The Age They Lived In

Early Victorian England, 1830-1865. Edited by G. M. Young. 2 vols. (Milford. 42s.) AT the New Year, 1856, Ruskin presented the public with one more magnificent volume, and in it the celebrated chapter on the pathetic fallacy, beginning indignantly with " German dulness, and English affectation." Something like that phrase for a long time haunted the general mind when the early Victorian age was mentioned. The pugnacity or the apathy which thus dismissed a complex era seems to have passed away, apd we are invited sometimes to see the days of the first railways and last public executions as exhibitions of the incredible, sometimes to live in imagination through the natural experiences then usual. Mr. G. M. Young and his series of contributors—more distinguished though less lordly than those in _a " Keepsake " of their period—give us a tem- perate account of " the background of ideas and habits, the sights and sounds of Early Victorian England."

Between 1830 and 1865, of course, there was a mighty alteration in many conditions. " First catch your Early Victorian." You may catch him, or her, long before 1830 I fancy ; I should say Fanny Brawne in 1820 was already fully qualified. On the other hand, if one goes out to dinner with that philosophic swell E. S. Dallas in 1858, one seems already beyond the boundaries of the " Keepsake " and Sam Weller system. It is sufficiently hard to discern the unity, at a first view, between th& Hon. Mrs. Notion's Child of the Islands, 1845, and the same lady's Letter to the Queen on Lord Chancellor Cranworth's Marriage and Divorce Bill of a dozen years later. Apart from the contents, the form and make of these volumes Seem gulfs apart. For this reason the treatment of Early Victorian England demands a depth of investigation and nicety of perceptioii which indeed are operative in the work under notice.

Professor J. H. Clapham opens the list of contributors, with the necessary foundation " Work and Wages." His conclusion is that the period accomplished " the rather better distribution of the national income." Mrs. C. S. Peel'has next innings with " Homes and Habits " (incidentally making some mention of the funeral customs of the age. I wonder the volumes have nothing more extensive about them, and the Cemetery Com- panies which inspired Pugin to his unbeatable architectural caricature). " Town Life " is revived by Mr. R. H. Mottram, whose sad task it is in the end to remark as typical the decline of cultural eminence at provincial Norwich. Mr. Bernard Darwin visits the world of " Country Life and Sport," at a time when "cricketers thought no shame to try to excel with the oar." Then the reader is summoned away, by Admiral Ballard, to " The Navy "—this article being based on immediate access to official archives. " The Army " by its late inimitable historian, and " The Mercantile. Marine " by Mr. Basil Lubbock (what a " forest of sails " he depicts !) conclude the first volume.

The second begins with " The Press," by Mr. E. E. Kellett, who finds room for various subsidiary things such as the evolution of book-bindings. Mr. A. P. Oppe, in a survey of " Art " not less richly detailed, describes the world, of ambi- tious industry from which Haydon escaped by suicide but which got for Frith and others bewildering remuneration. Mr. A. E. Richardson in " Architecture " guides us through the Gothic Revival and points out the tragi-cbmedy of all those " fastnesses " still standing in " Bayswater, Paddington, Pimlico " and " every large town." More briefly Professor E. J. Dent chronicles, with considerable respect, " Early Victorian Music " as a careful preparatory movement ; Pro- fessor Allardyce Nicoll has the " Theatre " in all its range from Drury Lane to the Britannia Saloon. Miss Mona Wilson, in " Travel and Holidays," has plenty of variety too ; for this was the time when Murray and. Baedeker began producing guide-books in great number, and Thomas Cook found the excursion idea. A chapter by. Mr. E. Lascelles on " Charity " may contain the aspect of Victorian citizenship most likely to astonish a generation not far ahead. Those who have been impressed by the recurrent Exile-theme in Victorian art and literature will hail Mr. Douglas Woodruff's account of " Ex- pansion and Emigration." Finally, the editor undertakes " The Portrait of an Age," and in this essay as in most of the others there is an extraordinary union of minute detail and

general view, such as must make-the work a very good relic for this age to transmit to the future.

All through the Early Victorian period runs the queer phantom of Success, of Prodigious Greatness, of the Material Sublime, of Superman. Sir Walter in " The Princess " stands immense :

" A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, A raiser of huge melons and of pine, A patron of some thirty charities ; "

and the shout of " the multitude," in his favour, is such as :

" shook the branches of the deer From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang Beyond the bourn of sunset."

Yet Sir Walter might not have found a place in Men of the Time; the first issue of which was in 1852. Notables, Dignitaries, Celebrities, there were many of these against the back- ground of—itself a sort of miracle-working individual— the Million, the People. Even machines shared this same dizzy projection of gm' nthood :

"See how the engine hums still on the rails, While his long train of cars slowly down to him sails ; He staggers like a brain blooded high, and he wails ; 'Tis the railroad !

His irons take the cars, and screaming he goes ;

Now may heaven warn before him all friends and all foes ! A whole city's missives within him repose,

Half a thousand miles his, ere the day's hours close ; 'Tis the railroad ! " (1843)

Such was the dramatic excitement of Early Victorians about their world. Their very malefactors (there is no chapter on these in Mr. Young's great symposium) obtain a different lighting on the stage of time from what had previously been seen. They supplanted Dick Turpin and Eugene Aram with dandiacal actors, phosphorescent swindlers and poisoners aware of their influence. But I am wandering away from the steady track taken by Mr. Young and his collaborators. It should be added that their text is assisted with variety of fine illustrations ; perhaps it is a defect that nothing by H. B. is reproduced among these.

EDMUND BLurronw.