Our readers must remember a very spirited account of an ascent of Mont Blanc by Mr Albert Smith. Very spirited, and very interesting it was; but you should go and hear the author give his vivâ voce version of it, illustrated by Beverley’s views. When we say the descriptions are funny, we are not correct; though certainly there is a great deal of whim and fun in the course of his address. When we say the narrative is grave, startling, entrancing, we are not correct; though, undoubtedly, there are passages that take away the auditor’s breath, and hair-breadth ’scapes that make him shudder;—but the true description of the whole two hours’ entertainment is, that it is a remarkable combination of talent, humour, lucid narrative, and personal adventure, which everybody ought to go and hear, and a succession of scenes and paintings which everybody ought to go and see. The deaf man will be delighted; the blind man will be amazingly pleased; but people in the full enjoyment of eyes and ears will be inexcusable, if they refuse them so great a treat as the united efforts of two such artists will afford.
Saturday—and the week’s inspection has come to a close. A cold east wind is howling along Oxford Street, evidently in search of snow, and rather disappointed at not finding the Serpentine covered with ice. The Almanac tells us it is April; but our extremities have private information that it is December. As we go shivering home, we will diverge for a moment into the most curious repository of nick-nacks the world contains—being the gatherings of thirty years, at a cost of thirty thousand pounds. We call in Argyll Street, and are civilly received by Mr Hertz, the proprietor of the collection. He is a little, round, oily-faced German, evidently of the Jewish persuasion, and remarkably fond of tobacco. His room is like a pawnbroker’s shop; only all his customers must have been possessors of picture galleries, and have brought themselves into difficulties by cultivating a “taste.” There are wardrobes richly inlaid, with a genealogy as carefully kept as the pedigree of a race-horse. He will tell you how it came into the hands of Louis XIV., and how it ornamented a chamber in the Tuileries during the Empire; or a ring will be shown you, with the hair of Julius Cæsar under the glass. Beautiful miniatures are pointed out, of great value as works of art, but far more valuable from their being undoubted likenesses of their fair and famous originals. Beauties of the reign of Francis; eyes that looked kindly on Henry IV.; cheeks that flushed in vain to win a transient smile from the Grand Monarque, are all there. Then there are little ivory cabinets, and screens magnificently embroidered, all with their respective stories—there being no article that depends entirely on its intrinsic merits, but borrows a great part of its interest from the adventures it has gone through. Finally, he gives you a key, and sends you off, under the guardianship of his maid, to a house in Great Marlborough Street, which you find filled, from cellar to garret, with works of a still more valuable description. We have only time to mention some very fine cartoons by Correggio, and a splendid statue in black marble of a Roman prizefighter. This is a very fine specimen of ancient skill. Mr Hertz’s object is to sell the entire collection, and we believe he declines to dispose of it piecemeal. Were this not the case, it would be indispensable for the country to secure some of the treasures here contained, though it would perhaps be asking too much of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to endow the British Museum with the miscellaneous articles by which the statue and cartoons are accompanied. Colder, colder still, and fast and furious we hurry towards our chambers. What do blockheads and poetasters of all ages mean by the balmy breath of April?—the sunny showers of April?—the “smiles and tears together” characteristic of that hopeful and delicious month? We believe it is a cuckoo note, continued by imitative mediocrity from the days of Theocritus. All very well for him in the beautiful climate of Sicily to cover the head of Spring with fresh flowers, and lie upon the grass playing his Pandean pipes. But where are flowers to be seen, at this most uncheering season, here? Or who can lie down on the grass before the end of July without the certainty of cold and rheumatism? Here has the cold wind been blowing for two months—sneezes and snufflings loading every breeze; and yet you turn to a pastoral poem, an eclogue or rhapsody, about the beauties of nature, and you read whole passages in praise of April! With our hat clenched over our brow, and a handkerchief held to our mouth, we career madly through Leicester Square. On the steps of Miss Linwood’s old exhibition, a man is standing enveloped in ancient armour. He might as well be cased in ice. But utterly unconscious seems he of the absurdity of his appearance, or of the cold that must be shot through him from steel cuirass and iron greaves. In a gentle voice he addresses the passer by. “It is useless to observe,” he says, “that all intelligent individuals will be gratified by a sight of the strongest man in the world.” This is so different from the usual style of those touters, that we involuntarily slacken our pace. “It is scarcely necessary,” he proceeds, “to remark that Professor Crosso is decidedly at the head of his profession, and that the entrance money is only one shilling.” We are won by the smooth volubility of the knightly orator. Who is Professor Crosso?—and what is his profession? We ascended the steps, traversed a gallery, deposited a shilling, and entered a large apartment with a number of wooden benches, a small gallery at the back, and a green curtain door, hiding for a time the wonders of the stage. Three fiddlers strung their instruments with most unholy discord; the company gradually dropped in, principally foreigners; the gas gave a leap of increased light; a tune began, and the curtain rose. Oh, earth and sky! what is this we behold? A tableau-vivant of the death of Hector. Old Priam, venerable from the length of his beard, is the central figure; around him sit the maids and matrons of Troy. Hector lies dead in front; and to slow music, the stage on which they stand is whirled round so as to give a variety of views of the same group, and great applause rewards the display. There is certainly a great scarcity of drapery about the principal figures, but nothing to be found fault with on the score of decorum or propriety; but we read in a small hand-bill that the artistes are all German, and we gaze with great curiosity on the development of the Teutonic form. The round hilarious faces, the flat noses, and prominent chins, would prove, to the entire satisfaction of Professor Owen, that our Bavarian friends were lineal descendants of the Caffres at the Cape. There was not a single one of the Trojan ladies who did not look well practised in asking the inhabitants to buy a broom. The sons of Priam seemed waiters from the foreign restaurants in Lisle Street; and the dead Hector had a strong resemblance to the owner of a small cigar-shop, where there is a card in the window with the words, “Hier sprecht Mann Deutsch.” There were other subjects illustrated, but all by the same artistes. The figures were very tastefully disposed; but a little more beauty, and a closer approximation to the outlines of the Canova Venus, would be a great improvement. However, the patriotic audience were highly gratified, and the Dutch ideal evidently fulfilled. Performances then began, where there was a display of strength which would be incredible if there was no trick in some of the displays. The professor tossed weights about which were more fit for waggons than human arms. An immense iron bar was laid upon the floor, which he first lifted by the middle with unanimous approbation; he then raised it, keeping it horizontal by a hold about one-third from the end. He then laid it down, and grasping one end of it, certainly succeeded in raising the other end from the ground, while the minutest observation could detect no hair suspended from the ceiling, nor other means by which he could be assisted in the feat. But the crowning performance, which was preceded by a long pause, to enable “the yellow-haired and blue-eyed Saxons” to recover from their surprise, was called the Harmless Guillotine, and consisted in cutting off a girl’s head, without doing her any harm. The professor walked in leading his victim by the hand. She was probably one of the Trojan maidens, and by no means so favourable a specimen of female charms as the Argive Helen. With a vast amount of guttural and other splutter, the professor addressed the audience in German; and was interpreted by one of the fiddlers for the benefit of any untravelled Englishman who might be present. The object of the speech was to beg the ladies not to be alarmed at what they are about to see; for though the head appeared to be cut off, he assured them, on his own word as a gentleman and a Christian, that it was mere deception, and that he was by no means the murderer he appeared. He then led away his victim, and placed her on a kind of sofa-bed at the back of the stage, and drew the curtains round her. He next advanced, and asked whether the company would have the execution done behind the curtain or in front? There was a unanimous answer to this, that we wished to see the operation; whereupon he drew the curtain, waved a sword two or three times, and appeared to saw away at the girl’s neck, till finally the head came off, and in a triumphant manner he held it up for popular applause. It was a failure. The stage was so dark, the figure so indistinct, the preparation so clumsy, that we could not by any means entertain the feelings of horror and astonishment he intended to produce. The fiddler, in a feeble voice, invited any of the ladies or gentlemen present to go on the stage and examine more nearly the separated head and its marks of reality. But nobody responded to the invitation; and again we fixed our hat desperately over our brows, and faced once more the pitiless blowings of the April breeze.
Thus have we attempted to give a clear and dispassionate view of some of the amusements offered to the millions of London. The list we have chosen is very limited; for, in this communication we have omitted all mention of the great majority of the theatres, the operas, the salles de danse, the panoramas, the dioramas, and other pictorial exhibitions. What we wish to impress on the intelligent reader is the absolute necessity of improving, and turning to as beneficial purpose as possible, the means of entertainment which already exist. The theatre, we maintain, has in itself the material most fitted for this purpose; not the theatre of show and spectacle, of burlesque and buffoonery, but the theatre of life and poetry. The machinery is already there, the actors capable of improvement, the drama ready to spring into fresh existence, and all that is wanted is the fostering presence of good and benevolent men—wise enough to see the immense engine, for good or for evil, which it is in their power to direct, and brave enough, in the confidence of a good cause, to despise the sneers of the ignorant. The amusements of the people, properly considered, are as important as their ability to spell, or even as the comfort of their houses; and the philanthropic economist who spreads the light of education into desolate lanes, and brightens, with cleanliness and convenience, the poor man’s room, only half executes his task if he does not afford intellectual recreation to the mechanic who has a shilling or two to spare, but leaves him to the false encitement of the melodrama, or the leer and vulgarity of the tea-garden.
But this is Sunday morning, and we are at Woolwich in time for changing guard. Here are four or five thousand artillery, and a regiment or two of dragoons; and what with cadets and engineers, the fighting population must be close on seven thousand men. The heath spreads its smooth hard surface in front of the parade-ground, and scattered all over the place are cannons and carriages, and mortars and implements of warfare enough to exterminate the human race in half-an-hour. There are no such fine intelligent-looking men as the artillery in the British service. Great care is taken in the selection of recruits; for the duties even of a private need both bodily and mental activity. Their pay is higher than that of the line, and their conduct so good, that out of that immense body only four have made their appearance before a magistrate for the last two years.
The quiet of the town is wonderful. There is not a uniform anywhere to be seen, except where the sentry, with drawn sword, guards the heath gates. On this great expanse there is no motion. A flag here and there sways to and fro in the breeze, and occasionally the burst of a bugle-call rises into the air from some distant barrack-yard. But now a few officers and their wives and families move silently about—fine handsome lads come down by twos and threes from the college of cadets—white-haired generals, and majors and captains scarcely less white-haired, pace solemnly along the gravel—and, finally, we all arrive at the door of the barrack chapel, which is guarded by sentinels, and devoted entirely to the garrison. On entering on the ground line we are surprised to find ourselves in the gallery. On the different pew doors the ranks and designations of the occupants are written—general officers, field-officers, officers, &c. &c.; and on going forward to the front of the seat, and looking down into the body of the building, we see already assembled the men of the 4th Dragoons on the cross-benches in front of the pulpit, and artillerymen on the seats under the gallery. A beautiful sight—above a thousand gallant fellows in their blue trousers with red or yellow stripes, their belts crossed, their side-arms on, and all exhibiting any medals or decorations they may possess. A corporal in full uniform acted as clerk, and the band played the anthems, while some military choristers sang the hymns and responses. Better behaviour it is impossible to see in a church. It was a calm, observant, and very attentive congregation. After the prayers, the clergyman, who rejoices in a very fine voice, commenced his sermon amid the hushed attention of his audience. He was very plain, very straightforward, and spoke to them as men who had duties which were by no means inconsistent with the Christian character. Their temptations he touched upon, and gave them warnings and advice. In about a quarter of an hour, having seen that his admonition had had its effect—for he preached without book, and kept his eye on his congregation the whole time—he dismissed them with their faculties unfatigued, and what he had told them fresh upon their minds. On standing up or kneeling down, the clash of their swords upon the pavement was very fine; the jingle of spurs also was heard whenever they moved; and not the less gallantly will they press their horses’ flanks, and sway their sabres in some deathful charge, that they heard and treasured the lessons of their friend the chaplain. We intend, on some future occasion, to devote a whole paper to a day at Woolwich, but we have already seen enough to take off the edge of our fear of a French invasion. With Hardinge at the head of our Ordnance, and the great name of Wellington still sounding in the hearts of his countrymen—with rifle corps innumerable, and the whole empire ready to rise at the first beacon that flares on Beachy Head—we shall only observe to the whole world in arms, that if by some miracle it finds its way to English ground, it will receive the most tremendous thrashing that ever a world in arms, or out of them, received since history began. We therefore solemnly advise all foreign nations, kings, princes, adventurers, bullies, and personages whatsoever, to keep a civil tongue in their heads, and stay quietly at home.
THE GOLD-FINDER.
I.
To travellers by the seas, or on long plains,
The distant objects, on the horizon’s verge,
Show but their highest summits; so with Time.