I. YOUTH.
Birth at Ealing—Motherless childhood—Feeble health—Irregular schooling—Medical education—Student days in Paris—Wax-modelling—Admission to College of Surgeons—House Surgeon at Westminster Hospital.
Born in the same year as Mr Gladstone, May 1809, John Rutherford Alcock[1] predeceased that statesman by only six months. His birthplace was Ealing, and he died in Westminster, after a residence there in retirement of twenty-seven years. Being a delicate infant, he was baptised in Ealing church when one day old. His childhood was deprived of its sunshine by the loss of his mother, and it does not appear that his father, a medical man of some note, and an artist to boot, was equal to filling the void in the young life. Consequently boyhood had for him none of the halo of a golden age, but was, on the contrary, a grey and cheerless memory, furnishing tests of hardihood rather than those glowing aspirations which generally kindle young ambitions.
His early life was passed with relatives in the north of England, and he went to school at Hexham, where he had for companions Sir John Swinburne and Mr Dawson Lambton.
Of his school-days there is little to remark. Indeed his early education seems to have been most irregular, having been subject to long and frequent interruptions on account of ill-health, which necessitated sea-voyages and other changes of air. Nevertheless the diligence which was part of his nature compensated for these drawbacks of his youth, and set its seal on his whole after-career.
On returning to his father's house at the age of fifteen, the boy began his medical education, being, according to the fashion of the day, apprenticed to his father, and at the same time entered as a student at the Westminster Hospital and the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital under that distinguished surgeon, G. J. Guthrie. His passion for art had already asserted itself, and he was enabled to indulge it by constant visits to Chantrey's studio, where, "amid the musical sounds of the chisel on the marble, with snatches of airs from the workmen, where all breathed a calm and happy repose, he passed delightful hours." His half-holidays were spent at Chantrey's in modelling.
In the following year he visited Paris, and seems ever after to have looked back on the gay city as a kind of paradise, for there the world first really opened to the young man of sixteen. Then began that life of work and enjoyment, so blended as to be inseparable, which continued without intermission for more than seventy years. In the stimulating atmosphere of Paris, and its free and independent life, the boy's faculties rapidly developed. He seemed, indeed, to expand suddenly into full manhood. Destined for the medical profession, he worked hard at anatomy, chemistry, and natural history, while taking also a keen interest in artistic and literary subjects; mastered French and Italian; and, in short, turned his twelve or eighteen months' sojourn to highly practical account.
From a small pocket-book containing notes of the journey to France, and part of his work in Paris, we give some extracts illustrative of the boy's character and powers of observation.
It was on the 17th of August 1825 that the party embarked at the Custom-House Stairs for Calais, the voyage occupying fourteen hours. On landing the lad "amused himself by observing the effects in the sky and the sea, and by picking up shells, bones of birds and animals, which having remained in the sea until perfectly clean, looked beautiful and white as ivory." Simple things interested him, and after dinner at the Hôtel Meurice in Paris he "listened with much pleasure to a man playing airs on what he called an American flute"—which he goes on to describe: "The tones were mellow in the extreme, and the airs he played I think were much superior in sweetness to any I have ever heard from an instrument so clear," and so on. Obviously a subjective impression; it is his own emancipation that beautifies the simplest things and inspires the simplest sounds. Like the convalescent in Gray—
"The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise."
On his first Sunday in Paris he was "much struck with the beauty of the paintings and a great number of pieces sculptured in bas-relief." Then he walked in the gardens of the Tuileries, "which in extent, in statues and in fountains, in the appearance of it taking it altogether, far exceeded anything my imagination had conceived concerning it."
At Versailles he was "highly delighted with many of the paintings. The gardens are extremely extensive and the fountains very numerous; ... but it is all extremely artificial, and therefore soon fatigues the eye." In these slight observations are perceptible the artistic instinct and sense of fitness, faculties which served him so admirably in his future work, and might have won him distinction in other fields than those in which his lot was ultimately cast.
He was in Paris for a serious purpose, the study of medicine and surgery, and seriously he followed it. At the same time he mixed freely in the artistic and literary society of the French capital, and left none of his talents uncultivated. A characteristic incident in his educational career was his mastering the art of modelling in wax and in plaster. Following up his experiments in Chantrey's studio, he took regular lessons in Paris, and attained such proficiency that, young as he was, he was able to maintain himself while in that city by the sale of his anatomical models. For one of these he mentions receiving fifty guineas, and a few years after "for two arms and two legs the size of life" he notes receiving 140 guineas. These also won for him distinctions at home, for in the year 1825 he was awarded the "Gold Isis Medal" of the Society of Arts, and in the following year the "large gold medal" of that society, for original models in coloured wax. And it may be mentioned as characteristic that although in later years an active member of that society, Sir H. T. Wood, the secretary, who knew him well, was unaware of Sir Rutherford Alcock's having so early in life received the society's medals. "The fact is an interesting one," he says, "and I am glad to have had my attention drawn to it." Some of these works were preserved in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, while others, prepared in special wax, were bought by Government for the use of the Indian medical schools.
From the small pocket-book to which we have already referred, and which contains concise notes of his course of instruction in modelling under a M. Dupont, we extract the note of his first lesson. It shows thoroughness of mind, keenness of observation, and the instinct for accuracy which enabled him so soon to attain to excellence in the art, and led to success in all the other pursuits of his life:—
Sept. 1.—To-day my first lesson in modelling began. I saw M. Dupont work upon a mask of a little boy's face in wax. He opened the eyes, but did not in my opinion make them quite correct. The only thing I observed in particular was his using oil very freely with his tool. I afterwards saw three moulds of a thigh near the hip after amputation, cast in wax. One was soaked in water, another was rubbed with soft-soap, and a third was well oiled. The one that was oiled produced the most perfect cast, but I should have thought both water, soap, and oil were used much too freely. They were all cast in wax of a deep red colour, and one of them was placed in the stump of one of the thighs of the model on which M. Dupont was engaged. It was not quite large enough for the thigh in some places, and too large in others. This he altered without scruple, so that when the stump was finished, though it looked extremely natural, it was by no means accurate.
Before quitting the life in Paris the following sample of its popular amusements as they presented themselves to the young student may be interesting to readers, and it is unfortunately the last entry in the pocket-book, and almost the last assistance we shall get from journals during the seventy years of crowded life which followed:—
I went yesterday [Sunday, September 10, 1826] to the Swiss Mountain, very extensive gardens on the Boulevards, where the most respectable part of the pleasure-seeking Parisians assemble on Sunday: you pay ten sous admittance. Here there is a large establishment for dinners where you may dine as at the restaurateurs, in a public room, or there are a long suite of apartments for parties of four, six, or twelve each, looking out into the gardens, and immediately before the windows was the space enclosed by trees, which form a canopy over it, and which is allotted to dancing. On one side is the orchestra; and when I heard it there was a very excellent band of musicians in it. It was rather unfavourable weather, as there were in the course of the day several very heavy showers, yet there seemed to be a very great number of elegantly dressed females and respectable-looking men; and some even highly-dressed, which is a wonder, I think, for the gentlemen in Paris seem to dress as much inferior to us as the French ladies dress better than the English. Indeed it is quite delightful to see the great taste with which they dress and the elegance of contour in all their figures. I don't know how it happens, but I never recollect seeing a French woman that was at all above the lowest class of society that was a slovenly or slattern figure, and very few that were not really elegant, though their faces are, generally speaking, plain.
After having dined I went to see the Swiss Mountain, which had made a noise whilst I was at dinner that very much resembled distant thunder. I had no idea what it was; my surprise may therefore be conceived when, on coming suddenly in sight of it, I saw a man, apparently sitting on a chair, whirl past me with a velocity more resembling the speed of lightning than anything I had before seen,—so much so, that though from the top to the bottom where they drop might be about 200 feet, I had merely time to perceive that there was a man seated on some sort of vehicle like a chair.
The mountain consisted of boards raised at an angle of about from 60° to 70° with the ground, and gradually becoming level. The distance from where they set off to where they stop I have before stated, I think, to be about 200 feet.
This platform is sufficiently broad to allow three of the vehicles to go down and one to return up at the same time—that is to say, there are four iron grooves accurately fitted to the small wheels on which the vehicles move. There are horses as well as chairs for both ladies and gentlemen. I saw several gentlemen on horseback and one lady. The horses appear to me to be real horses' hides, perhaps covering a wooden horse. They are accoutred with saddle, stirrups, and bridle. One person who came down on one of these horses rose and fell in his stirrups as though riding a real horse; it created much laughter, and the people surrounding immediately called out "Un Anglais! un Anglais!" I believe he was an Englishman. It had a ridiculous effect to observe the anxiety depicted on the countenances of the heroes, and compare them, with the knowledge of their perfect safety, with the laughing groups that surrounded them. Sometimes a veteran hero would mount one of the horses and come down with triumph in his countenance; the effect then became still more ridiculous, for he seemed like a great baby mounted on a hobby-horse proportionately large. But so it is through life, I think; one sees people capable of being elated as much by actions little in themselves, but enlarged for the instant by circumstances, as, for instance, in this case—the rapidity of motion, the gay crowd, and the distant music—as they would have been by an action really great in itself but unembroidered by outward show.
Hearing the music and wishing to see the dancing I had heard so much of, I approached the dancers. We read that the French enjoy dancing with great zest; certes, to see them dance a quadrille, one would not say so: 'tis true it is a dance in which custom has forbidden much exertion, still the entire listlessness they show induced me to think it was a task rather than a pleasure. But when a lively waltz struck up and the waltzing began, I....
Of the student's life of four years from 1828 to 1832 there is little which can or need be said. For two years and a half out of the four he was house surgeon at the Westminster Hospital and the Ophthalmic Hospital, having received, at the age of twenty-one, the diploma from the Royal College to practise surgery. During this period he continued modelling, and took pupils in that art. Writing for periodicals also occupied some of his leisure time.
No sooner was his student career ended than an opening presented itself which determined the future course of his life, but in a way very different from what could possibly have been anticipated.