MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IT is easy to get to Brighton. One takes a train at Victoria and, after being shaken for sixty minutes in a Pullman car, one arrives at the marine terminal. I have no idea why, on this section of British Railways, the coaches or the permanent way should be so palsied. I had always more that the Brighton line was patronised by our more wealthy financiers, who should see to it that their frequent journeys between their offices and their seaside hotels or flats are conducted in ease and quietude. It may be that I was unfortunate in the coach I selected that afternoon when visiting the jewel of our marine resorts. Those who are accustomed to read and write in trains acquire a specialised sense of smoothness and its opposite: com- pared to my own section of what was once the Southern Railway, along which the trains and coaches glide like contented swans, the Brighton belle's were agitated and frisky. The glasses con- taining the liquors ordered by the financiers tinkled irritably one against the other, and as I was swung from side to side I found it difficult to hold my book steadily and impossible to write any notes. I laid my work down upon the glass-topped table and gazed out upon the woods of Sussex, reflecting that August was surely the ugliest of all English months, and that the trees during these dull four weeks take on the colour of engine-oil. I was not depressed by this experience, since I was looking forward to my visit to the Regency Exhibition now being held in the Royal Pavilion. On reaching Brighton I walked down to the Steine, catching glimpses of white horses at the end of the street and inhaling ()Zone with welcoming gulps., My pleasure was diminished when, on reaching the Pavilion, I observed a long queue of men, women and children waiting to gain admittance. I am ashamed of my aversion from queues, realising that it is neurotic for a man who has to wait some ten minutes to start foaming at the mouth. So I was patient. * * it *.
It is fashionable today to regard George IV as a victim of Whig malevolence. We have been persuaded, by Mr. Roger Fulford and others, to revise our former opinions, and to see him anew as a wise moderator of extreme counsels, as a con- ciliator of personal animosities and as a distinguished and dis- criminating patron of the arts. I am quite prepared to believe that the Regent collected a few good pictures and was instru- mental in aiding Nash to build some fine terraces and perspec- tives. I think it was kind of him to write so charming a letter to Castlereagh when the latter was suffering from persecution mania ; and I am prepared to concede that, although he treated his daughter with fussy harshness, she was not in every way a person whom it was easy to manage or to trust. Yet when one makes every concession, when one discounts all that Creevey and others have written, there remains the fact that one of the most glorious periods of English history coincided with one of the least glorious interludes in English monarchy. That detestable woman Princess Lieven was unable to write unless she dipped her pen in acid : yet her descriptions of the Regent ogling the ladies from his throne in the House of Lords, or blubbering over Lady Conyngham, or groaning with gout at Windsor, are regrettably convincing pictures. One feels that other diplomatic representatives, less sharp than Mme. Lieven, must also have felt that the first gentleman of Europe was very unlike a gentleman. Let us face the fact—the Regent was vulgar, untruthful, treacher- ous, greedy and entirely lacking in either moral or physical courage. e , * * * * It was on these matters that I pondered while I waited in the queue before entering the Royal Pavilion. I liave never liked the outside of that building, regretting that the Regent ever altered Holland's delightful design. Sezincote, as a nabob fantasy, is all very well ; but to dump an Indian palace constructed of the wrong material, lit and shadowed by English sun and cloud, in the very middle of a watering-place, appears to me a joke which, like all very elaborate jokes, becomes intolerably stale. " The Moghul splendour," writes Mr. Clifford Musgrave in one of the numerous prefaces and introduction to the catalogue of the Exhibition, " of the final Indian exterior of the Pavilion was a nostalgic dream of the richness of the courts of Indian princes, understandable at a time when the very principle of monarchy was being challenged in Europe." Disheartened as I was by having to wait in a queue, this sentence did not strike me as a masterpiece, either of historical interpretation or of English prose. prefer the more robust contemporary appreciations. To Cobbett the Pavilion appeared as an English Kremlin, decorated with one large turnip and a quantity of subsidiary bulbs. To Hazlitt it was little more than " a collection of stone pumpkins and pepper- boxes." Sydney Smith delivered on the subject one of his heavier and less appropriate jibes. It was indeed a misfortune that the combined influences of Daniell's Oriental Scenery, Humphry Repton and Samuel Pepys Cockerel' should have deprived us of what, but for their interference, might have been a masterpiece of Regency architecture. The Pavilion is a vast bulbous waif, as depressing as a battered kiosk left over from some long forgotten exhibition.
We can derive from Nash's Illustrations—drawn when the paint was still fresh upon the walls—some conception of the garish vivacity of the interior in the days when the Regent held his court. We can realise that when the rooms were peopled by distinguished men and beautiful women, when the servants were arrayed in liveries of scarlet and gold, when the Royal orchestra murmured faintly behind a bank of tuberoses and palms, when a thousand candles flickered in the sconces and the horrible chandeliers—we can realise that the effect may have been magni- ficent rather than tawdry, sensational rather than silly. It must be remembered also that the finer pieces of furniture and decora- tion were removed by the Prince Consort to Buckingham Palace and Windsor at the time when the Pavilion ceased to be a Royal residence. Such pieces as the long settee of Indian sandalwood that used to stand in the corridor, such decorations as the marble and ormolu mantelpiece that was removed from the Banqueting Room, a whole number of well-designed cabinets and bamboo chairs, are now dispersed in other palaces ; the Pavilion was robbed of most of its elegance. For the purposes of the present Exhibition, many splendid Regency objects have been lent by private collectors or owners. There are the magnificent pieces of plate belonging to the Duke of Wellington and Lord Hare- wood ; the Dolphin set of furniture from Admiralty House ; the Paget Viotory Trophy ; and a number of pretty carpets and rose- wood commodes. Yet these glories do not hide the fact that the panels behind them are blistered and faded ; the rooms heavy with abandonment ; the glass chipped or broken in the windows and the chandeliers.
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The patina of age, which often gives an added beauty to the- more solemn masterpieces of decoration, imprints upon mere finery the tragedy of decay. The chinoiserie of the Pavilion is not of sufficiently high quality to bear the weight of all these years. Nor do I feel that it accords with the true spirit of Regency taste, which is subdued in colour, reserved in form and adapted for calm men and women of middle age, reading books of travel by the light of green shaded candlesticks, while in the distance their nieces gently bum'the melodies of Thomas Moore. Sad and rather strained this Exhibition seemed to me, but well worth that easy rattling journey from Victoria to the coast. Yet it may be that my spirits were depressed by my dislike of the Regent and by dark memories of Princess Lieven, supple and waspish in an elbow-chair. •
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