THE CONDITIONS OF MODERN MAGNIFICENCE.
THE Duke of York, we see it officially announced, is to be married on July 6th without application to Parliament for any allowance either for himself or his bride. They are to be provided for out of the 232,000 a year recently settled on the Prince of Wales's children, are to occupy rooms in St. James's Palace, and are to have for country residence a modest house recently fitted up on the Prince of Wales's Norfolk estate, called "Sandringham Cottage." It is "a most sensible arrange- ment," all must allow, entirely in accordance with the theories of the hour, and perhaps even necessary at a moment when every Radical Member thinks he can make his seat safe by voting against any grant whatever to the Royal Family. We understand, too, something of the reluctance of a Ministry like the present to make an application for money on behalf of any descendant of Queen Victoria. There are such a lot of them ; and the majority have so little claim to anything but subsistence-allowance. We never did understand why the nation should provide for Princes and Princesses beyond, say, the sixth in succession from the Throne; why the Royal Marriage Act should not cease to operate at some definite point, thereby allowing them their pick of millionaires and heiresses ; or why they should not lose one step in rank with every step of removal from the Throne, until at last they merged in the commonalty as subjects with lofty pretensions in the way of pedigree. The Russian Czar, it is said, is going to carry out that principle ; and in one generation more, even the Olympian pride of the Hapsburgs must yield to the impossibility of maintaining so large a clan in even the simple state that Austrian etiquette demands. No sense of what is due to themselves binds the nation to main- tain a Royal caste, or to tolerate pretensions in the way of rank, which at a certain distance from the Throne become offensively absurd. But while we grant all that to Mr. Labouchere's cynicism, and to the arguments of the sensible Republicans, we are not in the least disposed to apply the same theory to inevitable occupants of the Throne. A decent degree of magnificence for them seems to us becoming and wise, and we are not quite sure that it can be secured without a little more liberality on the part of Parlia- ment. The Royal Family has no wealth to speak of, even Mr. Labouchere having given up his old belief in the amazing 'hums accumulated by the Queen ; the Prince of Wales has saved nothing; and if the 232,000 a year settled on his children is divided with any fair consideration for his daughters' claims, the income of the ultimate heir will be by no means large. He can hardly have more than half the sum assigned, or 216,000 a year ; and that, though it will seem to many of our readers a large income, is very far from wealth to the heir of a world-wide Monarchy, who has to live in a time when nobles have 2300,000 a year ; when a merchant making 250,000 a year is not accounted rich ; and when among men of solid fortunes wealth is understood to begin at 215,000 a year. Below that you are only a well-to-do man, not a rich one. Of course, it is perfectly possible
for a Prince to dispense with magnificence, and live quietly on 215,000 a year ; and of course, also, a couple in the position of the Duke and Duchess of York will have certain facilities for so living. Nothing can make their house less than a palace, nothing can alter their social position among mankind, and nothing can greatly modify the respect with which all who speak English will regard and treat them. The things for which men hanker most are theirs by a historic right which no vote of Parliament can alter, and which would remain just where it was if Englishmen to-morrow broke with their history on one more point, and, having succeeded under a Monarchy, flung it aside in the hope of greater success under a democratic Republic. If the Duke of York lives in a flat, he will still one day be King and Emperor, —King of the oldest and widest Kingdom, the Emperor who, next to his Majesty of China, has the largest number of subjects. For all that, we hold to the old idea that a constitutional Monarchy tends to become a bourgeois institution, that smugness and Monarchy are incon- sistent, and that if a Throne is worth keeping up at all, it is worth surrounding with a certain degree of visible magnifi- cence. We do not know that cathedrals are of much utility, and certainly religion can dispense with them very easily ; but still, if we are to have a cathedral, we object as a matter of consistency and taste to build it of lath and plaster.
There is something in magnificence, as there is something in beauty, and the English contempt for it, or pretence of contempt for it, proceeds quite as much from a vulgar adora- tion of comfort, as from any appreciation of the grandeur of simplicity. The admiration for it is very like the admiration for colour, partly a natural instinct—a survival of the savage, if you like, though we never knew a savage to be much struck by a sunset—partly the result of a desire for something outside and beyond ordinary things, something that breaks the monotony of life, and has the effect of the fulfil- ment of a dream. The "sustained magnificence of a stately life," as Lord Beaconsfield called it, has for the mass of man- kind an enduring charm ; it is one which should not be lacking to sovereigns ; and it is one which the conditions of modern life have made dependent, if not wholly—that is a sneer only—at least in great part, upon an adequate supply of money. The charm of high birth has not departed, though we suspect that outside the countries where tradition is still strong, it is imperceptible to the masses, who never heard of Charlemagne; and the sense of rank is, if possible, keener than ever, investing all kinds of petty potentates, even -when they are brown, with a mysterious attraction; but the spirit of feudalism which provided such wealth of attendance is dead, the variety of costume which yielded such brightness in the human scenery has been superseded by dingy black, and pageantry may be said to have disappeared from our social arrangements. There have been times when a Court was splendid and nearly starving, and Kings were magnificent who could have under- stood the position and felt the pride of the Master of Ravens- wood; but all that has passed away, probably for ever. The Prince of to-day who is to be magnificent at all, who is to be free in his movements, to take trains when he likes, to enter- tain like any other dignitary, to show good horses and many of them, to keep servants sufficient to secure that guests accustomed to luxury be not neglected, to travel when he Pleases, to patronise art, to encourage charity, and to live when necessary among equal Princes as becomes the nation he represents, must pay away money at every tarn, and always he !'eady with more. Everything costs; from the special train which secures punctuality and freedom from pressure, to the rooms which loyal or hospitable crowding render exceptionally dear. It is all very wen to speak of good management, and, of course, there is such a thing, and it is worth perhaps 30 per cent. of additional income; but no extent of good manage- ment will reduce the cost of any kind of magnificence, or do away with the feeling of the innkeeper who charged a Royal guest a franc apiece for eggs, not because eggs were scarce, but because Kings were. We have heard of charges paid by an Indian Viceroy at a Paris hotel which would have made Mr. Vanderbilt wince, and there is not an unedu- cated man in any land who, if a Prince disputes his charges, does not become thenceforward a Republican. Nor within limits is this feeling altogether unreasonable, for the demands of Princes, which are usually only demands for freedom, upset the usual routine, just as the Queen's train, though her Majesty asks only a little extra security and some privacy, upsets the routine traffic on the great railway by which she travels. Moreover, though extravagance is a vice, , economy is often a foible ; and one rather sympathises with the hint given by the noble who assisted Louis Philippe in his search after a lost sovereign, by lighting a bank-note. State, in fact, in our day costs money; and it is as expensive to be a Prince, if you live as a Prince, as to be a spendthrift heir. It can hardly be kept up at all on an income less than that of scores of quiet Members of Parliament, and not a fifth of that of many unpretending bankers, manufacturers, great distributors, and the like ; and to have to do it, must develop, in an heir to a great Throne, either the sullenly resigned and resentful feeling of any other heir "kept . short," or the wild disposition to borrow, which has been so marked in the history of our dynasty. The liberality of Parliament being always voluntary, a little more liberality would have been wise as well as becoming, and but for necessities connected with the election would, we should fancy, have been shown. But why should not a Prince, even if heir to a great Throne, be as economical as any other gentleman, who, though sure of a great reversion, is, while he waits, a little pressed for cash P There is no reason whatever if opinion will only concede the necessary seclusion. There is nothing that we know of to prevent the heir to a Throne from living in a street, and burning gas, and hiring a rectory when he wants an outing. in the country, and then when the time arrives mounting his Throne with all possible ease and dignity. He could live a gentleman's life for 23,000 a year, and be very fairly happy all the while. Only, then, the public must not ask magnificence of him; must not expect him to be the head of society; must not point at him because he does not entertain.; must not require him to be first wherever he goes; must, in short, leave him to the modest seclusion which alone a modest fortune will justify. There is no real objection to that course, moral or political ; and if the nation were in want, it would be the right course ; but then it should be taken deliberately, and with a fair appreciation of the in- evitable consequences. Our only point is that magnificence and small means are incompatible; that in our day, splendour of living must, if it is to be kept up honestly, be based on hourly outlays of cash. There was a "King of the Romans" once who never had any money, no salary being attached to that office—we should call it Emperor-Elect now—but who was nevertheless, for all that, King of the Romans, and a very magnificent person when anybody would lend him a few gulden; but no such position is possible now, and the people are a little unreasonable in requiring it. We suppose it cannot be helped in the momentary condition of opinion, and in presence of the alarm felt by the community at the increasing numbers of the Royal race, but we should have said that £30,000 a year was not only a more reasonable but a safer allowance for a Prince, who, as all around him will tell him at all hours, must one day mount the Throne.
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