Highways and Byways in London Part 21

But, while the old n.o.bleman's sentiment appears to have been mainly negative (as shown, for instance, by his decision that the collection should not enrich the Louvre), it was really Sir Richard Wallace, his successor, faithful friend, and co-collector (some say, also near kinsman), who should have the largest share of the nation's grat.i.tude.

Sir Richard Wallace, Lord Hertford's sole heir, deciding, after the imminent dangers of the Commune, that it was rash to leave the inheritance thus at the mercy of vandalism, removed it, in 1872, to London, where, for three years, it filled the Bethnal Green Museum; being removed to Hertford House, the London residence of the family (by then arranged to receive it), in 1875. Sir Richard, whose only son had meanwhile died, left in his turn the whole of the property to his wife, a French lady, whose loyalty to her husband's country should cause her name, for all time, to be writ large on the roll of honour.

Here, in Hertford House, a few years after Sir Richard's death, Lady Wallace died; and, in accordance with her husband's secret wish, bequeathed the whole of the immense property to the British nation.

And now, for future ages, Hertford House, with all its myriad treasures, a collection perfect as it stands, fresh from the arrangement and taste of the collector, will be the glorious heritage of the nation.

One of the greatest charms of Hertford House is that it suggests none of the red-tapeism, or of the dull uniformity of a museum, and, consequently, does not affect visitors, as so many museums do, with a primary sense of fatigue and boredom. The rooms of the palatial mansion are still arranged mainly as they were in the owner's time; the long suites of reception saloons, through which the reflected sunlight glitters,--vistas of French tapestries, pictures, lapis-lazuli, enamels, and Sevres china,--convey all the suggestion, even in prosaic London, of a fairy palace. Even a Countess d'Aulnoy, with her wealth of imagery, could hardly have imagined a finer setting for her Gracieuse and Percinet, or any of their dainty royal line.

There is an _intime_ air, almost as of home, even about the long picture gallery where the Gainsboroughs and Sir Joshuas smile sedately upon us. The sweet presentments of fair dead ladies, seen here in their proper setting; the Pompeian central courtyard and plas.h.i.+ng fountain, whence, it is said, the aged Lady Wallace was daily to be seen, leaning from the balcony that projects from the upper rooms, to feed her crowd of birds, eager pensioners, with their breakfast of crumbs; these combine to give an atmosphere of human charm, a thing quite apart from the usual cold aloofness of museums. It is again the idea of the Soane Museum, but on a very magnificent scale. Beautiful in its publicity, how mysteriously lovely must it not have been in the days of its seclusion! One can almost share the feelings of that old retainer who said, on the last sad day before the opening; "Ah, Sir!

the Wallace Collection, _as it was_, you and I will never see again--for the _common people_ are going to be let in!"

Londoners, in this instance, at any rate, fully appreciate the magnificence of the gift made them. Hertford House is, on fine days, usually thronged; all cla.s.ses are represented there; but there is noticeably more of the "smart world" to be seen there, than is usually to be found in London galleries. The "smart world," as distinguished from the scholarly; but the scholarly world is to be met there too, and will still visit Hertford House, after the "Good Society" has forsaken it, and betaken itself to some newer haunt of fas.h.i.+on. In each of London's picture galleries and museums, its special _clientele_ may very easily be detected; and, at any rate, that of Hertford House is certainly, so far, the best-dressed. Among the crowd are often to be seen groups of young girls, demurely following in the wake of some feminine leader, who discourses to them about the pictures, and the various schools of painting,--a thing, this, that surely requires some courage in a mixed community. It is not to be denied that the visitor is often sadly in need of some guide: "Are all these pictures hand-painted?" I have myself heard a well-dressed and (presumably) well-educated young girl say, at the National Gallery.

Perhaps it is a felt want, for one never knows what extra "following"

one may not, unconsciously, attract: I myself once saw an unhappy lady lecturer, carried away by the enthusiasm of the subject, turn round and give an eloquent peroration and summary of it to a policeman, a deaf old lady, and a nursemaid carrying a vacant looking baby:

"Now," said the lady cheerfully, "just to show what you have learned, tell me, in your own words, what you consider to have been the influence of Giotto on Early Italian Art?"

No one answered; but the vacant baby, apparently thinking it a challenge, wailed.

And, in Hertford House, the custom lends itself to additional dangers; for peripatetic cla.s.ses are many, and in the nooks and unexpected corners of the mansion, it is fatally easy to lose your special crowd of students altogether, and to attach yourself, again unconsciously, to some one else's flock; who, by the chilly indifference with which they receive your well-intentioned homilies, soon make you unpleasantly aware of your mistake. Like "Little Bo-Peep," you then vainly pursue your wandering sheep, from one gallery into another, feeling, perhaps, that the pursuit of pupils, as of Art, has its drawbacks; and that tea, in the shape of the nearest "Aerated," is all too distant.

The "sheep" in question are, however, discovered at last, placidly gloating over the wonderful collection of jewelled snuff-boxes--was there ever such a marvellous display of miniatures and of brilliants?

Truly, the eighteenth century was a luxurious age!... Surely, no one can ever have dared to sit comfortably on those priceless chairs, or to have taken tea out of a Sevres cup, at one of those marvellously inlaid, jewel-encrusted tables?

The pictures, however, are the chief delight of Hertford House. It is easy to admire porcelain, armour, bric-a-brac; but to really enjoy it in the best sense, one must be more or less learned in the cult; while pictures, though their full appreciation implies a certain amount of education, are better understanded of the mult.i.tude. But, though the British and foreign schools are well represented, it is the unrivalled collection of French pictures of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, works by Watteau, Lancret, Fragonard, Greuze, and all the noted painters of the French school, that the great world, primarily, flock to see at Hertford House. Twenty-one pictures by Greuze alone will delight the lovers of that painter's work, and bring their minds back to the eternally-charming affectations of that eighteenth century in which so many of our modern poets yearn to have lived. One can imagine, for instance, Mr. Austin Dobson echoing Campbell's lovely lines to the pretty, typical girl-face that Greuze loved so well:

"Transported to thy time I seem, Though dust thy coffin covers-- And hear the songs, in fancy's dream, Of thy devoted lovers."...

Here, nave as always, yet never quite without a certain faint meretriciousness of effect, the "girl-child" of Greuze looks down on the visitor in every costume and att.i.tude.

In the long picture-gallery that forms one side of the great quadrangle, there are large canvases by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Romney, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Hals, Murillo, and many others. Here is a charming picture of "Miss Bowles" by Reynolds,--the little girl with round eyes, cuddling a dog, so long familiar to us by engraving or print; and here, too, is Frans Hals's _Laughing Cavalier_, whose infectious laugh lingers so long in the memory.

Sir Richard Wallace offered his collection, with his house, to the nation before his death; the Government, however, after the usual manner of Governments in such matters, raised objections; and the affair subsided, till the surprise of the widow's legacy came, and showed the long and serious intention of the gift. One little picture, _The Peace of Munster_, by Terburg, a small historical panel of untold and unique value, was, indeed, given by Sir Richard to the National Gallery before his death; yet even this gift had a narrow escape of being rejected; for the would-be donor, unrecognized, and wearing shabby clothes, was ill received by Sir William Boxall, the then Director, and was all but sent away with contumely, with his picture, till he made it and himself known:

"My name is Wallace," said the stranger quietly, "Sir Richard Wallace; and I came to offer this picture to the National Gallery." "I nearly fainted," said Boxall when he told the story.... "I had nearly refused _The Peace of Munster_, one of the wonders of the world!"

Nevertheless, the little scene is in its way truly typical of the nation's treatment of its would-be benefactors!

The story of the foundation of the British Museum, the cla.s.sic edifice in Bloomsbury that has arisen on the site of the old historic Montague House, is not unlike that of Hertford House. For, the first beginnings of the enormous museum collections originated very much in the same manner as the Hertford Bequest. Sir Hans Sloane, the Sir Richard Wallace of his day, Chelsea magnate, physician, naturalist, and philanthropist, determined his large library collections to the nation, offering them by his will, at a fourth of their estimated value; desiring, like Sir Richard, that, if possible, the collections should remain in his house,--Henry VIII.'s historic Chelsea manor-house. This wish, however, was not in his case carried out; the ancient building was demolished, and, in its stead, the British Museum was founded.

At the British Museum the lady-lecturer, with her tribe of earnest students, is occasionally also to be met with. Here she is often youthful and attractive, and is generally to be found,--strange contrast of a.s.sociations!--either in the Mausoleum Room, or among the Elgin Marbles: her little band of eager pupils scribbling in their note-books at a respectful distance. Last March I saw a charming, Hypatia-like lady, tall and fair, gray-eyed and gray-robed, holding thus her little court, by the lovely figure of Demeter; I would fain have joined myself to the small gathering, and posed as a pupil, but that my courage failed.... I felt, however, glad to think that, in this case, the study of Art had not, as some declare, tended to make the young lady regardless either of her appearance or of neatly-fitting tailor-made clothes. But she went on with her following to the Nereid's Tomb, and I saw her no more.

In the long galleries of the British Museum is generally to be found a motley gathering of visitors, in which the poor, and the children of the poor, largely predominate. Rows of chattering little girls in pinafores, corresponding batches of little boys in knickerbockers, greet one at every turn. And the more ragged the children, the more astonis.h.i.+ngly erudite and profound are sometimes their utterances.

This is a surprising testimony to the efficacy of the Board Schools, as well as to the advance of learning generally. The visitor who "lies low" and listens, in any of the Greek Marble Rooms, will often find cause to marvel at youthful and ragged intelligence. Girls are more flippant, perhaps, than boys: "'Ere's the Wenus," one will say: "you can always tell 'er, 'cos she seems to be lookin' around and sayin': 'Ain't I pretty'?" Yet, though to hear unkempt and neglected waifs talking wisely about Greek marbles does, I must confess, puzzle me, I must, in fairness, own that there appears to be another side to the question, and that the officials on guard appear to entertain no very high views as to juvenile erudition. "So far as I've noticed," a kindly British Museum policeman once said to me, "the street children don't get much real good out of going to the Museum. They bring a lot of dirt out of the streets in with them, their fingers are generally sticky, and they look about 'em--oh, yes! but not usually with any object, just vacantly."

This was depressing. (Did the accompanying dirt, I wondered, at all affect this particular policeman's outlook?) "But I saw a small crowd of boys and girls looking hard at the King Alfred doc.u.ments and missals," I murmured.

"Oh, and so you might have done; but didn't you notice," said the stern guardian of the law, "that a lot of ladies and gentlemen had been lookin' at 'em just before? They wouldn't have troubled about 'em without that.... And King Alfred's all the thing now.... Children always come, like bees, where other people are lookin'; and try and squeeze the older folks out just to see what they've been a-lookin'

at.... Yes," he owned, in reply to my incredulous interjection, "the children might have _heard_ the name of Alfred in their history books, but no more; _that_ wouldn't be the cause of their crowding up. Their mothers often send 'em into the Museum when they want to go out themselves, or perhaps just to get rid of 'em for a time. Children are more indulged, and not half so well-behaved, as I was when I was a boy."

But the chatter of the children is stilled, or, at any rate, lost among the vast marbles of the collection, where so many sounds mix and mingle in a soothing aloofness. Here, in the long galleries, where the faint light, "that kind of light," as Rossetti said, "that London takes the day to be," slants down on Roman bust and Greek G.o.d, may sometimes be heard charitable ladies explaining to dirty little street-arabs the influence of Phidias on Early Italian sculpture; or one of the elegant Hypatia-like girl-lecturers already described, discourses, while a motley crowd of pupils:

--"school-foundations in the act Of holiday, three files compact--"

--draw near to listen.... And who can tell where the grain may fall?

Sunday is now the great "People's Day" at the British Museum. Those who cavil at "Sunday opening" should really visit the Museum then, when, from two till four, the galleries are dotted with intelligent sightseers. (For the Museum, be it noted, is not so often used as a mere shelter from rain, "jes' to pa.s.s the toime away," or as the "refreshment-room" already referred to, as it used to be.) Perhaps the greatest crowd is to be found upstairs, where the mummy-room is greatly beloved, both of small boys and of honey-mooning couples.

Young couples, I notice, either in the "courting" or newly-married stage, have ever a strong affinity for mummies;--and as to boys!...

While you are, perchance, reflecting over the decaying embroideries of a mummy-case, and wondering what was the life and fate of its once-lovely occupant, after the manner of Sir Edwin Arnold:

"Tiny slippers of gold and green!

Tied with a mouldering golden cord!

What pretty feet you must have been When Caesar Augustus was Egypt's lord'--

"'Ere, look 'ere, Jimmy," one of those demon boys will break in, interrupting your reverie: "you can see the corpse's 'ole fice! My!

ain't 'e jes' black! Blimy if 'e aint 'ad 'is nose bruk in a fight, as 'e ain't got but the 'alf of it left," &c., &c.

"See wot this lydy's got wrote on 'er, 'Arry," the blooming betrothed of a speechless young man will strike in, unconsciously carrying on the chorus: "Three thieusand years old! My! 'ow-ever could they a kep'

'er all that time! She's a bit orf colour, certingly--but sich _good_ clothes to bury 'er in--I call it nothin' but sinful waste," &c., &c.

Yet I can tell a more touching story, in another sort, of the Mummy Room. Once I happened to watch a small boy--a very decidedly "earthly"

small boy, too; one would not have expected it of him--on whom the mummies seemed to exercise a quite indescribable fascination. He even stopped half-way through his stale Museum bun, and gazed at them with a species of horror. Then, after a five-minutes' silence, he breathed hard, and said to his companion, in an awe-struck whisper:

"They don't know we're looking at them!"

The "Jewel Room" is another favourite haunt. Here only some twenty people are allowed in at one time, and the policemen are doubly reinforced; and indeed, since the accident to the Portland Vase, it is certainly a necessary precaution. This beautiful vase, lent in 1810 by the Duke of Portland, was smashed by a semi-lunatic in 1845. This man, suddenly and without motive, deliberately aimed a brick at it, and crashed it into fragments, from which it has been cleverly restored as we see it at present.

People who find the British Museum exhausting--and they are many--take too much of it at one time. It is therefore small wonder that they often suffer from a kind of mental indigestion--"Museum headache" it has been appropriately termed. A pretty young girl complained to me of just such a headache the other day: "I wanted," she said, "to go to "Niagara," but _T--_ insisted on taking me to that dreadful Museum instead, and I had to walk past rows and rows of awful headless things for two hours!" Poor thing! But many people share her feelings without possessing her frankness. And to walk through the long, gloomy galleries of the Museum without due object, preparation, or intention, is, no doubt, exhausting. It is true that we are there "heirs of all the ages," but it is equally true that n.o.body can satisfactorily inherit all the ages at one and the same time. If we content ourselves with but one department for the day, it is wonderful how interested we may become. Mr. Grant Allen--who, by the way, was generally unkind about London, must have experienced the boredom that comes with a mental surfeit.

"The British Museum" (he says) "is indeed a place to despair in--or else to saunter through carelessly with a glance right and left at what happens to catch your eye or take your fancy. I must add" (he continues unpleasantly), "that a certain blight of inexplicable shabbiness hangs somehow over the vast collection; whether it is the gloom of Bloomsbury, the want of s.p.a.ce in the galleries, the haphazard mode of acquisition, or what, I know not; but certainly, for some mysterious reason, the objects here exhibited are far less interesting, relatively to their intrinsic scientific and artistic worth, than those of the Louvre, the Vatican, the Munich galleries, or any other great European museum.

Dinginess and stinginess are everywhere conspicuous."

Mr. Grant Allen was, evidently, a West Ender. And as he elsewhere calls St. Paul's "bare, pretentious, and unimpressive," and London generally "a squalid village," we need the less mind his calling the British Museum "a gloomy and depressed looking building." He had evidently never seen the pillared portico s.h.i.+ning in the May sun, its flocks of pretty pigeons feeding on the green plots that line the enclosure, and the lately-planted young plane-trees bursting into vivid green,--a new "boulevard" along its outer line of railings.

Mr. Allen was, of course, thinking of the more romantic surroundings of foreign galleries, housed in ancient palaces, with all the adornments of parquet, mosaic, and often tropical gardens. There is, however, a faint glimmer of truth in what he says. We in London have not the consummate art of the foreigner in the arrangement and setting-off of beautiful objects. In the Louvre, for instance, all the galleries lead to a final star, s.h.i.+ning through the long vista of s.p.a.ce,--the Venus of Milo; in the Vatican, all the n.o.ble _chefs-d'oeuvre_ glimmer in alcoves round a central fountain. Here, in our Museum, _per contra_, you seem rather to be in a Gallery of Instruction. It is not only in shops that we in England have to learn how to "dress our windows." But at any rate, no one will deny that we have of late made enormous advances in the art.

Nevertheless, the beauty and grandeur of the British Museum collections, beauty on which I have already touched in the Bloomsbury chapter, impress us in spite of fog, and grime, and dull London galleries. And the feeling for the suitable arrangement and disposal of our artistic treasures grows upon our directors year by year. Thus, the gigantic figure of Mausolus, as he stands driving his triumphal car, a wonder of the world, is effectively placed; and though it is but seldom light enough to view the a.s.syrian Bull-G.o.ds thoroughly in their dark corner, they form, doubtless, an imposing entrance to the old Greek marbles. The Egyptian Hall is also impressive, and the enormous scarab, called irreverently by an American visitor, "about the biggest bug in Europe," is advantageously placed, as also that Grammar of Hieroglyphic, the "Rosetta Stone."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _At the Royal Academy._]

The collection of Tanagra figurines, on the upper floor, near the Jewel Room, is one of the most interesting departments in the Museum.

Here, in a small compa.s.s, you may follow the whole development of the plastic art, from the rudest clay effigies and caricatures, to the most lovely realisation of the Greek feeling for beauty. Some of the ladies, with their palm-leaf fans and "Liberty" draperies, seem hardly to come to us from the tomb; have we not met and loved them in our own day? Their dresses, their att.i.tudes, are so modern, even their hair is arranged in the present styles. Especially charming are two damsels in tea-gowns, leaning earnestly towards one another, enjoying some choice bit of gossip. And there are two figures in this particular gallery, in which I claim to take a quite special interest; having seen them, so to speak, in their transition stage. It happened thus: When I was in Athens some few years back, a waiter, taking us no doubt for "rich English milors," said, in a stage whisper, that he had some fine things to dispose of. He kept them, he said, for safety in the cellar.

So to the cellar he went, and produced, from many wrappings of cotton-wool, the treasures:--that very winged Eros and that same pirouetting ballet-dancer that now adorn one of the central wall-cases. Alas, in our case, that waiter was doomed to disappointment. He wanted no less than 40 for the Eros and 30 for the ballet dancer; and they were returned to their cotton-wool and to the cellar. But, a twelvemonth pa.s.sed, and behold! one fine day we recognised with joy our old friends in the familiar surroundings of the British Museum!

Many of the British Museum treasures have, like that winged Eros, endured strange vicissitudes of fortune. The great "Elgin"

marbles,--those sculptures from the Parthenon so long furiously raged over in print on the much-vexed charge of vandalism in appropriation, and still more furiously threatened by the rage of the sea on their transit from the Acropolis,--were, indeed, s.h.i.+pwrecked on their way here. Then there are the contents of the "Mausoleum" Room, the whole story of the discovery of which, by Sir Charles Newton at Halicarna.s.sus, in 1856 is like one long romance. Other objects recall various stories. The familiar bust called "Clytie," for instance, so admired by Carlyle, and so familiar in drawing schools, was the most cherished possession of Mr. Townley, who "escaped with it in his arms when he was expecting his house to be sacked during the Gordon riots."

"Fortunately," says the chronicler, "the attack did not take place, and Mr. Townley's wife, as he called her, returned to her companions."

The corridors of the British Museum, that suggest such boredom to the uninitiated, are full of such stories. So much we know, but, ah! if these stones could only tell their histories, and let the full light into their chequered past!

The South Kensington Museum, now officially, by order of the late Queen, termed "the Victoria and Albert Museum," is well known to all dwellers in, and visitors to, London. The large and wonderful collections that it contains have been for many years so overcrowded and so irregularly arranged, as to lose half their attraction. For long it existed partly in shanties and temporary buildings, and a hideous iron structure, nicknamed the "Brompton Boilers," was for long the disgrace of a rich and a beauty-loving nation. All these have at length been swept away; the terribly inadequate main entrance (in the Brompton Road) is being done away with, and a new facade is rising, which will soon effect great changes and improvements. Mr. Ruskin, who was always a victim of moods, was apparently in his day made very cross by the general muddle, and expressed his feelings on the subject in the following burst of pathetic eloquence: