Who first proposed a grand Exposition of the Industry of all Nations at London, it were hardly worth while to inquire. The suggestion might have presented itself to any mind, and in fact probably did present itself simultaneously, or at least independently, to several. It was a natural sequence of the profound peace everywhere prevailing—of the all-pervading spirit of Enterprize generated by Commerce—of the rapid march of Discovery and Invention—of the steady growth and at length realized importance of the Useful Arts. Good ideas are rather abundant in our day—too plentiful to obtain much credit from a busy, practical, work-day generation. In this instance, however, the seed fell on good ground, and the result was an immense though not yet fully gathered harvest. Much credit is due to those who first gave the idea hospitality and nurture, until it expanded in the warm sunshine of Royal favor into the benignant reality whereto the nations were gathered. And perhaps the most influential among the early and steadfast friends of the World’s Exhibition was Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, and one of the most constant and discriminating among the patrons and visitors of the great undertaking. In an age when princes are plainly falling into discredit and disuse, let us remember the good which this one powerfully aided to do, and not suffer our republican prejudices to blind us to the moral. Hereditary legislators and hereditary rulers are plainly absurd; but hereditary patrons and stimulators of inventive genius and industrial efficiency are not to be disparaged. Let them be remembered in the approaching day of kingly tribulation and aristocratic downfall. There are better uses for even the most obsolete and worthless than hanging them. Royalty and Nobility may be at ever so ruinous a discount, but Humanity is still at par. Kill the monarch, but save alive the man. His purple wrappages have cramped and concealed him; strip them off and burn them, but respect the glorious image of God which you have thereby unswathed and liberated.
Nor is it worth while to attempt adjusting the measure of credit due respectively to Paxton and to others, for the idea of the Crystal Palace and its consummation. A solid, rather heavy, North-of-England horticulturist, employed in overseeing the Duke of Devonshire’s extensive gardens and conservatories, has a new tropical plant confided to his charge, which, by a perfect knowledge of his art and an unbounded command of means, he induces to vegetate and flourish in that high latitude—of course, in an artificially fervid soil and under shielding glass. Here it grows and aspires with unimagined rapidity to an unprecedented height, threatening to shiver its frail covering in its upward career. Necessity, mother of invention, pricks on the unideal gardener to enlarge, and still enlarge, his glass shelter, which this aspiring rival of Jack’s Bean-Stalk threatens to put his head and arms through in quest of altitude and sunshine: so he elevates and expands his crystal encasement, until, little by little, step by step, a stately glass house has been erected; and this becomes the model of the hitherto unsuggested Crystal Palace. The gardener had no premonition of this, no idea of anything beyond sheltering his delicate though gigantic plant, and saving its artificial Timbuctoo from destruction:
“He builded wiser than he knew.”
But when plans and designs for the immense edifice required to hold the contributions of all nations to the grand Exposition were advertised for, he was prepared to compete for the proffered reward; and his plan, dictated to him by Nature herself, was found the best of all, adopted, and, with some necessary modifications of detail, carried into effect. The result was the Crystal Palace, the most capacious, convenient, economical, healthful, and admirable structure ever devised for any kindred purpose. Earth was ransacked for alluring marvels; Science racked its brains for brilliant combinations; Art exhausted its subtle alchemy in quest of dazzling effects; Labor poured out its sweat like rain to fill this grand receptacle with whatever is beautiful and winning: yet the Crystal Palace remained to the end the crowning triumph of all.
Within the last century, London has expanded rapidly and immensely, but especially toward the West, or up the Thames. Temple Bar, the western boundary of the city proper, (or ancient London,) is now considerably East, I think, of the center of the Great Metropolis; while the present residences of nearly all the nobility and gentry are built on grounds which were open country since the days of the Plantagenets and Tudors. In the center of this magnificent “West end,” between St. James’s Palace and Kensington Gardens, though much nearer the latter, stretches Hyde Park, one of the most spacious and pleasant expanses of sward and shade and water that eye ever feasted on. Boston Common would be somewhat like it, if it were ten times as large and twenty times as well watered as at present. Hyde Park is the favorite resort of the Aristocracy for equestrian and carriage exercise, and thoroughly justifies their choice. On the southern verge of this noble expanse, some three miles West of the Bank, Exchange, and London Bridge, the Crystal Palace was erected. It was not an imposing edifice. No stately gateway, no frowning turrets, no graceful spire, no lofty tower, marked the capacious structure from whose roof the flags of all nations rose and floated in perfect amity. Its slender ribs of iron, covered and hidden for some thirty feet from the earth by boards, like any house of wood, were thenceforth visible through the glass which formed the upper siding and roof, like a spider’s web on the grass of a dewy morning. Slender iron columns or pillars, rising at intervals unperceived from beneath the floor, helped to sustain the weight of the slight yet ponderous roof, through which, though covered with canvass to modify the heat of the few sunny days vouchsafed to an English summer, as abundance of light, not only under the murkiest London skies, but even during the prevalence of the great July eclipse, was at all times received. So immense was the volume of atmosphere enclosed, or so perfect the arrangements for ventilation, that no sense of exhaustion or of breathing vitiated air was at any time experienced; for the building was something more than a third of a mile in length from east to west, some three hundred feet wide, and rather more than a hundred feet from floor to roof, with eight or ten large doors for entrance and exit hardly ever closed during the day. On a volume of atmosphere thus extended, and constantly changing, the breathings of sixty thousand persons for hours could make no impression. In this vast bazaar, which a few months saw advance from its first conception to its perfect realization, and which yet was barely completed at the day appointed for opening the exhibition, the choice or characteristic products of all nations had already for some weeks been accumulating. Under the mere corner (though of itself covering more than an acre) devoted to machinery, mainly British, water-pipes and adaptations of steam-power had already been conducted, the steam itself being generated outside. An army of carpenters and other artisans had been some weeks at work on the fixtures and decorations of the several departments, so that, when the eagerly expected opening day at length arrived, although the whole visible area had an unmistakable aspect of haste and rawness—an odor born of green boards and fresh paint,—and although an infinity of carpenters’ work still remained undone, especially in the galleries or upper story, yet the Exhibition was plainly there, and only needed time to perfect its huge proportions, and stand forth the acknowledged wonder of the world.
The first of May, 1851, was a happy day for London. Her skies had relaxed something of their habitual sullenness to usher in the pageant whereby the Sovereign of the Realm, surrounded by her chief councilors and grandees, was to inaugurate the first grand Exhibition of All Nations’ Industry. The rain, which had dripped or pattered almost or quite daily for weeks, held up the evening before and promised not to return for this whole May-day—a promise which was only broken by a slight shower at noon, too late to mar the interest or pleasure of the festival. At an early morning hour, a strong current of human life set westward from the city proper toward Hyde Park, and long before the doors of the House of Glass were opened, they were surrounded by eager groups, though no admission was purchasable save at the cost of a season ticket—over fifteen dollars. Even thus, some thirty thousand enjoyed and swelled the in-door pageant; while perhaps ten times as many gazed from the parks and streets at the meagre procession out-doors which escorted the Queen from her palace of St. James to the airier, richer palace of the working millions, the hall of vastest prophecy. They arrived, a robed and jeweled procession of Princes and Embassadors—of noble Ladies and noble Workers—the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Paxton—the Master of the Buckhounds, Groom of the Stole, Gentleman Usher of Sword and State, Gold Stick in Waiting, Silver Stick in Waiting, and other such antediluvian absurdities—attended Her Majesty, along with the Foreign Commissioners, Architects of the edifice, her older children, and some other living verities, on her slow and measured progress from side to side and end to end of the mighty convocation. This strange mingling of the real with the shadowy, the apposite with the obsolete, gave additional piquancy and zest to the spectacle. Had the courtly symbols of an out-worn, out-grown feudal age appeared by themselves, we might have taken them for some fanciful creation of a mind diseased by reading Froisart and Walter Scott, and watched to see them exhale like ghosts at cock-crowing; but here they are so mixed up and blended with undeniable entities; with the solid and practical Prince Albert; with our own portly and palpable Embassador; with that world-known Celestial who accompanies and illustrates the Chinese Junk, himself first of matter-of-fact conservatives—a walking, human Junk—that we cannot refuse to credit its total verity, in spite of the glaring anachronisms. Then there was a prosy though proper Address read by Prince Albert as head of the Royal Commission to his Royal consort as head of the kingdom, telling her how the Exhibition was first started, and how it had moved onward till now—rather superfluous it must be confessed, since they had doubtless talked the matter all over between them a dozen times when much more at their ease, and in a far more satisfactory manner; but Queens must endure and take part in some dreary absurdities as well as other people. This speech was through in time, and was very briefly and fittingly responded to. I trust the prayer which the Archbishop of Canterbury sent up in behalf of us all was as graciously received. There was some music, rather out of place and lost in the vastness of space to all but the few immediately under the Transept, and some other performances; but all in perfect order, in due and punctual season, without a betrayal of awkwardness or conscious incongruity. Between two and three o’clock the pageant was at an end,—the Royal cortege departed, and the Exhibition formally opened. Let me now try to give some general notion of its character, by glancing at the more obvious details, so far as I, at this distance of time and space, may be able to recall them.
There are doors on all sides, one or more devoted exclusively to the reception of articles for exhibition; one for Jurors in attendance on the Fair; others for the Police, the Royal visitors, &c.; while the main entrances for paying visitors are upon the south side, into the Transept. But we will enter one of the three or four doors at the east end, and find ourselves at once in the excessive space devoted to contributions from the United States, and which thence seems sparsely filled. Before us are large collections of Lake Superior Native Copper, as it was torn from the rock, in pieces from the size of a bean up to one slab of more than a ton, though still but a wart beside some masses which have been wrenched from the earth’s bosom, cut into manageable pieces of two to three tons, and thus dispatched to the smelting furnace and a market. New Jersey Zinc, from the ore to the powder, the paint, the solid metal, is creditably represented; and there are specimens of Adirondack Iron and Steel from Northern New-York which attract and reward attention. Passing these and various cabinets or solitary specimens of the Minerals of Maryland and other States, we are confronted by abundant bales of Cotton, barrels of Wheat and of Flour, casks of Rice, &c.; while various clusters of ears of our yellow and white Indian Corn remind the English of one valued staple which our climate abundantly vouchsafes and theirs habitually denies. The “Bay State” Shawls of Lawrence, the Axes of Maine, the Flint Glass of Brooklyn, the Daguerreotypes of New-York and Philadelphia, (whose excellence was acknowledged from the first by nearly every critic,) next salute us; and near them are the specimens of various Yankee Locks, and in their midst the invincible Hobbs, a small, young, shrewd, quiet-seeming Yankee, but evidently distinguished for penetration, who would have made fewer enemies in England had he proved a less potent master of his calling.
And now we are at the Grand Aisle, across which is the U. S. Commissioner’s office, with that much ridiculed “pasteboard eagle” displayed along its front, and certainly looking as if its appetite would overtax any ordinary powers of digestion. In front of the office are Yankee Stoves, Safes, Light Wagons, and Carriages, Plows and other agricultural implements, including the since famous “Virginia Reaper,” which was for months a butt of British journalistic waggery, having been described by one Reporter as “a cross between an Astley’s chariot, a flying machine, and a treadmill.” They spoke of it far more respectfully after it had been set to work, with memorable results; and it must in fairness be confessed that beauty is not its best point, and that while nothing is more effective in a grain-field, many things would be more comely in a drawing-room.
But let us return to the main aisle, and, starting at its eastern end, proceed westward.
A model Railroad Bridge of wood and iron fills a very large space at the outset, and is not deemed by British critics a brilliant specimen of Yankee invention. (One of them, however, at length candidly confessed that its capacity of endurance and of resistance must be very great, or the weight of ridicule heaped upon it must inevitably have broken it down long before.) Upon it is a handsome show of India Rubber fabrics by Goodyear; while beyond it, toward the west, in a chosen locality in the center of the isle, stands “the Greek Slave” of Powers, one of the sweetest and most popular achievements of the modern chisel, here constantly surrounded by a swarm of admirers; yet I think it not the best of Powers’ works—I am half inclined to say not among his best. He has several stronger heads, possessing far more character, in his studio at Florence; and yet I am glad this statue was in the Exhibition, for it enabled the critics of the London press to say some really smart things about Greek and American slaves, and the Slave as a representative and masterpiece of American artistic achievement, which that heavy metropolis could not well have spared. Let us not grudge them a grin, even at our expense; for mirth promotes digestion, and the hit in this instance is certainly a fair one. “The Dying Indian,” just beside the Slave, by a younger and less famous American artist, is a work of power and merit, though the delineation of agony and approaching death can hardly be rendered pleasing. Is it not remarkable that a chained and chattelized woman, and a wounded, dying Indian, should be the subjects chosen by American sculptors for their two works whereby we shall be most widely known in connection with this Exhibition?—But we cross the imaginary line which here separates the United States from the nations of Continental Europe, and look westward.