Real Life In London Part 86

1 "Mighty."--This high sounding t.i.tle has recently been given to a full gla.s.s of ale,--the usual quant.i.ty of what is termed a gla.s.s being half a pint, generally supplied in a large gla.s.s which would hold more--and which when filled is consequently subjected to an additional charge.

2 To those who are in the habit of frequenting the house, this gentleman will immediately be known, as he usually smokes his pipe there of an afternoon and evening.

"With his friend and his pipe puffing sorrow away, And with honest old stingo still soaking his clay."

With a certain demonstration before him of the mortality of human life, he deposits the bodies of his friends and neighbours in the earth, and buries the recollection of them in a cloud, determined, it should seem, to verify the words of the song, that

"The right end of life is to live and be jolly."

His countenance and manners seldom fail to excite risibility, not-withstanding the solemnity of his calling, and there can be little doubt but he is the finisher of many, after the Finish; he is, however, generally good humoured, communicative, and facetious, and seldom refuses to see any person in company for a mighty, usually concluding the result with a mirthful ditty, or a doleful countenance, according to the situation in which he is left as a winner or a loser; and in either case accompanied with a brightness of visage, or a dull dismal countenance, indicative of the event, which sets description at defiance, and can only be judged of by being seen.

3 "Surely not," are words in such constant use by one gentleman who is frequently to be met in this room, that the character alluded to can scarcely be mistaken: he is partial to a pinch of snuff, but seldom carries a box of his own. He is a resident in the neighbour-hood, up to snuff, and probably, like other men, sometimes snuffy; this, however, without disparagement to his general character, which is that of a respectable tradesman. He is fond of a lark, a bit of gig, and an argument; has a partiality for good living, a man of feeling, and a dealer in felt, who wishes every one to wear the cap that fits him.

~~221~~~ "Never mind," continued Jemmy, "I take my chance in this life, and sing _toll de roll loll_."

By this time our friends, being supplied with mighties, joined in the laugh which was going round at the witty sallies of the speakers.

"It is possible I may go first," said the undertaker, resuming his pipe; "and if I should, I can't help it."

"Surely not,--but I tell you what, Jemmy, if you are not afraid, I'll see you for two more mighties before I go, and I summons you to shew cause."

"D------n your summons,"{1} cried the former unsuccessful opponent of the risible undertaker, who at the word summons burst into a hearty laugh, in which he was immediately joined by all but the last speaker.

"The summons is a sore place," said Jemmy.

"Surely not. I did not speak to him, I spoke to you, Sir; and I have a right to express myself as I please: if that gentleman has an antipathy to a summons, am I to be tongue-tied? Although he may sport with sovereigns, he must be accountable to plebeians; and if I summons you to shew cause, I see no reason why he should interrupt our conversation."

1 "D-----n your summons." This, as one of the company afterwards remarked, was a sore place, and uttered at a moment when the irritation was strong on the affected part.

The speaker is a well known extensive dealer in the pottery, Staffordshire, and gla.s.s line, who a short time since in a playful humour caught a sovereign, tossed up by another frequenter of the room, and pa.s.sed it to a third. The original possessor sought rest.i.tution from the person who took the sovereign from his hand, but was referred to the actual possessor, but refused to make the application. The return of the money was formally demanded of the man of porcelain, pitchers, and pipkins, without avail. In this state of things the loser obtained a summons against the taker, and the result, as might be expected, was compulsion to restore the lost sovereign to the loving subject, together with the payment of the customary expenses, a circ.u.mstance which had the effect of causing great anger in the mind of the dealer in brittle wares. Whether he broke any of the valuable articles in his warehouse in consequence has not been ascertained, but it appears for a time to have broken a friendship between the parties concerned: such breaches, however, are perhaps easier healed than broken or cracked crockery.

~~222~~~ "Surely not," was reverberated round the room, accompanied with a general laugh against the interrupter, who seizing the paper, appeared to read without noticing what was pa.s.sing.

The company was now interrupted by the entrance of several strangers, and our two friends departed on their return homeward for the evening.

CHAPTER XVII

"Roam where you will, o'er London's wide domains, The mind new source of various feeling gains; Explore the giddy town, its squares, its streets, The 'wildered eye still fresh attraction greets; Here spires and towers in countless numbers rise, And lift their lofty summits to the skies; Wilt thou ascend? then cast thine eyes below, And view the motley groupes of joy and woe: Lo! they whom Heaven with affluence hath blest, Scowl with cold contumely on those distrest; And Pleasure's maze the wealthy caitiffs thread, While care-worn Merit asks in vain for bread; Yet short their weal or woe, a general doom On all awaits,--oblivion in the tomb!"

~~223~~~ Our heros next morning determined on a visit to their Hibernian friend and his aunt, whom they found had not yet forgot the entertainment at the Mansion-house, and which still continued to be the favorite topic of conversation. Sir Felix expressed his satisfaction that the worthy Citizens of London retained with increasing splendor their long established renown of pre-eminent distinction in the art of good living.

"And let us hope," said Dashall, "that they will not at any future period be reduced to the lamentable necessity of restraining the progress of epicurism, as in the year 1543, when the Lord Mayor and Common Council enacted a sumptuary law to prevent luxurious eating; by which it was ordered, that the Mayor should confine himself to seven, Aldermen and Sheriffs to six, and the Sword-bearer to four dishes at dinner or supper, under the penalty of forty shillings for each supernumerary dish!"

"A law," rejoined the Baronet, "which voluptuaries of the present times would find more difficult of observance than any enjoined by the decalogue."

The Squire suggested the expediency of a similar enactment, with a view to productive results; for were the ~~224~~~ wealthy citizens (he observed) prohibited the indulgence of luxurious eating, under certain penalties, the produce would be highly beneficial to the civic treasury.

The Fine Arts claiming a priority of notice, the party determined on visiting a few of the private and public Exhibitions.

London is now much and deservedly distinguished for the cultivation of the fine arts. The commotions on the continent operated as a hurricane on the productions of

genius, and the finest works of ancient and modern times ave been removed from their old situations to the asylum afforded by the wooden walls of Britain. Many of them have, therefore, been consigned to this country, and are now in the collections of our n.o.bility and gentry, chiefly in and about the metropolis.

Although France may possess the greatest number of the larger works of the old masters, yet England undoubtedly possesses the greatest portion of their first-rate productions, which is accounted for by the great painters exerting all their talents on such pictures as were not too large to be actually painted by their own hands, while in their larger works they resorted to inferior a.s.sistance. Pictures, therefore, of this kind, being extremely valuable, and at the same time portable, England, during the convulsions on the Continent, was the only place where such paintings could obtain a commensurate price. Such is the wealth of individuals in this country, that some of these pictures now described, belonging to private collections, were purchased at the great prices of ten and twelve thousand guineas each.

Amongst the many private collections of pictures, statues, &c. in the metropolis, that of the Marquis of Stafford, called the Cleveland Gallery, is the most prominent, being the finest collection of the old masters in England, and was princ.i.p.ally selected from the works that formerly composed the celebrated Orleans Gallery, and others, which at the commencement of the French revolution were brought to this country.

Thither, then, our tourists directed their progress, and through the mediation of Dashall access was obtained without difficulty.

The party derived much pleasure in the inspection of this collection, which contains two or three fine pictures of Raphael, several by t.i.tian and the Caracas, some ~~225~~~ capital productions of the Dutch and Flemish schools, and some admirable productions of the English school, particularly two by Wilson, one by Turner, and one by Vobson, amounting, in the whole, to 300 first-rate pictures by the first masters, admirably distributed in the new gallery, the drawing-room, the Poussin room (containing eight chef d'oeuvres of that painter), the pa.s.sage-room, dining-room, old anti-room, old gallery, and small room. The n.o.ble proprietor has liberally appropriated one day in the week for the public to view these pictures. The curiosity of.the visitors being now amply gratified, they retired, Sir Felix much pleased with the polite attention of the domestic who conducted them through the different apartments, to whom Miss Macgilligan offered a gratuity, but the acceptance of which was, with courteous acknowledgments, declined.

Proceeding to the house of Mr. Angerstein, Pall Mall, our party obtained leave to inspect a collection, not numerous, but perhaps the most select of any in London, and which has certainly been formed at the greatest expense in proportion to its numbers. Among its princ.i.p.al ornaments are four of the finest landscapes by Claude; the Venus and Adonis, and the Ganymede, by t.i.tian, from the Colonna palace at Rome; a very fine landscape by Poussin, and other works by Velasquez, Rubens, Murillo, and Vandyck: to all which is added the invaluable series of Hogarth's Marriage-a-la-mode.

Returning along Pall-Mall, our perambulators now reached the Gallery of the British Inst.i.tution; a Public Exhibition, established in the year 1805, under the patronage of his late Majesty, for the encouragement and reward of the talents of British artists, exhibiting during half of the year a collection of the works of living artists for sale; and during the other half year, it is furnished with pictures painted by the most celebrated masters, for the study of the academic and other pupils in painting. The Inst.i.tution, now patronised by his present Majesty, is supported by the subscriptions of the princ.i.p.al n.o.bility and gentry, and the number of pictures sold under their influence is very considerable.

The gallery was first opened on April 17, 1806.

In 1813, the public were gratified by a display of the best works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, collected by the industry and influence of the committee, from the private ~~226~~~ collections of the royal family, n.o.bility, and gentry; and in 1814, by a collection of 221 pictures of those inimitable painters, Hogarth, Gainsborough, and Wilson.{1}

1 That the Fine Arts engaged not a little of the attention of the British Public during the late reign, is a fact too notorious to require proof. The establishment of the Royal Academy, in 1768, and its consequent yearly Exhibitions, awakened the observation or stimulated the vanity of the easy and the affluent, of the few who had taste, and of the many who were eager to be thought the possessors of it, to a subject already honoured by the solicitude of the sovereign.

A considerable proportion of the public was thus induced to talk of painting and painters, and to sit for a portrait soon became the fashion; a fashion, strange to say, which has lasted ever since. Whether the talents of Sir Joshua Reynolds as a painter, were alone the cause of his high reputation, may, however, admit of a doubt. From an early period of life, he had the good fortune to be a.s.sociated in friendship with several of the most eminent literary characters of the age; amongst whom there were some whose high rank and personal consequence in the country greatly a.s.sisted him to realize one leading object which he had in view, that of uniting in himself (perhaps for the first time in the person of an English painter) the artist and the man of fashion. From his acknowledged success in the attainment of this object, tending as it did to the subversion of ancient prejudices degrading to art, what beneficial effects might not have resulted, had the President exerted his influence to sustain the dignity of the artist in others!

But satisfied with the place in society which he himself had gained, he left the rest of the Academy to follow his example, if they could, seldom or never mixing with them in company, and contenting himself with the delivery of an annual lecture to the students. Genius is of spontaneous growth, but education, independence, and never-ceasing opportunity, are necessary to its full developement.

Since then they have regularly two annual exhibitions; one, of the best works of the old masters, for the improvement of the public taste, and knowledge of the artists, varied by some of the deceased British artists, alternately with that on their old plan of the exhibition and sale of the works of living artists.

The directors of this laudable Inst.i.tution have also exhibited and procured the loan for study, of one or two of the inimitable cartoons of Raphael for their students. An annual private exhibition of their studies also takes place yearly; the last of which displayed such a degree of merit as no society or academy in Europe could equal.

Sir Felix, who on a former occasion had expressed a wish to acquire the art of verse-writing, was so much satisfied with his inspection of this exhibition, that he ~~227~~~became equally emulous of attaining the sister-art of painting; but Dashall requested him to suspend at present his choice, as perhaps he might alternately prefer the acquisition of music.

"In that case," rejoined the Baronet, "I must endeavour to acquire the knack of rhyming extempore, that I may accompany the discordant music with correspondent doggerels to the immortal memory of the heroic achievements of my revered Aunt's mighty progenitor--O'Brien king of Ulster."

This expression of contempt cast by the Baronet on the splendor of the ancient provincial sovereign of the north, had nearly created an open rupture between his aunt and him. Tallyho, however, happily succeeded in effecting an amnesty for the past, on promise under his guarantee of amendment for the future.

The party now migrated by Spring Garden Gate into the salubrious regions of St. James's Park, and crossing its eastern extremity, took post of observation opposite the Horse Guards, an elegant building of stone, that divides Parliament-street from St. James's Park, to which it is the princ.i.p.al entrance. The architect was Ware, and the building cost upwards of 30,000. It derives its name from the two regiments of Life Guards (usually called the Horse Guards) mounting guard there.

"Here is transacted," said Dashall, "all the business of the British army in a great variety of departments, consisting of the Commander-in-Chief's Office,--the Offices of the Secretary-at-War,--the Adjutant-General's Office,--the Quarter-Master-General's Office,--besides the Orderly Rooms for the three regiments of Foot Guards, whose arms are kept here. These three regiments, containing about 7000 men, including officers, and two regiments of Horse Guards, consisting together of 1200 men, at once serve as appendages to the King's royal state, and form a general military establishment for the metropolis. A body called the Yeomen of the Guard, consisting of 100 men, remains a curious relic of the dress of the King's guards in the fifteenth century. Some Light Horse are stationed at the Barracks in Hyde Park, to attend his Majesty, or other members of the Royal Family, chiefly in travelling; and to do duty on occasions immediately connected with the King's administration.

~~228~~~ "On the left is the Admiralty (anciently Wallingford House), containing the offices and apartments of the Lords Commissioners who superintend the marine department of this mighty empire.

"On the right is the Treasury and Secretary of State's Offices. Here, in fact, is performed the whole State business of the British Empire. In one building is directed the movements of those fleets, whose thunders rule every sea, and strike terror into every nation. In the centre is directed the energies of an army, hitherto invincible in the field, and which, number for number, would beat any other army in the world.

Adjoining are the executive departments with relation to civil and domestic concerns, to foreign nations, and to our exterior colonies. And to finish the groupe, here is that wonderful Treasury, which receives and pays above a hundred millions per annum."

Entering Parliament-street from the Horse-Guards, our perambulators now proceeded to Westminster-bridge,{1} which pa.s.sing, they paid a visit to Coade and Sealy's Gallery of Artificial Stone, Westminster-bridge-road.

1 Westminster Bridge. This bridge was built between the years 1730 and 1750, and cost 389,000. It is 1223 feet long, and 44 feet wide; containing 14 piers, and 13 large and two small semicircular arches; and has on its top 28 semi-octangular towers, twelve of which are covered with half domes. The two middle piers contain each 3000 solid feet, or 200 tons of Portland stone. The middle arch is 76 feet wide, the two next 72 feet, and the last 25 feet. The free-water way between the piers is 870 feet. This bridge is esteemed one of the most beautiful in the world. Every part is fully and properly supported, and there is no false bearing or false joint throughout the whole structure; as a remarkable proof of which, we may quote the extraordinary echo of its corresponding towers, a person in one being able to hear the whispers of a person opposite, though at the distance of nearly 50 feet.

This place contains a great variety of elegant models from the antique and modern masters, of statues, busts, vases, pedestals, monuments, architectural and sculptural decorations, modelled and baked on a composition harder and more durable than any stone.