The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

by James Wilson Hyde

The Mulready Envelope.

The failure of the Mulready envelope to establish itself in public favour is surely a monument to the caprice of the national taste, if it be not an evidence of how readily the tide of thoughtless opposition may set in to reject that which is new or unusual, without serious grounds for dislike. A facsimile of the design is here given, the envelopes for sale being printed in two colours—black and blue.

The Mulready Envelope.

It was introduced to the notice of the public at the time of the establishment of the penny postage, being intended to supply a desideratum in this respect, that the cover should serve the combined purposes of an envelope and a postage-stamp, the envelopes being good for a postage of one penny or twopence, according as they were printed in black or blue.

Mulready, a member of the Royal Academy, was the artist, and the design had the approval of the Royal Academicians, so that it did not go forth without substantial recommendations. If the subjects be examined, it will be found that they are accurately drawn, ingeniously worked together, and apposite in their references to the beneficent work of the Post-office Department. Britannia sending forth her messengers to every quarter of the globe, ships upon the sea with sails unfurled ready to obey her instant behests, the reindeer as the emblem of speed in the regions of snow, intercourse with the nations of the East and of the West, and the blessings of cheap postage in its social aspects, are all suitably depicted. Yet the whole thing fell flat; the envelope drew down upon itself scorn and ridicule, and it had to be quickly withdrawn. In the end, it was necessary to provide special machinery to destroy the immense quantities of the envelope which had been prepared for issue.

It is amusing, however, to read the contemptuous and very funny criticisms which were showered upon the artist and Mr Rowland Hill by the newspapers of the day, in one of which the following remarks appear:—

"The envelopes and half-sheets have an engraved surface, extremely fantastic, and not less grotesque. In the centre, at the top, sits Britannia, throwing out her arms, as if in a tempest of fury, at four winged urchins, intended to represent postboys, letter-carriers, or Mercuries, but who, instead of making use of their wings and flying, appear in the act of striking out or swimming, which would have been natural enough if they had been furnished with fins instead of wings. On the right of Britannia there are a brace of elephants, all backed and ready to start, when some Hindoo, Chinese, Arabic, or Turkish merchants, standing quietly by, have closed their bargains and correspondence. The elephants are symbolic of the lightness and rapidity with which Mr Rowland Hill's penny postage is to be carried on, and perhaps, also, of the power requisite for transporting the £1500 a-year to his quarters, which is all he obtains for strutting about the Post-office with his hands in his pockets, and nothing to do, like a fish out of water. On the left of Britannia, who looks herself very much like a termagant, there is an agglomeration of native Indians, missionaries, Yankees, and casks of tobacco, with a sprinkling of foliage, and the rotten stem of a tree, not forgetting a little terrier dog inquisitively gliding between the legs of the mysterious conclave to see the row. Below, on the left, a couple of heads of the damsel tribe are curiously peering over a valentine just received (scene, Valentine's Day), whilst a little girl is pressing the elders for a sight of Cupid, and the heart transfixed with a score of arrows. On the right, again, stands a dutiful boy, reading to his anxious mamma an account of her husband's hapless shipwreck, who, with hands clasped, is blessing Rowland Hill for the cheap rate at which she gets the disastrous intelligence. With very great propriety the name of the artist is conspicuously placed in one corner, so that the public and posterity may know who is the worthy Oliver of the genius of a Rowland on this important occasion. As may well be imagined, it is no common man, for the mighty effort has taxed the powers of the Royal Academy itself, if the engraved announcement of W. Mulready, R.A., in the corner, may be credited. Considering the infinite drollery of the whole, the curious assortment of figures and faces; the harmonious mélange of elephants, mandarins' tails, Yankee beavers, naked Indians squatted with their hindquarters in front, Cherokee chiefs with feathered tufts shaking missionaries by the hand; casks of Virginia threatening the heads of young ladies devouring their love-letters; and the old woman in the corner, with hands uplifted, blessing Lord Lichfield and Sir Rowland for the saving grace of 11d. out of the shilling, and valuing her absent husband's calamity or death as nothing in comparison with such an economy,—altogether, it may be said that this is a wondrous combination of pictorial genius, after which Phiz and Cruikshank must hide their diminished heads, for they can hardly be deemed worthy now of the inferior grade of associates and aspirants for Academic honours."

All this is excessively funny, and enables us to smile; but if the grounds of condemnation were of no more solid kind, we might venture the suggestion that the envelopes had hardly a fair trial at the bar of serious public judgment.