British silk (Free Trade notwithstanding) with a train three yards long (perhaps it is only three feet), with plumes, &c. Thus equipped, they proceed to the Palace, where at the appointed hour the Queen makes her appearance, with her family by her side and backed by a double row of maids of honor, attendants, &c. Each palpitating aspirant to the honor of presentation awaits his or her turn standing, and may thus wait two hours. The Foreign Embassadors have precedence in presenting; others follow; in due season your name is called out; you pass before the Royal presence, make your bow or courtesy, receive the faint suggestion of a response, and pass along and away to make room for the next customer. Unless you belong essentially to the Diplomatic circle (being presented by an Embassador will not answer), you are not allowed to remain and see those behind you take the plunge, but must hasten forthwith from the presence. And, as ordinary Humanity has but one aspect in which it is fit to be gazed on by Royal eyes, you must contrive to quit the presence with your face constantly turned toward it. Now this need not be difficult for those in masculine attire, but to the wearers of the rich Spitalfields silks and trains aforesaid, even though the trains be but three feet long instead of three yards, the evolution must require no moderate share of feminine tact and dexterity. It is consoling to hear that all manage to accomplish it, by dint of severe training through the week preceding the event; though some are so frightened when the awful moment arrives that their ghastly visages and tottering frames evince how narrowly they escape swooning. The fact that it is over in a moment serves materially to mitigate the torture!
"What ridiculous formalities!—What absurd requirements!" exclaims Brother Jonathan. No, sir! You are judging without knowledge or without consideration. These and kindred formalities, considered apart, may be ludicrous, but, regarded as portions of a system, they are essential. In a country where everything gravitates so intensely toward the Throne, there must be impediments to presentation at Court, if the Sovereign is to enjoy any leisure, peace, comfort, or even time for the most pressing public duties. There is and should be no absolute barrier to the presentation of any well-bred, well-behaved person, whether subject or foreigner; and, if it were as easy as visiting the Exhibition, the Queen would be required to hold a drawing-room every day, and devote the whole of it to unmeaning and useless introductions. As the matter is actually managed, those who have any good reason for it undergo the ceremony, with many who have none; while the great majority are content with the knowledge that they might be admitted to the august presence if they chose to incur the bother and expense. Those who cherish a moth-like reverence for Royalty indulge it at their own cost and to the advantage of Trade; weavers, costumers and shop-keepers are very glad to pocket the money which the presentee must disburse; and even those ladies who have the entrée, and so attend half a dozen drawing-rooms per annum, are expected to appear at each in a new dress—thus the interests of the shop are never lost sight of. These Court formalities, Brother J., are not absurd—very far from it. They are rational, politic, beneficent, indispensable. Whether it is wise or unwise for your young folks to subject themselves to the inevitable expense and vexation for the sake of standing a few feet nearer a Queen, is another affair altogether. When I contrast these presentations with the freedom and ease (except when there is a jam) of our Presidential receptions—when I remember that any whole dress is good enough for the White House, and any honest man or woman (with some not so honest) may go up on a levee night and be introduced to the President and his lady, saunter through the rooms, converse with friends and pass in review half the notables of the Nation—I deeply realize the superiority of Republicanism to Royalty, but without seeking to put the new wine into old bottles. The forms appropriate to our simpler institutions would be utterly unsuitable here—nay, they would be found impossible.
The Queen left London last week for her private residence on the Isle of Wight, I supposed for weeks; but she was back in the Exhibition early on Tuesday morning, and has since been holding a Drawing-Room, giving Dinners, a Concert, &c. with her accustomed activity. She seems resolved to make the Exhibition Summer an agreeable one for the Foreigners in attendance, many of whom are included in her invitations. As the "shilling days" opened meagerly on Monday, to the disappointment (perhaps because) of the general apprehension of a crush, and as the numbers thronging thither have rapidly increased ever since, the Queen's renewed countenance receives a good share of the credit, and her condescension in coming on a "shilling day" is duly commended. It is already plain enough that the attendance consequent on the cheap admission is destined to be enormous. To-day over Fifty Thousand paid their shilling each, over six thousand per hour—to say nothing of the thousands who came in on season tickets, or as exhibitors, jurors, &c. The money taken at the doors to-day must have exceeded $12,000, though no "excursion trains" have yet come in from the Country. These will begin to pour in next week, by which time it is to be hoped that the Juries will have completed their examinations if not their awards; for they will have scanty elbow-room afterward except at early hours in the morning. I presume there will be Fifty Thousand admissions paid for during each of the four "shilling days," of next week. Fridays henceforth the admission is to be 2s. 6d. (60 cents), and Saturdays 5s. ($1.20), and many believe the Palace will be as crowded on these as on other days. I doubt.
THE LITERARY GUILD.
"The Guild of Literature and Art" will have already been heard of in America. It is an undertaking of several fortunate authors and their friends to make some provision for their unsuccessful brethren—for those who had the bad luck to be born before their time, as well as those who would apparently have done better by declining to be born at all. The world overflows with writers who would fain transmute their thoughts into bread, and lacking the opportunity, have a slim chance for any bread at all, even the coarsest. No other class has less worldly wisdom, less practical thrift; no other suffers more keenly from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," than unlucky authors. If anything can be done to mitigate the severity of their fate, and especially if their more favored brethren can do it, there ought to be but one opinion as to its propriety.
And yet I fear the issue of this project. The world is scourged by legions of drones and adventurers who have taken to Literature as in another age they would have taken to the highway—to procure an easy livelihood. They write because they are too lazy to work, or because they would scorn to live on the meager product of manual toil. Of Genius, they have mainly the eccentricities—that is to say, a strong addiction to late hours, hot suppers and a profusion of gin and water, though they are not particular about the water. What Authorship needs above all things is purification from this Falstaff's regiment, who should be taught some branch of honest industry and obliged to earn their living by it. So far, therefore, am I from regretting that every one who wishes cannot rush into print, and joining in the general execration of publishers for their insensibility to unacknowledged merit, that I wish no man could have his book printed until he had earned the cost thereof by bona fide labor, and that no one could live by Authorship until after he had practically demonstrated both his ability and willingness to earn his living in a different way. I greatly fear the proposed "Guild," even under the wisest regulations, will do as much harm as good, by aggravating the prevalent tendency toward Authorship among thousands who never asked whether the world is likely to profit by their lucubrations, but only whether they may hope to profit by them. If the "Guild" should tend to increase the number of aspirants to the honors and rewards of Authorship, it will incite more misery than it is likely to overcome.
However, this is an attempt to mend the fortunes of unlucky British Authors; and as we Americans habitually steal the productions of British Authorship, and deliberately refuse them that protection to which all producers are justly entitled, I feel myself fairly indebted to the class, by the amount of my reading of their works to which Copyright in America is denied. I meant to have attended the first dramatic entertainment given at Devonshire House in aid of this enterprise, but I did not apply for a ticket (price £5) till too late; so I took care to be in season for next time—that is, Tuesday evening of this week.
The play (as before) was "Not so Bad as We Seem, or Many Sides to a Character," written expressly in aid of the "Guild" by Bulwer, and performed at the town mansion of the Duke of Devonshire, one of the most wealthy and popular of the British nobility. On the former evening the Queen and Royal Family attended, with some scores of the Nobility; this time there was a sprinkling of Duchesses, &c., but Commoners largely preponderated, and the hour of commencing was changed from 9 to 7½ P. M. The apartment devoted to the performance is a very fine one, and the whole mansion, though common-place enough in its exterior, is fitted up with a wealth of carving, gilding, sculpture, &c., which can hardly be imagined. The scenes were painted expressly in aid of the "Guild," and admirably done. The Duke's private band played before and between the acts, and nothing had been spared on his part to render the entertainment a pleasant one. Every seat was filled, and, at $10 each and no expenses out, a handsome sum must have been realized in aid of the benevolent enterprise.