Lippincott's Magazine
OF
POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
VOLUME XXII.
OCTOBER, 1878.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by J.B. Lippincott & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
OBLIQUE GABLES IN WARWICK.
PORCH WITH BOW-WINDOW UNDER, OUTSIDE WARWICK GATES.
LORD LEICESTER'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK.
COVENTRY GATEWAY.
STREET IN COVENTRY.
BABLAKE'S HOSPITAL, COVENTRY.
GRAND CUPOLA AT ONE OF THE CHIEF ENTRANCES TO THE MAIN BUILDING.
THE CHINESE SECTION.
THE INDIAN COURT: THE PRINCE OF WALES EXHIBIT.
THE CANADIAN TROPHY.
INDIANS MAKING KASHMIR SHAWLS.
TROPHY IN THE COURT OF THE DUTCH INDIES.
WALKING TO ST. SYLVESTER'S.
"SHE WAS ASLEEP."
WARWICK AND COVENTRY.
The history of England is written in living characters in the provincial towns of the kingdom; and it is this which gives such interest to places which have been surpassed commercially by great manufacturing centres and overshadowed socially by the attractions of London. The local nobility once held state little less than royal in houses whose beautiful architecture now masks a hotel, a livery-stable, a girls' school, a lawyer's office or a workingmen's club, and there are places where almost every cottage, every wooden balcony or overhanging oriel, suggests something romantic and antique. Even if no positive association is connected with one of these humbler specimens of English domestic architecture, you can fall back on the traditional home of love and poetry, the recollections of idyls and pastorals daily acted out by unconscious illustrators of the poets from one generation to another. Modern life engrafted on these old towns and villages seems prosaic and unattractive, though practically it is that which first strikes the eye. New fronts mask old buildings, as new manners do old virtues; and if we come to the frame and adjuncts of daily life, we must confess that nineteenth-century trivialities are intrinsically no worse than mediæval trivialities.
There are in Warwick more modern houses and smart shops than ancient gabled and half-timbered houses, but the relics of the past are still striking: witness the ancient porch of the good old "Malt-Shovel," with its bow-window, in which the Dudley retainers often caroused, and the oblique gables in one of the side streets, which Rimmer, a minute observer of English domestic architecture, thus describes: "An acute-angled street may be made to contain rectangular rooms on an upper story.... Draw an acute angle—say something a little less than a right angle—and cut it into compartments; or, if preferred, an obtuse angle, and cut this into compartments also. Now, the roadway may be so prescribed as to prevent right angles from being made on the basement, but the complementary angles are ingeniously made out by allowing the joists to be of extra length, and cutting the ends off when they come to the square. The effect is extremely picturesque, and I cannot remember seeing this peculiar piece of construction elsewhere."
At the western end of High street stands Leicester's Hospital, which was originally a hall belonging to two guilds, but, coming into possession of the Dudleys, was converted into a hospital by Elizabeth's favorite in 1571. The "master" was to belong to the Established Church, and the "brethren" were to be retainers of the earl of Leicester and his heirs, preference being given to those who had served and been disabled in the wars. The act of incorporation gives a list of neighboring towns and villages, and specifies that queen's soldiers from these, in rotation, are to have the next presentations. There is a common kitchen, with a cook and porter, and each brother receives some eighty pounds per annum, besides the privileges of the house. Early in this century the number of inmates was increased to twenty-two, unlike many such institutions, whose funded property accumulated without the original number of patients or the amount of their pensions being correspondingly increased. The hospital-men still wear the old uniform—a gown of blue cloth, with the silver badge of the Dudleys, the bear and ragged staff. The chapel has been restored in nearly the old form, and stretches over the pathway, with a promenade at the top of the flight of steps round it, and the black-and-white (or half-timbered) building that forms the hospital encloses a spacious open quadrangle in the style common to hostelries. The carvings are very fine and varied, and add greatly to the beauty of the galleries and covered stair. The monastic charities founded by men of the old religion are now in the hands of the corporation for distribution among the poor of the town, and besides the old grammar-school founded by Henry VIII., with a yearly exhibition to each of the universities, and open to all boys, rich and poor, of the town, there are five other public schools and forty almshouses. The old generous, helpful spirit survives, in spite of new economic theories, in these English country towns, and landlords and merchants have not yet given up the old-fashioned belief that where they make their money they are bound to spend it to the best advantage of their poorer and less fortunate neighbors. Many local magnates, however, have departed from this rule. Country gentlemen no longer have houses in the county-town, but flock to London for the purposes of social and fashionable life. They have decidedly lost in dignity by this rush to the capital, and it is doubtful how far they have gained in pleasure, though the few whose means still compel them to stay at home, or only go to town once or twice in a lifetime for a court presentation, would gladly take the risk for the sake of the experiment. The feeling which made the Rohans adopt as a motto, "Roy ne puis—Prince ne veux—Rohan je suis," is one which is theoretically strong among the country squires of England, the possessors of the bluest blood and longest deeds of hereditary lands; but the snobbishness
Into those places whence they grew,
But think them blest they may do so.
Who would pursue
The smoky glories of the town
That may go till his native earth,
And by the shining fire sit down
On his own hearth?
In that sweet life more solid joys,
More true contentment to the mind,
Than all town toys.
The solemn county balls, to which access was as difficult as it is now to a court festivity, have dwindled to public affairs with paid subscriptions, yet even in their changed conditions they are somewhat of an event in the winter life of a neighborhood. Everybody has the entrée who can command the price of a ticket, though, as a rule, different classes form coteries and dance among themselves. The country-houses for ten or twelve miles around contribute their Christmas and New Year guests, often a large party in two or three carriages. Political popularity is not lost sight of, and civilities to the wives and daughters of the tradesmen and voters often secure more support in the next election than strict principle warrants; but though the men thus mingle with the majority of the dancers, it is seldom the ladies leave the upper end of the hall, where the local aristocracy holds a sort of court. In places where there is a garrison the military are a great reinforcement to the body of dancers and flirts. The society proper of a county-town is mostly cut up into a small clique of clerical and professional men, with a few spinsters of gentle eccentricity and limited means, the sisters and aunts of country gentlemen, and a larger body of well-to-do tradesmen and their families, including the ministers of the dissenting chapels and their families. One of the latter may be possibly a preacher of local renown, and one of the Anglican clergy will almost invariably be an antiquary of real merit. The mayor and corporation belong, as a rule, to the larger set, but the lawyers and doctors hold a neutral position and are welcomed everywhere, partly for the sake of gossip, partly for their own individual merits. Warwick has the additional advantage over many kindred places of the near neighborhood of Leamington, a fashionable watering-place two miles and a half distant, one of the mushrooms of this century, but in a practical point of view one of the brightest and most attractive places in England. At present it far surpasses Warwick in business and bustle, and possesses all the adjuncts of a health-resort, frequented all the year round, and inhabited by hundreds of resident invalids for the sake of the excellent medical staff collected there. One of its famous physicians was often sent for, instead of a London doctor, to the great houses within a radius of forty or fifty miles. The assembly-rooms, hotels, baths, gardens, bridges and shops of Leamington vie with those of the continental spas, and the display of dress and the etiquette of society are in wonderful contrast to the state of the quiet village fifty years ago. But it is pleasant to know that the new town has already an endowed hospital, founded by Dr. Warneford and called by his name, where the poor have gratuitous baths and the best medical advice. Not content with being a centre in its own way, Leamington has improved its prospects by setting up as a rival to Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, known as the "hunting metropolis." Three packs of hounds are hunted regularly during the season within easy distance of the town, which has also annual steeplechases and a hunting club; and this sporting element serves to redeem Leamington from the character of masked melancholy which often strikes a tourist in visiting a regular health-resort.
In natural beauty Warwickshire is surpassed by other counties, but few can boast of architectural features equally striking—such magnificent historical memorials as Kenilworth and Warwick castles, and the humbler beauties to be found in the houses of Stratford-on-Avon, Polesworth and Meriden. The last is remarkable—as are, indeed, all the villages of Warwickshire—for its picturesque beauty, and above all for the position of its churchyard, whence lovely views are obtained of the country around. Of Polesworth, Dugdale remarks, that, "for Antiquitie and venerable esteem it needs not to give Precedence to any in the Countie." "There is a charming impression of age and quiet dignity in its remains of old walls, its remains of old trees, its church and its open common," says Dean Howson. Close to the village, on a hill commanding a view of it, stands Pooley Hall, whose owner in old days obtained a license from Pope Urban VI. to build a chapel on his own land, "by Reason of the Floods at some time, especially in Winter, which hindered his Accesse to the Mother-Church." In the garden of this hall, a modest country-house, a type of the ordinary run of English homes, stands a chapel—not the original one, but built on its site—and from it one has a view of the level ground, the village and the river, evidently still liable to floods. The part of the county that joins Gloucestershire is rich in apple-orchards, which I remember one year in the blossoming-time, while the early grass, already green and wavy, fringed the foot of the trees, and by the road as we passed we looked through hedges and over low walls into gardens full of crocuses, snowdrops, narcissuses, early pansies and daffodils, for spring gardens have become rather a mania in England within ten or twelve years. Here and there older fragments of wall lined the road, and over one of these, from a height of eight feet or so, dropped a curtain of glossy, pointed leaves, making a background for the star-shaped yellow blossoms, nearly as large as passion-flowers, of the St. John's-wort, with their forest of stamens standing out like golden threads from the heart of the blossom. At the rectory of the village in question was a very clever man, an unusual specimen of a clergyman, a thorough man of the world and a born actor. His father and
One of Warwickshire's oldest towns and best-preserved specimens of mediæval architecture is Coventry, famous for its legend of Lady Godiva, still commemorated by an annual procession during the great Show Fair, held the first Friday after Trinity Sunday and continued for eight days. From Warwick to Coventry is a drive of ten miles, past many villages whose windows and chimneys form as many temptations to stop and linger, but Coventry itself is so rich in these peculiarities that a walk through its streets is a reward for one's hurry on the road. One would suppose, according to the saying of a ready-witted lady, that the town must be by this time full of a large and interesting society, since so many people have been at various times "sent to Coventry." The origin of the saying, as an equivalent for being tabooed (itself a term of savage origin and later date), is reported to be the deserved unpopularity of the military there about a century ago, when no respectable woman dared to be seen in the streets with a soldier. This led to the place being considered by regiments as an undesirable post, since they were shunned by the decent part of the town's-people, and to be "sent to Coventry" became, in consequence, a synonym for being "cut." There are, however, other interpretations of the saying, and, though this sounds plausible, it may be incorrect. The heart of the town, once the strong-hold of the "Red Rose," is still very ancient, picturesque and sombre-looking, though the suburbs have been widened, "improved" and modernized to suit present requirements. The Coventry of our day depends for its prosperity on its silk and ribbon trade, necessitating all the appliances of looms, furnaces and dye-houses, which give employment to a population reaching nearly forty thousand. The continuance of prosperous trade in most of the ancient English boroughs is a very interesting feature in their history; and though no doubt the picturesqueness of towns is increased or preserved by their falling into the Pompeii stage and dwindling into loneliness or decay, one cannot wish such to be their fate. Few English towns that have been of any importance centuries ago have gone back, though some have stood still; and if they have lost their social prestige, the spirit of the times has gradually made the loss of less consequence in proportion as the importance of trade and manufactures has increased. The ribbon trade is indeed a new one, hardly two centuries old, but Coventry was the centre of the old national woollen industry long before. Twenty years ago, the silk trade having languished, the queen revived the fashion of broad ribbons, and Coventry wares became for a while the rage, just as Honiton lace and Norwich silk shawls did at other times, chiefly through the same example of court patronage of native industries. St. Michael's, Trinity and Christ churches furnish the three noted spires, the first one of the highest and most beautiful in England, and the third the remains of a Gray Friars' convent, to which a new church has been attached. Of the ancient cathedral (Lichfield and Coventry conjointly formed one see) only a few ruins remain, and the same is the case with the old walls with their thirty-two towers and twelve gates. The old hospitals and schools have fared better—witness Bond's Hospital at Bablake (once an adjacent hamlet, but now within the city limits), commonly called Bablake Hospital, founded by the mayor of Coventry in the latter part of Henry VII.'s reign for the use of forty-five old men, with a revenue of ten hundred and fifty pounds; Ford's Hospital for thirty-five old women, a building so beautiful in its details that John Carter the archæologist declared that it "ought to be kept in a case;" Hales' free school, where Dugdale, the famous antiquary and the possessor of Merivale Hall, near Warwick, received the early part of his education; and St. Mary's Hall, built by Henry VI. for the Trinity guild on the site of an old hall now used as a public hall and for town-council meetings. The buildings surround a courtyard, and are entered by an arched gateway from the street; and, says Rimmer, it is hardly possible in all the city architecture of England to find a more interesting and fine apartment than the great hall. The private buildings in the old part of the town are as noticeable in their way as the public buildings; and as many owe their origin to the tradesmen of Coventry, formerly a body well known for its wealth and importance, they form good indications of the taste of the ancient "city fathers." In 1448 this body equipped six hundred men, fully armed, for the royal service, and in 1459 they were proud to receive the Parliamentum Diabolicum which Henry VI. called together within shelter of their walls, and turned to the use of a public prosecution against the beaten party of the White Rose: hence its name. One of the private houses, at the corner of Hertford street, bears on its upper part an effigy of the tailor, Peeping Tom, who, tradition says, was struck dead for impertinently gazing at Countess Godiva on her memorable ride through the town.
The great variety in the designs of windows and chimneys, and the disregard of regularity or conventionality in their placing, are characteristics which distinguish old English domestic architecture, as also the lavish use of wood-carving on the outside as well as the inside of dwellings. No Swiss chalet can match the vagaries in wood
But Coventry, as I have said before, is a growing as well as an ancient city; and when places grow they must rival their neighbors in pleasure as well as in business, which accounts for the yearly races, now established nearly forty years, and each year growing more popular and successful. No doubt the share of gentlemen's houses which falls to the lot of every county-town in England has something to do with the brilliancy of these local gatherings: every one in the neighborhood makes it a point to patronize the local gayeties, to belong to the local military, to enter horses, to give prizes, to attend balls; and if politics are never quite forgotten, especially since the suffrage has been extended and the number of voters to be conciliated so suddenly increased, this only adds to the outer bustle and success of these social "field-days." Coventry has a pretty flourishing watchmaking trade, besides its staple one of ribbon-weaving; and indeed the whole county, villages included, is given up to manufacture: the places round Warwick and Coventry to a great extent share in the silk trade, while Alcester has a needle manufacture of its own, Atherstone a hat manufacture, and Amworth, which is partly in Staffordshire, was famous until lately for calico-printing and making superfine narrow woollen cloths: it also has flax-mills. The kings of Mercia used to keep state here, and the Roman road, Watling Street, passed through it, with which contrast now the iron roads that pass every place of the least importance, and in this neighborhood lead to the busy centre of the hardware trade, smoky, wide-awake, turbulent, educated, hard-headed Birmingham. This, too, is within the "King-maker's" county, and how oddly it has inherited or picked up his power will be noted by those familiar with the political and parliamentary history of England within the last forty years; but, though now an ultra-Radical constituency, it is no historical upstart, but can trace its name in Domesday Book, where it appears as Bermengeham, and can find its record as an English Damascus in the fifteenth century, before which it had been already famous for leather-tanning. The death, a year ago, of one of the most gifted though retiring men of the English nobility, the late Lord Lyttleton, makes it worth mentioning that his house, Hagley, stands twelve miles from Birmingham, and that both his house and his forefathers were well known as the home and patrons of literary men: Thomson, Pope and other poets have described and apostrophized Hagley. The late owner was a good antiquary and writer, but in society he was painfully shy.
The southern part of Warwickshire, adjoining Gloucestershire, or rather a wedge of that shire advancing into Worcestershire, is the most rich, agriculturally speaking, and besides its apple-orchards is famous for its dairy and grazing systems, while the northern part, once a forest, is still full of heaths, moors and woods. There is not much to say about its farms, unless technically, nor the appearance of the farm-buildings, the modern ones being generally of brick and more substantial than beautiful. Country-seats have a likeness to each other, and a way of surrounding themselves with the same kind of garden scenery, so that unless where the whole face of Nature has some strongly-marked features, such as mountains or moors, the houses of the local gentry do not impart a special individuality to a neighborhood; but in a mild and blooming way one may say that Warwickshire has a fair share of pretty country-houses and attractive parsonages. Still, the beauty of the southern and midland counties is altogether a beauty of detail and cultivation, of historical association and architectural contrast; not that which in the north and east depends much upon the beholder's sympathy with Nature unadorned—wild stretches of seashore and pathless moors, mountain-defiles and wooded tarns. Wales and Cornwall, again, have the stamp of a race whose surroundings have taught them shrewdness and perseverance, and their scenery is such that in many places, though the eye misses trees, it hardly regrets them. In the midland counties, on the other hand, take the trees away and the landscape would be scarcely beautiful at all, though the land might be equally rich, undulating and productive. Half the special beauty of England depends on her greenery, her hedges, her trees and her gardens, in which the houses and cottages take the place of birds' nests.
LITTLE BOY BLUE.
Underneath the hay,
Oh would that I could whisper in your dreams,
"The sheep astray!"
Pretty herdsman, pray,
With horn and crook lead gently to the fold
Thy sheep astray?
Mistland gold and gray,
While o'er the hilltops shimmering spirits lead
Our sheep astray!
Paul Pastnor.
THE PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1878.
II.—GENERAL EXHIBITS.
The exposition under one roof of products of every kind, natural and cultivated, mechanical and artistic, has a certain impressiveness from the wonderful extent and variety of the assemblage, but the effect is confusing and oppressive. The Philadelphia plan of grouping the exhibits in separate buildings was both more pleasant to the eye and more useful to the student. There is no place in Paris, however, affording room for isolated buildings of sufficient aggregate area, and the Bois de Boulogne, though immediately outside the fortified enceinte, in much the same position, relatively, that Fairmount Park holds to Philadelphia, was probably held to be too remote.
The Exposition building is too low to afford grand general views except in the end-galleries, one of which, that toward the Seine, is occupied by England and France, and the other, that toward the École Militaire, by Holland and France. The four especially admirable situations for display are under the domes at the four corners of the building, and these are respectively occupied by the English colonies, the Dutch colonies, a statue of Charlemagne and a trophy of French metallic work—notably, large tubes for telescopes. The French, as most readers are aware, occupy one half of the building, and foreigners the other, the two being divided, except at the end-galleries, by a central court in which are the fine-art pavilions.
Transverse divisions separate the foreigners' sections from each other, while longitudinal divisions extending throughout the length of the building divide the various classes of exhibits subjectively. A person may thus cross the building and view the exhibits of a country in the different classes, or he may go lengthwise of the building and see what the various nations have to show in a given class. No better plan could be devised if they are all to be assembled under one roof. The same plan has been tried before, especially in the great elliptical building at Vienna. It is probable that the Philadelphia plan of isolated buildings may find imitators in the future, and then this plan of national and subjective arrangement may be carried out without the violent contrasts incident to sandwiching the machine galleries between the alimentary and chemical sections.
All the exhibits are classed under nine general groups, which are—1. Fine arts; 2. Liberal arts and education; 3. Furniture and accessories; 4. Textile fabrics and clothing; 5. Mining industries and raw products; 6. Machinery; 7. Alimentary products; 8. Agriculture; 9. Horticulture. The first of these occupies the pavilions in the central court. The second and following ones to the seventh occupy the galleries as one passes from the central court to the exterior of the building; agricultural implements and products are shown in spacious sheds outside the main building and within the enclosing fence; animals are shown in a separate enclosure on the esplanade of the Invalides. Horticulture finds a place in all the intervals wherever there is a square yard of ground not necessary for paths, and also on the two esplanades which divide the Palais du Champ de Mars and the Palais Trocadéro from the river which flows between. The subjective character of the longitudinal disposition cannot be rigorously maintained, since nations that excel in one or another line of work or culture are utterly deficient in others. China and Japan, for instance, fill their galleries to overflowing with papeterie, furniture and knickknacks, while their space in the machinery hall is principally devoted to ceramics, a few rude implements and costumed figures.
The English pavilion in the Galérie d'Iéna consists of four wooden structures representing Oriental mosques and kiosques, painted red and surmounted by numerous gilded domes of the bulbous shape so characteristic of the Indian architecture. In the order of position, as approached from the main central doorway, the first and third are Indian, the second Ceylonese, and the fourth is devoted to the productions of Jamaica, Guiana, Trinidad, Trinity Island, Lagos, Seychelles, Mauritius, the Strait Settlements and Singapore. Their contents, without attempting an enumeration, are rather of the useful than the ornamental, with the exception of the furniture, carpets, dresses and tissues. The Lagos collection has a number of native drums, with snake-skin heads on bodies carved from the solid wood, and it has also a very curious lyre of eight strings strained by as many elastic wooden rods fastened to a box which forms the sounding-chamber. It is individually more curious than any shown at the Centennial from the Gold Coast, but the collection from Africa as a whole is not nearly so full nor so fine. Mauritius has agave fibre, sugar, shells, coral and vanilla. The Seychelles have large tortoise-shells and the famous cocoa de mer, the three-lobed cocoanut peculiar to the island, and found on the coast of India thrown up by the sea. It received its name from that circumstance long before its home was discovered, from whence it had been carried by the south-east monsoons. Trinity Island sends sugar, cacao and rum; Trinidad presents sugar, asphaltum, cocoawood and leather; Guiana has native pottery and baskets, arrow-root, sugar and coffee.
The pavilion next to the one described has the collection sent by the maharajah of Kashmir, consisting largely of carpets, shawls and dresses, which look very warm in the summer weather. It shows, besides, some of the gemmed and enamelled work and parcel-gilt ware for which that territory, hidden away among the Himalayas, is so celebrated.
Next, as we travel along the Galérie d'Iéna, is the Ceylonese building, of the same ruddy brown, with gilded domes, and gay with dresses, tissues and robes of fine woven stuff made in their primitive looms, which would seem to be incapable of turning out such textures. The addition of blocks of graphite, some curiously carved into the shape of elephants, and the more prosaic agricultural productions, such as cotton, cinnamon, matting and baskets, tone down the color and exhibit the fact that the English possession has the mercantile side. Antlers of the Ceylon deer, tusks of elephants and boars, contrast with the richness and the
Another Indian kiosque, and we are at the end of the row. This is filled by the Indian committee, which also exposes its collection in twenty-nine glass cases arranged about the hall in the vicinity of the pavilions.