FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

SERIES III.

VOL. IV.	B E T H A N Y, NOVEMBER, 1847.	NO. XI.

      My dear Clarinda--I am far behind my travels in this interesting island. I have been almost to latitude 58 N. in Scotland, and am now in the county of Lanark, in the midst of its almost half million of inhabitants, and have seated myself hard by Lord Nelson's monument on the banks of the Clyde, where I spent many a pleasant hour, almost forty years ago, to note down some things of London and England; yet far in the distance of my [618] undecyphered symbols. Were it not that London has in it so many of the wonders of art, and so many of the wonders of the world, I would now tell you some things of my present localities and of my very singularly unexpected reception in Edinburg and Glasgow--the Athens and the Corinth of Scotland, if not of Great Britain; but I must leave these for other letters, and endeavor to get out of the environs of London, Cambridge, and Oxford, with all their interesting associations.

      Having been to Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London, I cannot pass by St. Paul's and the Colosseum without a respectful notice. These are two of the most magnificent triumphs of art in the esteem of the millions that have seen them. You have surveyed their rich and numerous treasures, their grandeur and magnificence, and need not to be informed of their well earned claims upon the admiration of all the amateurs of the fine arts of sculpture, statuary, painting, and architecture.

      The old St. Paul's, so injured by the fire of London in 1666, was very fortunately removed to make way for the display of the unequalled genius of Sir Christopher Wren, who may be regarded as both the builder of the present London and of the present St. Paul's. Having lived to complete his ninetieth year, he was able to spend five and thirty years in the erection of the present St. Paul's, and to expend upon it one million and a half sterling, or the handsome little sum of more that seven millions of dollars. Of course it is no mean, no humble synagogue, in which to bow the knee of prelatic grandeur or aristocratic pride. Its length from east to west, within the walls, is but 500 feet; from north to south, 286. The circuit of the building is 2292 feet; the diameter of the ball, 6 feet; height of the cross, 30 feet; total height from the ground, 404 feet. To the Whispering Gallery you have to ascend 260 steps; and to the ball, but 616. Of course, being somewhat enfeebled after delivering fifteen lectures in the city, I did not think it quite expedient to place my foot upon the 616th step. The weight of the ball at its apex is 5600 lbs; and of the cross, 3360. No easy task, no light burthen, to carry the cross of St. Paul's Church! The whole building covers only two acres and sixteen perches of English ground. I cannot condescend to detail its immense balustrade of cast iron--its seven beautiful gates, weighing some two hundred tons--its grand entrances--its superbly rich portico, consisting of 12 lofty Corinthian pillars below, and 8 Composite columns above, supporting a triangular pediment, the entablature 64 feet long and 17 high, representing the conversion of Paul, sculptured in low relief; on whose apex stand colossal figures of Paul, Peter, and James, who have grown, since their death, eleven feet high in the esteem of those who worship here.

      But alas for England and the world! this splendid edifice is but a proof of the folly and emptiness of modern and fashionable religion. The interior of this great pile is but a receptacle for the dead--for the dust of military heroes--and is really a house sacred to Mars the god of War, rather than to the Prince of Peace, and his humble friend the true and veritable Saint Paul. [619]

      Many, indeed, are the gems of sculpture, the triumphs of the chisel, and the proud achievements of genius, treasured up within these walls. But the subjects of these trophies are not saints, but heroes. Their glories are not those of martyrdom, but of violence and of blood. Here repose in state the shades of Generals Gore, Dundas, Mackenzie, Bowers, Ross, Pakenham, Gibbs, Gillespie, Brock, &c. &c.; also, those of Admirals Duncan, Nelson, Howe; with many chiefs, such as Sir John Moore, the Marquis of Cornwallis; Captains Cook, Duff, Faulkner, &c. &c., "who fought gloriously, fell gloriously," and are gloriously embalmed in the memory of Britons and sculptured within the walls of St. Paul's Cathedral.

      A walk through the immense area of St. Paul's, which has ten times more space for dead heroes than of seats for living worshippers, is incomparably better adapted to make heroes than saints, warriors than Christians, sons of thunder rather than sons of peace. It is, indeed, a grand pageant--a sublime delusion--a monstrous insult to the person whose fame it falsely celebrates. True, indeed, amongst some forty thunderbolts of war, stand the monuments of Dr. Johnson, John Howard, and Bishop Heber, and also one marble slab commemorating in Latin its illustrious architect--viz.

His ashes lie in the south aisle of the Crypt, on the side next the dome, in front of the gallery containing an organ which cost 10,000 dollars, having 2123 pipes. The great painters Reynolds, Barry, Opie, West, and Lawrence, are interred side by side.

      Choral service, that is organ worship, is "performed" twice every day, at a quarter before 10 in the morning, and after 3 in the evening. Sermons are also preached by the Dean and Canons resident every Sunday and holiday, and, during Lent, every Wednesday and Friday.

      Brother Henshall and myself heard one of these very splendid choral services--an exquisitely splendid affair, in the most august, ancient, and venerable cathedral in the city of York--second only to Wesminster Abbey, in the kingdom, as we were on our way from Huddersfield to Sunderland. There were two Parsons, ten boys, and six men in linen vestments, engaged some hour and a half in performing this service. The boys were selected of an age favorable to a peculiar voice, that the worship might be musically perfect. The organ was elegant, the singing superexcellent, the reading rhetorical, the tones of the organ most pious, the worship exquisitely carnal, and the whole affair a superbly grand farce.

      I cannot describe the Whispering Gallery of St. Paul's Church. The least whisper on the opposite side appears as just at your ear, although 130 feet distant; and the shutting of a door resounds as a peal of thunder, or the heaviest discharge of distant artillery. The floor below, laid with black and white marble, forming a mariner's compass with its thirty-two points, [620] looks superbly grand and beautiful when viewed from this gallery. The whole Cathedral would require a month's inspection and study, and a volume, rather than a few pages, to give an adequate description of it.--How imperfect and inadequate, then, the gleanings of a few hours, and the notice of a few of its more impressive and peculiar objects of attraction and general admiration. But in noticing the Colosseum we shall carry with us the reminiscences of St. Paul's.

      In Regent's Park stands the Colosseum, a colossal building truly, consisting of a vast polygon of sixteen sides, severally 24 feet in length. Before it stands a Doric portico of six colums, having an entablature unique, supported by pilasters at its angles. It is covered with Roman cement, painted to resemble stone. You visited it at either its morning or evening exhibition, I know not which. We enjoyed a morning visit. Its museum of sculpture, its classic ruins, and its splendid promenade, with its models of the temples of Theseus and Vesta, much interested us. We surveyed Titus' Arch, the Mer de Glace, and the Alpine Torrent, with all its interesting curiosities. Its conservatories are beautifully decorated and furnish with indigenous and exotic plants, with a splendid Gothic aviary and stalactite caverns; but its Panorama of London, as seen from the top of St. Paul's, covering 46,000 square feet, including the Thames and the surrounding country, almost down to the sea, is, without exaggeration, the grandest display of the painter's art that I have ever seen. I am told it is regarded by all who visit it as superior to any thing of the sort in the world.

      In walking rouud a dome of a few yards, by the genius of one man, who spent a long life in perfecting it, you see as natural, and as large as life, all London, as seen from the top of St. Paul's in a clear moonlight night, with all the effect of moon and stars, and the ten thousand lights of the city. No wonder, indeed, that some of its visitants have inscribed upon its walls, "The Palace of Fairy Enchantment." The design itself was enough for one man of ordinary ambition; but the execution of it, so far us one man has perfected it, is the greatest achievement of genius and labor accomplished by any painter whose name is registered on the rolls of fame.

      I regret to pass so rapidly through this most interesting object; but there stand on my memoranda the British Museum and Library, the Royal Academy of the Fine Arts, the Polytechnic Institution, the Thames and its Tunnel, through which we passed, the Zoological Gardens, St. James' Park, Hyde Park, Bank of England, Post Office, Docks, Statues, Promenades, &c. &c. Of all these we can only select two or three, and these we must despatch with all brevity.

      We were, indeed, much pleased to observe the growth of good taste and good sense in the attention paid to public comfort and improvement.--London, like the United States, progresses to the West; and as it progresses in that direction it improves. Indeed, in more senses than one, "the Star of Empire westward wends its way." The palaces of London and its splendid streets are located and locating in the West, and new London is many centuries in improvement, as well as in years, before old London.-- [621] But in its means of intellectual culture London is generally pre-eminent. Like Athens, Corinth, Rome, it glorifies intellect and genius, but neglects piety and morality; therefore it is pre-eminently intellectual and pre-eminently wicked!

      The Royal Academy of Arts is, indeed, a royal institution. It is located in the east end of the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, and was established by royal charter in the year 1768. Sir Joshua Reynolds received the honor of knighthood on being appointed its President. "It was instituted for the encouragement of painting, sculpture, and architecture, and consists of forty members, called Royal Academicians, and twenty-six associates. Nine of the Royal Academicians are annually elected for the purpose of superintending the studies. They set the figures, examine the, works of the students, and impart instruction. Sir M.A. Shee is President. The annual exhibition, commencing on the first Monday in May, and terminating in July, presents a just specimen of the style of the arts in the kingdom. No work is here exhibited that has ever publicly appeared before. The number of paintings, prints, busts, models, and pieces of sculpture, generally amounts to about fifteen hundred." I spent an afternoon in the rooms of this institution with much pleasure, and could not but admire not only the excellence of the selections displayed, but also the classification and arrangement of the specimens of sculpture, painting, &c. exhibited, as greatly tending to improve the taste and to elevate the standard of excellence in all the fine arts cultivated by the eye and the hand.--In its Glypotheca, or Museum of Sculpture, we saw a very true and beautiful statue of the Queen, just exhibited for the first time. Her Majesty and Prince Albert had been to see it the day before, and placed upon it their probatum est.

      A few days after my visit to the Royal Academy, in company with sister Whalley and brother Henshall, we spent an afternoon in the Zoological Gardens. On our way thither we unexpectedly met the Queen and Prince Albert returning in open carriage from the grand pageant at Cambridge, occasioned by the inauguration of Prince Albert as Chancellor of the University. The Queen's full-orbed face, with her royal consort on her left, seemed alike full of good nature and good sense, and smiled with as much complacency as she could well throw into it, upon the group we met just standing where she must be fully seen on turning towards Buckingham Palace. Had we been seeking for such an opportunity, we could not more advantageously have found it, than to be thrown into the front of such a group just at the moment when her guard came forward in a great bluster to open a way for Her Majesty's carriage. Her two maids of honor sitting in front of the barouche, with one of whom, a few evenings before, I had had a conversation on the resurrection of the dead, reflected Her Majesty's smiles upon the crowd, as she complacently caught the loyal smiles and homage of her liege subjects, who seize every opportunity of testifying to her Queenship their cordial admiration of her virtues, and increasing devotion to her throne.

      No Queen of England was ever more universally popular than Victoria. [622] She is now, and has been, during my tour through Scotland, travelling for pleasure, with her royal consort and their children, through the Highlands. The enthusiastic admiration of the Scotch is every where expressed in every form which can prove that it comes from the heart. Indeed, the Queen herself seems to court and cultivate it by every means in her power. I was amused the other day in glancing at some notes of her tour through the Highlands to see how the woman and the mother triumphed over the Queen in her complaisance to some Highland women, who, crowding upon the boat as she was leaving, demanded that she would show them her "dear little bairns." The Queen, in great good humor, first seized one of the little Dutchmen, and then another, and holding them up in her arms, showed them off in fine style to the ecstatic admiration and cheers of the enraptured and grateful mothers and daughters of the hills and glens of the Western Isles.

      Indeed, the domestic virtues of the royal pair, and their extreme prudence in all matters of party spirit and party interests, entitle them to the highest esteem and admiration of the nation. No one in England knows whether the illustrious Regent or his more illustrious consort lean more to the Whigs or to the Tories--to the INS or to the OUTS of office. They have got five healthy, plump, and ruddy children. One of them, whom I saw standing on the canvass, in the full uniform of a young tar, with his jack-knife and pouch on, ready for business, is as promising a lad in all that constitutes good nature, good sense, and a good sound constitution, as any lad I saw in all London city. He is already destined for the navy, and takes his station before the mast, as if predestined to rise by merit to the high office of Admiral.

      The greatest objection that I have to Prince Albert is, that he seems to be more ambitious to be a good sportsman and a good marksman among the grouse and the deer, than to shine in literature or science, though now Lord Chancellor of Cambridge; and that his red beard, so fastidiously cut upon the upper lip, is in bad taste, and a bad model to the dandies of the age, who imagine that a pair of scissors, or a sharp razor, cunningly guided over the chin or upper lip, indicates more good sense and more good taste than the red paint of an Indian, or the particolored beard of a goat suspended to the lip or to the chin of a beardless Turk. And while remonstrating against the Prince Regent, that I may not appear blind to the imperfections of the Queen of England, I must say, that, in my humble opinion, she visits the theatre too often, and especially on Saturday evenings, than is either prudent or comely for the "HEAD OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND." That her example, in this particular, is already detrimental to some of their Graces--the Prelates or Lord Bishops, I must infer--more especially since I see it noted in some of the English prints that the celebrated Jenny Lind has been engaged to attend at a ball in the Bishop of London's palace, to be given on some grand occasion.

      The Queen in this case cannot admonish the Bishop; and I do not see how the Bishop can admonish the Queen, unless they should both confess to [623] the Archbishop of York; and even then for "the Head of the Church of England" to appear in any theatre called "the ROYAL THEATRE of London," is, in my opinion, giving to the old-fashioned Puritans or their sons (but I believe they are all dead in England) a new argument to prove that the Church of England cannot be the Church of Christ; inasmuch as THE HEAD of Christ's church never was seen in any theatre on earth, much less in that of Covent Garden, or in that of Drury Lane. I would, therefore were I Privy Counsellor to Her Majesty, suggest to her the incongruity of such regular visits to these centres of the pride and vanity and folly of this world, with her other virtues, and more especially with her high and holy station as HEAD OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

      Meantime, having been detained so long on my way to the Zoological Gardens of London and to the Museum, I must defer my notices of them to a more convenient season. The mail for the steamer of the 19th September will soon be made up, and this letter, though begun more than two weeks since, has been unfinished till to-day. Others, of a more grave importance, have been begun; but events, yet in progress, forbid my closing them before this packet sails. Farewell.

[The Millennial Harbinger, Third Series, 4 (November 1847): 618-624.]