TOPICS OF THE DAY.
'THE ILLITMINATIONS AND FIREWORKS.
flex looking back to Thursday night, we feel that the most striking effects were unrehearsed. Government might plan a programme of fireworks, and might set the example of illuminations along the bhief thoroughfares of the Metropolis at its most salient points; but no official artist could have designed the picture which the Metropolis actually presented. No one householder nor combina- tion of householders could have planned it. It required, like most human institutions, to grow ; and although it was the growth of an evening, the result was indeed great and. beautiful. You might survey in turn the design in gas of this club or that private house—might recognize the superior scale of the display on the front of a public department—might compare ' the standing machinery for illuminations in the Carlton Club and its neighbours on either side with the more diversified designs around ; but it was when, on having reached the end of the street, you looked back and surveyed the whole scene with all its compounds, that you caught the truly fine picture. Here would be a star, and there a crown, with laurel wreaths interwoven ; the outlines lost as the designs were seen sideways and all mingled in a broad flood of light; a dark, broad, firm shadow from some =illumined street standing out in broad relief, and setting forth • the light as if it were very substance emanating from those many sources. At another turn, where the way was less straight, you -would see black shadow and intense brilliancy contending for the field. Below-was the ever-moving throng of people on foot ; above them a crowd in or on carriages, not less numerous, and arranged in many-shaped groups rising one above another ; the slowly- moving omnibus connecting the grouping of the figures with those who looked out from the windows, mingling humanity with the lights that sent up their streaming brilliancy, until that 'mingled again with the reflection that had taken full hold of the dark and gliding clouds above. No stage-manager could parallel that ever-changing scene. Still less could he set before you that next "shift," when in passing to the outer dis- tricts, you saw' in the extreme distance a flood of light filling the sky with gold, rose green, or blue, and sharply defining the in-
tervening foliage that i at was till then invisible ; setting forth a -great tree, perchance, as if a sea-weed " specimen ' were set upon a page of light. . It was not that the scene was perfect. There was throughout a too great sameness ; want of invention was stamped .upon the whole. A star, a crown, a pair of letters, a beading of lamps, were the stock in trade. Art would sometimes exhibit its impotence in the most miserable daubs of transparencies. The first germ of invention was suggested. by the propensity to adver- tise; and the loyal citizen, who should have put forth emblems of Peace and of affection for Queen Victoria, signalized in burning letters his own goods or his billiard-rooms. Here and them a better invention raised its modest head. A genuine political social feeling would suggest a remembrance of "the Heroes that have won it," or would put forth an aspiration for "the Nation- alities" yet unredeemed. Simple taste would outdo the resources of money ; and the ingenious illuminator in a humble street would make his windows happy with a few plain strips of calico, in red, white, and blue, and the homely candles in the parlour behind them. One ingenious fellow filched the illumination of his neigh- bours opposite by putting forth the domestic looking-glasses ! Some few real inventors have at last seized the most brilliant and ductile of all auxiliaries, and made cut or variegated glass the body of the design, while gas behind converted it into a blazoning of fire and jewels. - "They manage these things better in France "—so far as the completeness of the show goes. The broad. walk in the Regent's Park, for example, would have been an avenue of festoons and lamps : yet perhaps that black avenue of Thursday night was the best approach to the brilliancies of Primrose Hill ; and possibly not a few couples quietly moving along it had no dislike to the friendly darkness. In France, however, the artificial meteors are more varied in their contrast and succession. The artists who commanded on Primrose Hill exercised punctuality of the true Woolwich stamp, but scarcely knew how to invent changes in their designs—how to let one burst of rockets gradually surmount -another until the spectators would expect to see the lire of man usurp the skies ; scarcely knew how to mingle with the brillian- cies those more lurid lights or cloudy shadows which can give such forte and. grandeur to the display.
When, however, we come to our mechanical arrangements, per- haps it is not so certain that "they manage these things better -in France." One fact is almost sufficient to show the complete- ' ness of the contrivances for letting the multitude wander with safety to itself in the most dense and difficult parts of the Metro- polis. Although there is a standing institution among journals to reward every contributor who can find an accident, the papers Lir
of the followm morning did not record even one. In France they
manage these ' in a peculiar, way : accidents happen, but the newspapers, whose institutions differ from ours do not mar the public satisfaction by reporting accidents. Nor Led we fear to compare the conduct of our people with that of any other people in the world. It is true that the national faults were brought out 'conspicuously: the propensity to go ahead showed. itself here and there, where that mexterminable race which in every grade
deserves the name of blackguard took a pride in pushing along, regardless of the confusion. Here and there too, alas ! was seen some paterfamilias who had been fortifying himself for the fatigues of the day in the national manner, and who was a spectacle to men and children. Yet upon the whole, the sober disposition to fall into the general arrangements, and the brave, stout, un- broken good-humour, were the true characteristics of the people in every grade. And it may be said that so mixed. a multitude was never before seen in London streets. For amongst the car- riages were many with horses of fabulous value, whose riders good-humouredly exchanged glances with the working riders clustered on some hired pleasure-van for the night; while inter- mingled among the pedestrians, who could move only in a help- less stream, were men, ay, and. ladies too, of almost every rank.
Yes, the picture was really grand in proportion as you look from its most special or studied traits to its largest aspect. This vast town, with its endless shapeless streets and poor architecture —with its social separations and trading vices—was transformed. for the night into a fairy scene, its people into a real community. The hand of science grasped the most dangerous and. treacherous of the elements, and 'bent it to deck the humble architecture, bade it fill the sky with meteors; and with intense effulgence lit up the whole country—the town, the river, the shrubberies, the meadows, the hills, the clouds ; displayed the pretty scenery amid which half-conscious nature-forgetting London lies, in new and fanciful aspects, with new beauties —painting a giant picture with the very materials of nature. La as art formed of those vast and he- terogeneous elements one grand. and lovely scene so that strange, wayward, mingled host, united in one sentiment-Lin one feeling of placid satisfaction, of happy admiration—owned the sway exer- cised by the spirit of the hour over all, from Queen Victoria gazing on the Beene to the humblest mechanic or the most helpless child. r
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