately made by a large Glasgow firm, that it has for some years been obtaining from this museum, at the annual cost of a few hundred pounds, designs such as it had been for many years previously securing from Paris and Lyons at a cost of £2000 per annum.

Lyons, indeed, after teaching England its art of war, has itself lost it. Neither Paris or London will use their newest patterns, one of which, I understand, represents huntsmen and hounds in full chase after a stag, careering all over a drawing-room carpet! In Paris, and even more in England, taste has for some years been tending to demand richness in substance, vagueness in pattern, quietness in color, for all stuffs used in rooms. It is greatly to be regretted that the great manufacturers of textile fabrics declined to participate in the Centennial Exhibition, having concluded that their goods would have too much protection in one sense, and not enough in others. It would have excited astonishment in America to see what transformation has been wrought in carpets and curtains, and it would be at once recognized that the old fabrics, with their fixed scrolls, their glare and glitter, have become barbarous. Messrs. Ward, of Halifax, recently rolled out for me on a floor side by side the old patterns and the new, and it was to the eye like passing from poppies to passion-flowers. “Those blazing ones,” said Mr. Ward, “have gone out of fashion in this country since the new schools of design began, and we never sell a yard of them here; we made them for America until the last tariff, and now the manufacture has ceased altogether.” The new curtain stuffs have always an unobtrusive, almost a dead, ground of saffron, or olive, or green, and on it flowing conventional leaves with some heraldic form--as daisy, pomegranate, etc.--to supply spots of color; and the carpets are of much the same character, with somewhat larger forms.

These exquisite designs are universally recognized as results of South Kensington. But there is one point where the results are less satisfactory. The best designs, which include the human figure, have still to be obtained from the Continent; and these being of especial importance in pottery, the great porcelain factories say that their needs cannot yet be met by English art schools. The truth is, there was long an opposition in controlling quarters to permitting studies of the female nude at South Kensington at all, though now the female students have that privilege. In the male school the male nude is studied; but still the students--those who mean to devote themselves to fine, as distinguished from decorative, art--have to unite and employ female models in rooms outside the school. It is as difficult to see what benefit is secured by modesty, in thus placing a necessary study beyond the regulation of the masters, who might preserve decorum, as it is to find any advantage to religion gained by shutting the door to the pictorial gospels of Raphael on Sunday and keeping open the door of the gin-shop. Both the piety and the prudery are anomalous. The Zoological and the Botanical Gardens, in London, the Dublin Museum, Hampton Court, and Kew Gardens are all open on Sunday, while the museums and galleries of the metropolis are closed: the Royal Academy has nude models of both sexes, under the same Government which prohibits the like at South Kensington. The queerest anomaly, however, existed until lately in the Slade School of Art, at University College, where the vexed question was settled by permitting the male pupils to have female models, and the female pupils to have male models! This restriction of the ladies to (nearly) nude models of the other sex was made in the interest of propriety, as the masters felt disinclined to enter and instruct them in the presence of a female model.

The former restrictions at South Kensington as to models fell heavily upon the female pupils. The young female artists were not permitted to see so much of their model as they would be required to reveal of their own persons at one of her Majesty’s drawing-rooms. The late head-master, Mr. Burchett, himself an able figure painter, knew well, as all experienced figure painters in Europe know, that female models are far oftener secured from vice by their occupation than exposed to it, and that life schools are not inconsistent with decorum, under proper management; and he (Mr. Burchett) made efforts, one of which was to have the model encased in flesh tights, to secure for his pupils the advantages so freely offered in Continental schools. But his contrivances were stopped by threats of Parliamentary questions. His successor has, however, secured to the female pupils the advantage of the nude model of their own sex and male model with caleçon; and, if he can now secure like privileges for the males, South Kensington may some day be able to point to as high results in the direction of the fine as in the ornamental arts. Until then young men of genius will continue to prefer schools which are without such restrictions. It can only be ascribed to the consummate care with which studies of the antique are conducted, and to the full supply of the finest casts offered by the museum, that decorative art itself at South Kensington has suffered so little from the limitations referred to; for it is certain that the human figure is the key to all other forms in nature. It is certain, also, that the female form is the very flower of all natural beauty--“the sum of every creature’s best,” as Shakspeare says of Perdita--and no arrangements for art training can be considered complete which do not include accessibility to such studies of the same as are required, by those who have given evidence of their fitness to interpret the sacred secrets of nature.

Beyond this there is no special deduction to be made from the method of training at South Kensington, which as a school is steadily improving. The following official memorandum of its regulations (with which is given the names of its faculty) will show the large scope of instruction included:

DIRECTOR-GENERAL FOR ART, AND PRINCIPAL, THOMAS ARMSTRONG.

_Head-Master_, J. SPARKES.

_Mechanical and Architectural Drawing_, H. B. HAGREEN.

_Geometry and Perspective_, E. S. BURCHETT.

_Painting, Free-hand Drawing of Ornament, etc., the Figure and
Anatomy, and Ornamental Design_, J. SPARKES, C. P.
SLOCOMBE, T. CLACK, F. M. MILLER.

_Modelling_, M. LANTERI.

_Etching_, A. LEGROS.

FEMALE CLASSES.

_Lady Superintendent_, MISS TRULOCK.

_Female Teachers_, MRS. S. E. CASABIANCA and MISS
CHANNON.

_Occasional Lecturers_: DR. ZERFFI, Historic Ornament;
E. BELLAMY, Anatomy; F. W. MOODY, the Figure, as
applied to Decoration.

1. The courses of instruction pursued in the School have for their
object the systematic training of teachers, male and female,
in the practice of Art and in the knowledge of its scientific
principles, with the view of qualifying them to impart to others
a careful Art education, and to develop its application to
the common uses of life, and to the requirements of Trade and
Manufactures. Special courses are arranged in order to qualify
School-masters of Elementary and other Schools to teach Elementary
Drawing as a part of general education concurrently with writing.

2. The instruction comprehends the following subjects: Free-hand,
Architectural, and Mechanical Drawing; Practical Geometry
and Perspective; Painting in Oil, Tempera, and Water-colors;
Modelling, Moulding, and Casting. The Classes for Drawing,
Painting, and Modelling include Architectural and other Ornament,
Flowers, Objects of still-life, etc., the Figure from the Antique
and the Life, and the study of Anatomy as applicable to Art.

3. The Annual Sessions, each lasting five mouths, commence on
the 1st of March and the 1st of October, and end on the last day
of July and the last day of February, respectively. Students can
join the School at any time, the tickets running from date to
date. The months of August and September, one week at Christmas,
and one week at Easter or Whitsuntide, are Vacations. The classes
meet every day _except Saturday_. Hours of Study: Day, 10 to 3;
Evening, 7 to 9.

4. In connection with the Training School, and open to the public,
separate classes are established for male and female students; the
studies comprising Drawing, Painting, and Modelling, as applied to
Ornament, the Figure, Landscape, and still-life.

FEES.

For classes studying for five whole days, including evenings: £5
for five months.

For three whole days, including evenings: £4 for five months.

For the half-day--morning, 10 to 1; or afternoon, 1 to 3: £4 for
five months.

To all these classes there is an entrance fee of 10_s._

_Evening Classes_: Male School: £2 per session.

Artisan Class: 10_s._ per session; 3_s._ per month.

Female School: £1 per session, three evenings a week.

No students can be admitted to these classes until they
have passed an examination in Free-hand Drawing of the 2d
Grade. Examinations of candidates will be held weekly, at the
commencement of each session, and at frequent intervals throughout
the year.

5. Students cannot join the School for a shorter term than _five_
months, but the students who have already paid fees for five
months may remain until the end of the scholastic year on payment
of a proportional fee for each month unexpired up to the 31st of
July in each year.

6. Classes for School-masters, School-mistresses, and
Pupil-teachers of Elementary Schools meet on two evenings in each
week. Fee 5_s_. for the session. Teachers in private schools or
families may attend the day classes on payment of a fee of £1 per
month.

7. The morning classes for Practical Geometry and Perspective are
open to all students, but they may be attended independently of
the general course on payment of a fee of £2 per session for those
classes.

8. Students properly qualified have full access to the collections
of the Museum and Library, either for consultation or copying, as
well as to all the School Lectures of the Department.

9. A register of the students’ attendance is kept, and may be
consulted by parents and guardians.

Nothing can exceed the care and devotion with which the great work of South Kensington is carried on by both teachers and pupils. In walking through the rooms with the head-master I could only marvel at the indications unintentionally furnished by the pupils, from moment to moment, of his intimate knowledge of their work and their progress, however remote from such details he might be officially. In his room he keeps all the works sent in by the pupils in competition for the many valuable prizes offered by the school at each stage of progress, and these are preserved in large albums, each marked with the young artist’s name, so that by looking through it we trace the unfolding in this or that direction of a human mind, from the first crude geometrical drawing to mastery of the finer strokes of form and color. The pupil applying for admission is not simply put in at one end of a machine-like system to be turned out at the other, but a specimen of his or her work is demanded, and a place assigned in accordance with it.

It was morally impressive to witness the large numbers of women who have here found a field for the cultivation of their powers. In one room--that of geometrical proportions--the students of both sexes are taught together, and no doubt the co-educational system will gradually creep from this to other classes, as it has to some extent done in University College and other institutions. But the museum is able to supply both schools with any quantity of models and aids. The young female artists have excited the admiration of their teachers and examiners by the remarkable perfection to which they carry ornamental designs, especially such as may be derived from flowers, fruits, and leaves. In one part of the museum there is a series of grottoes, filled with all manner of ferns and other plants, which serve the double purpose of adorning the room, from which they are seen through large glass doors, and of supplying subjects for the study of decorative foliation. They who see the beautiful combinations of these plants made in the training schools will discover that their previous acquaintance with some very common things has been very limited. In this study of the geometrical capacities of plants for decorative purposes the female pupils seem to excel. The exquisite art of one of them, Miss Louisa Poole, enables me to present an example of this kind of work, for which she recently received a gold medal. The subject of this very clever piece of combination is the common nettle; and, even without the beautiful colors with which Miss Poole’s original work was rendered, these outlines she has drawn for me will perhaps enable the reader to understand the kind of work by which this school has relieved England of its former dependence on Paris and Lyons. It is but just, however, to state that Miss Poole’s work, when exhibited, on occasion of a distribution of prizes by the Duke of Richmond, was surrounded by a score of similar sketches which had brought their designers well-merited prizes. No one could examine them without perceiving that the young artists have learned the main secret of ornamental art--that nature is but an alphabet, which it is the task of the artist to combine into words and sentences that shall convey human purpose and thought.

Some of the best work done at South Kensington is the copying of rare and beautiful specimens of ancient majolica and other wares. The Rothschilds and other collectors gladly lend their choicest possessions for this purpose, and the copies are of high value to this and other museums. It is wonderful to observe with what refinement of taste and with what sympathy some of the pupils enter into the subtle secrets of the old masters of decorative work. The illustration of the Henri Deux salt-cellar was made for me by Mr. William Broad, while a pupil at South Kensington, from a work sent in by him to the Examiners. The reproduction of Cherpentier’s rich and delicate colors in this young artist’s original work was exceedingly fine. His design of the top of the salt-cellar is given on the following page.

It is quite certain that a peculiar excellence has been given to the work of this institution by the atmosphere of general culture surrounding it. Each pupil works amidst the splendors of ancient art, amidst the shades of the great, and each lives in the presence of men who to-day best represent the accumulated knowledge of the world. The spirit tells more than the letter of instruction. Moreover, no art is here studied in isolation: each is studied along with literature and science; and, what is of great importance to thoroughness, all the arts are studied in connection with their own history. Through the literary works of such archæologists as William B. Scott, the ever-careful teaching of Thomas Armstrong and Mr. Sparkes, and the practical labors of such experts as Mr. Moody and Mr. Bowler, the pupil may study, by theory and experiment, the evolution by which his task has come to him, when and how great successes were attained, and so inherit the vital spirit which of old quickened the flowers of beauty by which he or she is at every moment surrounded. The pupil will realize here the immortality of good work. He will see that an old blacksmith, ordered to make iron grilles for Hampton Court garden, put such heart and soul into his work that his four pieces must now be brought hither as a monument of which Thor might be proud. Never was more beauty wrought in iron than this by Huntington Shaw, of Nottingham, anno 1695. Under his hand rose, shamrock, and thistle have grown on the metal so tenderly that it would seem a breath might stir them, while from the Irish harp in the centre one might almost listen for Æolian strains. But that was done in a day when to work for a king was felt to be working for God. And all through this museum shines the great fact that the best work was never done merely for money, but for the altar, for love and loyalty. It is a Museum of Civilization, where each work is a heart. There sat a man doing his very best to advance the whole world; there marched a brave invader of Chaos and Disorder; a reason worked through him like that which turns a bit of mud into a lily. It is a supreme joy to trace these footprints of the universal Reason. A flute-key that wins one more soft note from the air; a pot flushed with some more intimate touch of the sunlight; an ornament which detaches a pure form from its perishable body--such things as these exhibit somewhat finer than themselves, namely, man elect still to carry on the ancient art which adorned the earth with grass and violet, and framed the star-gemmed sky and the spotted snake. The student shall also learn here the solidarity of genius. In distant regions of the world these men worked at their several tasks, sundered by land and sea, but here they are seen to have been members of one sacred guild, like that described of old: “They helped every one his neighbor; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage. So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering: and he fastened it with nails, that it should not be moved.” From manifold regions of the world, through ages linked each to each by natural piety, their works have come here to unite in one mystical symphony of excellence. By the spirit that worked through them they are made members one of another. Some little time ago the Professor of Political Economy at Oxford formed a class of youths of both sexes, and said to them one day: “There are two great distinctions between man and the lower animals; one of them is the root of labor, the other is the root of civilization. What are they?” The first was soon explained; the root of labor is that the animal has only to seek his food to find it prepared for him, and his clothing is made for him by nature, whereas man must cook and modify his food, and make his clothing. The second puzzled all in the class except one young maid, who said: “The root of civilization is progressive desire. Give an animal all that satisfies its present want--good shelter and food enough--it will never be restless, nor show a further want; but satisfy man in any moment, he will want something better the next. This craving for the better and the best leads on to civilization.” But it is the combination of these various lines of improvement which finally creates a civilization. Savages improve on their own roads, but the Kaffir never borrows for his own hut any advantage belonging to the hut of the Zulu, not more than the bee borrows for its cell a hint from the bird’s nest. The savage has the root but not the flower of civilization. But then each civilization in turn is to a great extent special; the human race has a wider life, into which all separate streams of blood are poured, and all arts blend. By a higher law of evolution man’s moral and intellectual powers are selected from the isolated tribes and nations through which they have for ages been distributed. In this our museum men are taken as varied pigments to make the study of Man.

“Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul,
Whose nature is its own divine control,
Where all things flow to all....
Man, oh, not men! A chain of linked thought,
Of love and might, to be divided not.”

Of all countries America is that to which mankind must look for the fulfilment of those aspirations which are the creative force, carving on the world the ideals of poetry and art. Each fine work will reflect the culture of the race. Emerson has reminded us that for the best achievement we must have instead of the Working-man the Man working, and it were a pity if the great man’s countrymen should not realize that whole work must be done by the whole man. In walking through the school at South Kensington once, I met a young lady who had passed several years in the schools at Philadelphia and the Cooper Institute, but had never found what she required for her training until she came here. The picture on her easel proved her to be an accomplished artist, and her experience appears to me worth mentioning. The school at Philadelphia, she said, was the best she had known anything of in the United States, but when she was there it lacked trained teachers. The teachers were artists in all but the art of teaching. She believed, however, that the Philadelphia school, if associated with a good collection, would turn out well. But of the Cooper Institute she was not so hopeful. It was rather too philanthropic to be a good school of art. The great aim was to qualify the pupils--girls particularly--to make money. The pupils are urged on to the paying work rather than to that which is excellent. It must be understood that these criticisms are here detached from this lady’s pleasant plaudits to things in America other than its schools of design, her experience of which was that one with a high standard had no means of attaining it, while the other, with more resources, had a low standard and aim. This lady’s experience has been several times confirmed by American artists with whom I have walked through the South Kensington Museum. One of the most eminent of them said: “What a revolution it would cause in American art to have some such museum as this in each large city! It would in each case draw around it an art community, and send out widening waves of taste and love of beauty through the country.”

These expressions, however, were used ten years ago, and it may be hoped that to those now in the American institutions mentioned that may appear a dim past. Within that period my own visits to the chief schools of high art in New York have convinced me that their teaching is of the highest character, while the resources for culture of decorative art are slight.

If there be among the readers hereof one of those sensitive patriots who resent the idea of borrowing any ideas or methods from the Old World more modern than the Decalogue, I would submit even to him whether it be not less humiliating to import European experience than to export American brains. It is no dishonor for America to claim her inheritance from the past; it is no degradation to recognize what has been done as done, and not needing to be done over again; but it may well be pondered by the patriotic whether the Coming Artist will go abroad, or whether he shall find in his own country the resources essential to his culture and his finest fruit.

DECORATIVE ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND.

DECORATIVE ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND.

Michael Angelo was once commissioned to lead in the destruction of the beautiful villas around Florence. He of all men! The expelled Medici, now of papal dignity, were menacing the city. The first thought of the great artist was to save the Campanile, and he covered that noble work of Giotto with protecting wool-sacks. But the suburban villas must not stand to give aid to the enemy, and at word of command he started out, and for once the track of the great artist was indicated in the destruction instead of in the creation of beautiful things. But he came upon one house whose wall was covered with a beautiful fresco, and he had not the heart to destroy it; the soul of the artist held back the hand of the patriot, and in the field of desolation one mansion remained standing alone--saved by the protecting genius of Beauty.

It is but one incident in the long history of the career of Use and Beauty through the world, hand in hand, undivorceable. All our science is engaged in spelling out their story. Every spot of color on bird or insect it finds to be the trace of a utility. What weary struggles carried on through ages to mimic blossom and leaf, and so hide from pursuing foes! The same force works on when the art of man enters the arena for new creation. The thin and feeble blossom of the brier passes through all the phases of culture until it becomes the full rose of the horticulturist, like unto some little maiden’s face for size and lustre, all by merest mercenary influence. Our fairest flowers have migrated from East to West, cherished and preserved for highest use as oracles and symbols of successive goddesses and saints, transplanted from temple courts to flourish under the holier chrism of convent gardens. Despite his proverb, man has painted the lily and adorned the rose, until we may almost say with the Persian Nizámi, “Every flower growing in the many-colored garden of the earth is a drop of blood from the heart of a man.” Out of a dry and hard necessity comes still the beauty of the world. Behind our tinted Salviati glass, our painted Sèvres china and Minton majolica and shining silver plate, are the long rows of pallid faces inhaling poison in stifling rooms, breathing death that they may live. Sad experience is the prelude to each charming symphony. The noblest statues and paintings which the world cherishes were wrought in a “sad sincerity;” in the divine depths of sorrow were found the quarries from which emerged the Apollo Belvidere and the Laokoon; the blood of great hearts supplied the chief pigment of the Dresden Madonna and the Transfiguration; and the magnificent frescoes of Italian churches were born of the hopes and fears of millions, for whom they meant not picturesque beauty, but a world’s redemption. Man in his best epochs of art has thus carried on the ancient creative power of Nature, giving her potential germs and forms a new blossoming under the heat of his never-ending battle of life. And where it is not thus impelled by nor surrendered to this utilitarian, this most real, force, what does Art amount to? Mere copying of works which denote that force in the past; mere Art Ritualism, crying to other ages, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out!

If Michael Angelo could to-day be set on a work of general demolition in London, one may fear it would hardly require patriotism to encourage his zeal. Would he, in what the London _Times_ once called “this our ugly but not altogether uncomfortable metropolis,” have reached a single building which would have made him pause? Here and there he might meet one of those ancient mansions whose bricks have hardened into one solid stone that will stand, as Carlyle once said, “till Gabriel’s trump blows it down;” but of the miles of modern houses in which--to remember the Chelsea sage again--“every brick is a lie,” one may fancy that but few would be saved by any genius of Beauty.

And yet this is, after all, not so certain. That an artist filled with iconoclastic rage might quickly despatch most of the mansions and many of the churches of English suburbs, erected specially for beauty and effect, is quite probable; but there are a number of buildings built without reference to beauty which might perhaps have made Michael Angelo pause with a feeling not unrelated to admiration. If any one will stand beside the Thames River near Charing Cross and gaze for a while on the tremendous sections of the railway bridge there, at its huge iron supports and girders--if he will then go up on it and realize its vast breadth, see four trains passing each other, with room enough between, and room enough for the men and women moving to and fro on their own side-path--he will surely bear away an impression of grandeur. Nay, there will blend with it an impression of beauty also: there is no arch, no slightest foliation or other prettiness, not even a relief to the iron hue save the gilded heads of certain enormous rivets and the gilded monograms of the railway company fixed on the supports of the triple gas-lamps; the bridge is not even straight; and yet beauty there is, and it arises from two sources. The first is the beauty of adequacy for a purpose, involving at once strength and proportion, suggesting what the Greeks may have meant when, in their myth, they wedded Aphrodite to Hephaistos. The second is a beauty almost indescribable in physical terms, but resembling the simplicity which expresses character--the subtle charm playing unconsciously through eye and voice of even a homely man, who in word and act is content with the simple truth. In fact, the beauty of this Charing Cross bridge, which has least aimed at architectural effect among those spanning the Thames, is closely related to its ugliness. If any one find this assertion paradoxical, he shall at least find it not doubtful if he can and will do three things--read Oersted’s chapter on “Ugliness in Nature,” observe carefully Turner’s “Rain, Wind, and Speed” (a railway train thundering over a viaduct through English rain and fog), and finally give twenty minutes to the bridge in question, especially taking care to pass beneath it on one of the small iron steamers (water omnibuses) that ply the river. When afterward he shall see the many ornaments of the present copied from the utilities of the past--the towers, steeples, cupolas, crenelles--and remember that they were constructed originally for landmarks, cross-bows, and the watches of war, he will acquire an imaginative respect for this unpretending product of the Iron Age. The same simple grandeur invests old Newgate Prison--perfect reality, entire adequacy for its purpose, a relation of every part to the end for which it was built, like the harmonies that make the lion. Did man forbear, it were by no means inconceivable that when Macaulay’s artistic New Zealander came he might sit upon a broken column of St. Paul’s to sketch the still strong, gray fortress of Newgate!

He who explores the cities of England to discover that kind of beauty in architecture which is familiar in other lands will not find it. In a late satire on the royal family published in London, _The Silliad_, the Queen is represented as reproaching her eldest son with not taking more after his father, and interesting himself in the industrial affairs of the country. The poor Prince of Wales can only reply, “I’ve not a model-farming soul.” And a somewhat similar answer is all that England can return to the immeasurable scoldings poured out upon her because she cannot do the work of the old Italian and Dutch masters. But the time was when England had a reputation such as no other country possessed for just one thing--genuineness of work. It was almost proverbial in Europe to say that you could get pretty things in every capital on the Continent, but if you wanted a thing which would do what it professed to do--the knife that would cut, the carriage that would bear and wear--you must go to England for it. Nay, I remember in my boyhood in Virginia that the belief in the solid character of everything English was such, that even articles which could by no possible means have come from England were yet called “English” to enhance their value; not merely watches made in New England, but I have known American fanciers commend a bird unknown to England by calling it the “English mocking-bird!” All this was a droll re-appearance of the reputation which Eastern gold once had in England, the word “sterling” being a relic of “Easterling,” as applied to the British pound of silver when represented in gold. But the most enthusiastic Briton must admit that the virtue of the “English” label has followed that of the “Easterling,” and is now a mere survival. The absence of prettiness remains, but the old compensation of genuineness can no longer be claimed, or certainly not in the same general way. The genuine and thorough thing is now exceptional enough to strike one as almost ornamental. But still the word “solidity” has a meaning in Great Britain, and whenever Englishmen undertake to have anything done, their first effort is to have it substantial and useful. They may not get it, but that is what they pay for, and a real demand is likely in the long-run to overtake its real supply. It has already to some extent overtaken it, and that not alone in the great viaducts and railway bridges which the age of steam has called about it.

An age of municipal and civic development has found for the buildings it requires a representative architect in Mr. Waterhouse, who has erected most of the magnificent town-halls and court-houses of the great provincial cities. These vast, and in a certain sense beautiful, buildings are the only ones that can compare with the old cathedrals and castles of England, built with as serious a purpose as theirs, and with as physiognomical a relation to the age that produced them. Mr. Waterhouse takes the Gothic style for his basis, just as a pomoculturist might take a russet as the basis of the apple he means to produce, and, like him, modifies only in obedience to the fundamental law of the style he has selected. His Gothic building has in it nothing capricious or eccentric. So genuinely as, under change of conditions and needs, the bent and bound boughs were copied in the first pointed stone arch, even so, by lawful adaptation, may the window point become more obtuse or the lancets more luminous; but the lesson of this style, which, above all others, has no part or trait not traceable to a use, is never lost, and the Gothic of Mr. Waterhouse is the natural evolution of that found in Westminster Abbey. In one of his buildings, and one of the best structures in the world, the Manchester Assize Court, I could discover but two things which appeared to me without special use or meaning. These were two small figures, a snail and a frog, carved in granite, sitting in the angles of a wall on each side of the main door-way. Of course these may not be mere _jeux_; they may have some connection with a previous bit of eccentricity in an older building (such as it is often desirable to copy and preserve for archaeological reasons); but these two forms, each about as large as one’s two fists, were the only things in the vast building which appeared “not to the point.” In going over this building I speedily found that it would not do to pass anything, as the most casual-seeming bit of ornament was apt to possess a root in history. Thus the superstructure of the great portico at the entrance is supported by detached shafts of solid granite two feet in diameter, which stretch out into foliage as they meet the low roof; but on examination it is discovered that, framed in this foliage, are finely carved and most appropriate representations of ancient modes of punishment--persons undergoing the pillory or some ordeal, broken on the wheel, wearing the mask, or bridle, for scolds, and the rest. On the outside wall the decoration of the upper edge of a large corbel is twined about the words, “He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment.” Over a gate leading to the judges’ residence the tympanum of the gable is adorned with a fine mezzo-relievo of the Judgment of Solomon. On each side of the grand entrance are carved two chained dogs, imposing enough to be mythologically descended from Cerberus and Orthros themselves. There are but two figures on the outer walls, one of “Justice,” another of “Mercy.” The building is a parallelogram in form, with a frontage of 335 feet. Within is a grand hall 100 feet long, 50 feet wide, 75 feet high, with an open timber roof of eight carved bays, the principals having moulded brackets and ribs forming pointed arches, and the spandrels filled in with elegant tracery. Carved figures hold the chandeliers. Around this hall, which is for state receptions and banquets, run in ancient letters the words of the Great Charter: “Nullus liber homo capiatur vel imprisonetur aut disseisiatur de aliquo libero tenemento suo vel libertatibus vel liberis consuetudinibus suis, aut utlagetur aut exulet aut aliquo modo destruatur, nec super eum ibimus nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum vel per legem terræ. Nulli vendemus nulli negabimus aut differemus rectum vel judiciam.” This makes about as beautiful a cornice edging as can well be imagined. The last sentence is repeated on a stained window at the end of the hall:

To none will we sell
To none will we deny
To none will we delay
Right or Justice.

The subject of the window illustrates the history of the Great Charter--King John in the centre, and Archbishop Langton and Chief Baron Robert Fitzwalter on either side. There are three miles of corridors, all with a dado of tiles more than a yard deep, of a rich brown tint, and capped with a scroll made of lighter colors. On the whole, I can hardly express adequately my admiration of this superb building, the total cost of which was £130,000.

In the centre of Manchester the same architect has erected a larger building, a Town-hall, which cost £1,000,000. Rich and admirable as it is, it is not, on account of the crowding of houses around it, and the irregularity of the ground upon which it is built, so effective in appearance as the Assize Court. The interior decoration is remarkable for the beautiful variety of colors secured by a careful mingling of English, Scotch, and Irish granites grouped as double stems in the balustrade of a spiral stairway. The Irish granite is a bluish-gray, the Scotch has a faint red tint, and the English Shapfels has salmon-colored spars, which are as large as raisins. They all take a beautiful polish, and I think that for a large public building the effect is better than if they were marble.

Manchester has shown good sense and good taste in having employed Mr. Ford Madox Brown to paint six, at least, of the panels in the great hall of this Town-hall. These mural paintings are not surpassed by any recent work of the kind which I have seen. Mr. Madox Brown is pre-eminent for his archæological knowledge and poetic conceptions, and his genius has been at its best in these noble works. At the time of this writing three panels have been finished. The first represents the Romans building a fort at Mancenion (Manchester), anno 60. Agricola, Governor of Britain, is represented with a centurion beside him, examining a parchment plan of the Camp; a standard-bearer holds the silken Dragon-standard--emblem borrowed from the “barbarians”--which floats in the wind. The Legionaries are doing mason-work; Britons bear the stones and cement. Agricola’s wife and little boy are in the scene. The second panel represents the Baptism of Edwin, at York, in the year 627. The artist follows the account of Bede, who says that a small wooden church was hastily erected for this purpose on the site where York Minster now stands, but has introduced a Roman mosaic floor. In his noble picture of Edwin he has been inspired by Wordsworth’s sonnet, “Paulinus:”

“Mark him, of shoulders curved, and stature tall,
Black hair, and vivid eye, and meagre cheek,
His prominent feature like an eagle’s beak;
A man whose aspect doth at once appall
And strike with reverence.”

The third panel is the Expulsion of the Danes from Manchester. One less acquainted than this artist with ancient fact might be surprised at the beardless, boyish appearance of the escaping Danes; but it is true that the Vikings began their adventures early--at the age of fifteen, it is said--and became respectable married men a few years later. The town-folk are hurling missiles at the retreating party, one of which--thrown by a young woman from a house--strikes down the “Raven” standard. Mr. Madox Brown’s further designs include “The establishment of Flemish Weavers in Manchester, 1330;” “William Crabtree (draper, of Broughton, near Manchester) observing the transit of Venus, 1639;” and “The Decree Court Leet that all weights and measures are to be tested, 1566.” No man is better able to invest with beauty these events connected with the history of Manchester. Mr. Madox Brown is using for these mural paintings the “Gambier-Parry” process. The medium consists of a mixture of wax, resin, and essential oil, with which the stucco of the wall is coated and the colors ground. Every color ever used with oil, water, or fresco is admissible with this medium; and the surface when dry is without shine, while yet the utmost luminosity pertaining to any other method is attainable with it. It seems likely to become the general mode in this climate, and has given equal satisfaction to Sir F. Leighton and Mr. Madox Brown.

One other of the immense buildings which have become so characteristic of the populous centres of England I must mention, namely, the new Midland Railway-station, at St. Pancras, in London. This is probably the finest railway-station in the world, and it is the chief work of Sir Gilbert Scott. It is a vast pile, of which every outward detail is graceful and substantial, its turrets and great clock-tower superb. This immense building conveys, however, an unpleasant impression of being out of place. It implies a park, or at least a larger and more picturesque space than the irregular and ugly one at King’s Cross, to secure the perspective needed for any sight of it as a whole. Entering, we find ourselves beneath a vast span of iron and glass, almost like a sky. The front part of the building is a hotel. It has been decorated by Robert Sang, and furnished by Gillow, in the most expensive style, and certainly presents some rich interiors. The reading-room has green cloth-paper, and a ceiling gay with huge leaf frescoes; it is divided by a double arch with gilded architraves. The mantel-pieces are of dark marble, with two small pillars of yellow marble set on either side. The coffee-room has a general tone of drab, with touches of gold in the paper, and a sort of sarcophagus chimney-piece, surmounted by an antique mirror of bevelled glass. The sitting-room has red floral paper, and an imitation mosaic ceiling. One of the bedrooms which I visited had deep-green paper, with gold lines and spots, and bed-curtains somewhat similar. The furniture was of heavy oak, tastefully carved. The halls and corridors have a dado of fine dark brown tiles, and bright fleur-de-lis paper above. All of which was rich, costly, and, with slight exceptions, by no means gaudy. Yet I could not altogether like it, or think the decorations entirely appropriate for a hotel. It looked as if there had been more exercise of ingenuity to find things costly than to find things beautiful. The _salon_, the reading-room, may naturally be made gorgeous, but the bedroom ought to be more quiet. One does not desire to sleep amid purple and gold. The traveller who needs rest may well spare these things--which, however, he knows will not spare him; for if there is gold paper on the wall, there will be gold paper in the bill.