Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

which is the characteristic of nearly all Mr Lever's later works, is under any circumstances a mistake. The frivolity of Continental society, the vulgarity and mistakes of English travellers abroad, and the tricks and deceptions of sharpers and adventurers, is a very legitimate subject for satire; but it has really been exhausted with great success in the 'Dodd Family,' and we regret to see it enter so largely into the staple material of Mr Lever's subsequent novels. However excellent may be the cookery, and skilful the arrangement of the dishes, we object to continual invitations to dine off the leavings of any feast, however good; it is not hospitality, but thrift, which would force us to drain the last flagon and swallow the last crumb.

"The funeral baked meats But coldly furnish forth the marriagefeast."

hell. Our gains are not equivalent to the unpleasurable process of their acquirement, and we long for some more wholesome intercourse with mankind. The highest and most truthful art must occasionally hold intercourse with evil, but it is a mistake in art to make that intercourse habitual. When an author continually presents to our view one side only either of society or of man's heart, and that the most unpleasant of all, he appears to imply

not that this is to be found in society or human nature, and is worth looking at—but that nothing else is to be found in society or human nature, and that this is all we have to look at; and we revolt from acquiescence in any such view of a cause which is, after all, our own. Our estimation of the genius of Le Sage would be much lower if he had written half-a-dozen small 'Gil Blas;' and if Fielding had written many Jonathan Wilds,' we should be disposed to think less highly of the mind that made 'Tom Jones.' We attribute this defect to what is perhaps in itself a conscientious quality.

We think that Mr Lever is apt to be content to draw his materials for fiction too exclusively from observation. Human nature is indeed inexhaustible, but no one man's observation of human nature can be so. The widest experience is limited, and the limit of it must be reached at last. There is only All one inexhaustible source for fiction, and that is the Imagination.

In such works as 'Davenport Dunn' and 'One of Them,' the genius of the author carries everything before it. But the subject of such a story as "The Daltons' can, we should think, have little interest for the mass of the public. We need not defend these remarks from the imputation of a false and vulgar morality which would exclude from fiction its legitimate sources of interest in the delineation of crime and the analysis of evil. Nothing in human nature can be alien to art, which derives from nature all its materials. we ask from an author is to preserve the balance and proportion of the emotions to which he appeals. To be continually poring over the blots and failures of humanity, or the vices and corruption of any social state, is neither profitable nor pleasant. And the perusal of a series of fictions which present to us only the deformities of nature, and detain us without relief or intermission in the society of sharpers and vagabonds, and all manner of vicious or vulgar persons, becomes fatiguing and painful. As we close one after the other of such books, we feel like men returning from a

VOL. XCI.-NO. DLVIII.

But the imagination itself is an engine which cannot be kept in frequent operation without being frequently supplied with fuel. It cannot act without being first acted upon. And the fault we are inclined to attribute to the majority of our modern writers of romance is, that they give out too much and take in too little. Let men say what they will about native originality, man is not really a creator. He changes, improves, and extends, that is all. Ex nihilo nihil fit; and the best new ideas are the product of a large accumulation of old ones.

21

Those authors who rely chiefly upon personal observation and experience for the materials of fiction, cannot be too careful to vary their point of sight pretty often. Every imaginative writer must at some period have experienced the feelings expressed by Cowley, when he

wrote

"The fields which sprang beneath the ancient plough,

Spent and outworn, return no harvest now,
And we must die of want,
Unless new lands we plant."

If Mr Lever is disposed to dispute the justice of these observations, or, at any rate, their special application to himself, he may certainly refer to the extraordinary sameness of a vast number of his contemporary novelists, who do not seem, on that account, to enjoy less popularity. One set of writers can talk of nothing but governesses, tutors, and athletic curates, who love fly-fishing and abhor Strauss. The domestic novel happens to be in fashion, and we certainly have enough of it. Others are never happy

out of the precincts of Pall-Mall and the Clubs, unless it be at a fashionable watering-place; and some can give no flavour to English fiction without importing it from Florence or Rome, or borrowing their intrigue from the secret societies, and their sentiment from Mazzinian manifestoes. But Mr Lever is immeasurably richer in imagination and power than all such writers; and if he would occasionally emigrate to "fresh fields and pastures new," he has already all that is needful in the way of stock and capital. He may be contented with his present reputation, which is extensive, and likely to be permanent; but we believe that it is in his own power to elevate and enlarge it.

"Count no man happy till he has ceased to live," says the Greek proverb. Sum up the attributes of no genius till it has ceased to act or to write. The last work of an author may sometimes be the first which gives a just idea of his mind as a whole.

THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION: ITS PURPOSE AND PROSPECTS.

THE world is a stage; it is also a mart, and likewise a battle-field. And the world's congress-the International Exhibition of the coming May-is as a theatre wherein Genius shall disport herself; a market whereunto commerce shall congregate, a field of battle whereon conflicting civilisations shall contend for mastery. Were it nothing but a large shop in which goods could be purchased, a mere bazaar which might be traversed curiously in endless avenues, it would possess little dignity. Rather is it a council of the nations, where distant peoples meet in friendly rivalry; the tenants of the frozen north, the dusky brows of the sunburnt south; races from east and from west, dwellers upon Rhine, Baltic, Rhone, Tiber, Danube, Bosphorus, coming to

a grand banquet given by brethren comfortably settled on the borders of the Thames. We live in days when the remote corners of the earth are brought in fellowship together-when winds, laden with the perfume of orange groves, mingle with blasts from snow-fields, and waves which lave the coasts of gold bring the burden of their riches to Albion's shore. And we now ask of the wings of Commerce to bear on swift flight whatever is most benignant and beauteous in the realms of nature, or among the arts of man. We ask of Earth to render up her treasures, even from the depths of the sunken mine. We ask of tree and herb and grass, of grove and forest, to give to our use the kindly fruits of the ground-the root, the leaf, the flower, the seed.

Whatever ministers to man's necessities, whatever in structure and by invention enhances man's power, whatever adds to life's adorning, whatever completes through utility or crowns by loveliness this century which is our boast, whether it be nature or whether it be art, we bid it come to the congress of the nations. In treating of the purpose and the prospects of the International Exhibition, it is needful to premise somewhat on the building itself. A palace, imposing as a structure, is perhaps the best advertisement of an Exhibition which is designed to be successful as an enterprise. We all remember the enthusiasm aroused by the first Crystal Palace -the airy canopy for a fancy-fair, high enough to tent a park elmtree, and vast enough to congregate one hundred thousand visitors. The experience, however, now gained of glass and iron structures-the conservatory or greenhouse style of architecture, as it may be termed— does not favour the repetition of a like experiment in its first and simple integrity. A glass roof cannot be rendered water-tight; iron tank-walls, such as in the "Brompton Boilers," cannot be made impervious to heat and cold; and buildings thus constructed, when designed to be permanent, have never proved exempt from exorbitant outlay for repair. Accordingly, the Palace of Industry in Paris departed from the precedent set up by the great gardener in his grand greenhouse. The building now raised at Kensington may probably also claim the advantages usually presumed to reward the pursuit of a middle course. In the realms of architecture, the present International building must be pronounced a hybrid-a transmutation, as it were, of the previously known artspecies, according to the true Darwinian laws of natural selection; a compound of the simple-minded agricultural barn, the purely practical and mercantile factory, and the middle-age cathedral, with nave, transept, and aspiring dome!

This combined result, if not all that might have been desired, will, we think, at least fulfil the requirements of utility. Mr Redgrave, in his Report on the Paris Exhibition, has justly said that the problem to be solved in such structures is "the enclosure of the largest amount of space by the simplest unit of form." The principles which seem to have guided the Commissioners, and ruled Captain Fowke the architect, are these: that primarily the building shall be fitted to the purpose for which it is erected; furthermore, that in the simplicity of its parts and the economy of its structure, it shall not overtax the monetary resources at command; and yet, finally, while thus the merely æsthetic is kept in abeyance to the practical, that the architectural members now blank and bald shall admit of, and indeed invite to, subsequent adorning, whenever funds arising from the financial success of the present or future exhibitions may be at the disposal of the Commissioners. That no professional architect was consulted in the design of the building is perhaps scarcely to its prejudice, considering the enormities which professed architects have elsewhere perpetrated, and the confusion and contradiction which at present reign under the cut-throat "battle of the styles." For the Exhibition building of 1851 the competition was thrown open to all the world; about two hundred and fifty designs were accordingly sent in, and the Commissioners ended by rejecting every one of them, recording their opinion that there was no single plan so accordant with the peculiar objects in view, either in the principle or detail of its arrangement, as to warrant them in recommending it for adoption." Mr Cole, it will be recollected, made in December last, at a meeting of the Society of Arts, a stinging reply to the censors on the adopted plans of Captain Fowke. Mr Cole expressed himself rrady to refute all the detailed objections, did time permit. And he

66

[ocr errors]

then proceeded to "put forth his challenge with unhesitating confidence, that no architect had ever erected a picture-gallery in this country, or in Europe, which would match that of Captain Fowke; and he ventured to say that the whole of Europe would pronounce that gallery to be the finest ever seen.' "He would conclude, having had some experience in the Exhibition of 1851-having had something to do with the Paris Exhibition, and having observed the construction of the present building, by saying this: if the guarantors and Commissioners desired to have a building which should be a common-sense building, and not outrun the constable as to expense-which had been the case with some public buildings—if they wanted a thing treated according to the principles of common sense, fulfilling the objects for which it was intended-they would have in this building those objects realised to a greater extent than had been the case in any exhibition building which had ever yet been erected." This is the defence set up. We ourselves, however, incline to the opinion, that while the edifice may be admitted as structurally a success, it must be pronounced architecturally a failure. But the interior will doubtless offer some compensation. The long nave, and especially the approach to the transepts, crowned by the two mighty domes, will doubtless make at least a pretty fancy-fair, and a spacious airy promenade. There can, indeed, be little question that the purposes for which exhibition buildings are intended will be sufficiently well accomplished.

As a triumph over constructional difficulties, as a monument of the industrial and mechanical resources of an epoch signal in scientific appliance, this International edifice is certainly sufficiently marvellous. We all know that the structural facilities of the present day are unrivalled. Time and space are, as it were, annihilated; each moment is big with eternity, and the finite swells to infi

nitude. We live, it is often repeated, in a stern, iron, practical age; yet never was the counter-statement more emphatically true, that facts are stranger than fiction; that Reason in her plodding course transcends Imagination on her boldest wing. Nothing in the old worlds of Assyria, Egypt, Greece, or Rome, is, we need scarcely say, more astounding than the feats accomplished in our modern western Britain, especially when she sets herself to work on these international exhibitions. In the British Museum may be seen a painting, brought from the temples of Egypt-slaves harnessed, hauling stone at the beck and bid of drivers; and thus the great monuments which rank as the wonders of the world were constructed. Much have we in these our days gained in liberty, and still more in power. Railways now bring, on rapid wing, loads under which, in Egypt or in India, camels and elephants would have groaned and broken down; granite and stone, and even marble, may be hurried in a few hours from the distant quarry, bricks and terracottas from fertile factories. Brute mechanism, under the inspiring genius of steam, now steadily goes through the labours of Hercules; and the office of a god is easily performed by a contractor. If we have no Phidias to carve, we have thousands of workmen to cast; if there be no Palladio to design, "clerks of the works" in abundance are skilful to construct. And thus bridges, railroads, and buildings of all kinds rise, and their dimensions, at any rate, are astounding. mere cubic contents, few works, indeed, either in ancient or modern times, can compare with the present International structure. The space of ground tented over is upwards of 20 acres an area vaster by one fifth than the square of Lincoln's Inn, or the base of the great pyramid. The length of the nave, 800 feet, lighted by clerestory windows, is nearly one quarter longer than the nave of St Peter's. The domes, 160 feet in diameter, are wider than

In

those of the Pantheon, the Baths of Caracalla, the Duomo at Florence, the cathedrals of St Peter's and St Paul's. Their material and structure, too, are novel and remarkable. We have had iron bridges, tubular iron bridges, more recently ironclad Warrior steam - frigates; and now here is a new application of the same material, iron-built domes, cased with glass! Finally, an enumeration of the materials employed in this gigantic edifice is, like other items, somewhat startling. We are informed that in this giant structure are ten millions of bricks, one thousand iron columns, one mile of clerestory windows, seventeen thousand loads of timber, forty-five thousand superficial feet of glass, and four thousand tons of iron! The contract was originally taken by the builders at £200,000, with certain reversionary rights on the sale of materials, and provision for the payment of a further sum out of total receipts. The recent estimates for Mr Scott's Foreign Office, it may be remembered, were £200,000. The cost of the Paris International Edifice of 1855 exceeded £500,000.

Let us now turn to the purpose and uses of International Exhibitions. The world has had experience of two, the third approaches; and the data placed on record-the published reports of the various juries, with other documents-have determined with precision what good is effected by such competitions. The ordinary course of trade is for the year somewhat disturbed, yet the foremost benefit is found, notwithstanding, to accrue to that nation which has borne the greatest burden, and sustained the chief expense. The total cost incurred for management of the British portion of the Paris Universal Exhibition" was £40,000, for which a Parliamentary grant had been taken. The total cost to France herself, including the outlay on the building, was one million sterling. The total number of visitors was 4,533,464, and the total receipts

66

£117,667. But the profit, especially to the city of Paris, was commensurately great. The police returns show that during the Exhibition nearly 160,000 foreigners, and 350,000 people from the provinces, visited Paris, spending for the benefit of the city probably not less than £6,000,000 sterling. In fine, on good authority, it has been stated that this great increase on the usual expenditure, and the consequent profits accruing, more than repaid the total cost of the Exhibition itself.

Exhibitions in this country stand on a different footing, and involve, consequently, somewhat different considerations. They are the product of private enterprise, and are thus independent of State aid; they are made self-supporting, and even yield a profit. The total expenditure in 1851 was about £330,000. The total receipts were £506,000. The number of season-tickets sold was 25,605, netting £67,514, 18. The average daily payments at the door was £2548. The average number of visitors present on each day was 42,831. The greatest number on any one day-namely, on Tuesday, the 7th October-rose to 109,915. The greatest number of persons present in the building at one time was 93,224. The number of exhibitors amounted to nearly 14,000. The total space occupied reached all but 1,000,000 vertical and horizontal square feet. The total value of objects exhibited was £1,781,929, 11s. 4d., of which £1,031,000 belonged to the United Kingdom, and £80,000 to her dependencies. The final result of this amazing enterprise showed a net profit of about £170,000, devoted by the Commissioners to the permanent advance of arts and manufactures.

These statistics we have brought together as affording interesting points of comparison with corresponding items in the present Exhibition. We have seen that in Paris an outlay of about £1,000,000 sterling was deemed to find actual compensa

« AnteriorContinuar »