Part 16

At our place in Sussex, just on the borders of Hampshire, I had a very large garden, and here, besides greenhouses, was an aviary in which were kept many different kinds of birds. I do not know, however, that aviaries are ever a great success; it is far more pleasant, indeed, to see birds at liberty like my choughs, who used to stalk about the grounds as if the whole place belonged to them, as did also the poor storks; these latter, however, always looked melancholy, owing, I suppose, to the permanent state of indigestion produced by their partiality for dining off broken crockery. I was very proud of my garden, in which most of the distinguished botanists and biologists of that day, including Sir Joseph Hooker and Charles Darwin, took a great interest.

In my greenhouses I had at one time a large collection of insectivorous plants, specimens of which I used occasionally to send to Mr. Darwin, who carried on a correspondence with me about these curious things, in which he was very much interested. I went once to pay him a visit at his house at Down, in Kent, but unluckily found him suffering from one of those attacks from which he perpetually suffered, he having never perfectly recovered from the terrible sea-sickness which tortured him during his voyage on the _Beagle_. In consequence of his indisposition I was only able to talk to him for a short while, but, nevertheless, he told me a great deal about the digestive powers of the secretion of the _drosera_ or sun-dew, which, as he had actually proved by experiment, acted upon albuminous compounds in exactly the same manner as does the gastric juice of mammals.

One or two of our greenhouses were entirely devoted to rare plants and orchids, which were sent to me by my friends from every part of the world. The late Lord Sherbrooke, then Mr. Lowe, and Mr. Bernal Osborne, I remember, used rather to laugh at my partiality for horticulture—the latter especially used to declare that ladies liked taking in scientific men by pretending an interest in the subjects which were their especial study. Mr. Cobden, however, took the warmest interest in my gardening experiments, and wrote to me often on the subject. In 1861, when in Algiers, which in those days was, of course, not nearly so well known as at present, he sent me the following letter:—

ALGIERS, _19th January 1861_.

MY DEAR LADY DOROTHY—It was, indeed, very kind of you to think of me when in another quarter of the globe. I will not lose a post in replying to your kind inquiries. The weather here is delightful. It is an English summer. I suspect from the admission of the natives that we have an exceptional fine season. However, I have derived great benefit from the change. There is really no excuse for coughs or asthmas here, for we have generally a blue sky, and never any fogs or white frosts. I have been annoyed for many months with a sort of stiff neck. It is precisely the same as if I had sat in a draught and caught cold yesterday. I have a difficulty in turning my head without turning my body. You know I have been (all my life) rather stiff-necked in a moral sense, but this permanent muscular affection is rather novel and puzzling. However, I hope it will yield to the warm weather and other remedies. You would be delighted to see the fields and the gardens covered with roses and flowers. In walking in the country the other day I plucked a little wild flower like a larkspur, with leaves somewhat resembling parsley, and I remarked to my wife, “If we had found this in Lady Dorothy’s conservatory, how we should have admired it!” The hedges are generally made of cactus and aloes, and they would puzzle the fox-hunters to go through them. The country is generally very uncultivated, and is covered with dwarf palms. The date-palm does not bear fruit here, though the trees grow very tall. You must penetrate some hundreds of miles into the interior to find the best dates. The city of Algiers, which stands on the steep slope of a hill, presents a strange aspect to the European visitor. There is a greater variety of costume than even at Cairo. You see Arabs, Turks, Jews, and Greeks mixed up with every variety of military French uniforms. There are a great many soldiers here, and I confess I should not feel quite so safe among the Arabs (who in their heart have no love for the infidel) if we had not a strong garrison of the _pantalons rouges_. The Moorish women walk about with their figures enveloped in white muslin, leaving only holes for the eyes. If one of these were seen walking near Dangstein the country people would be frightened, and would think that a newly buried corpse had escaped from the churchyard. There is a Jardin d’Essai, or experimental nursery garden, near Algiers, kept up by Government, which affords pleasant walks. A great number of the shrubs which you have under glass are flourishing here. The custard-apple flourishes. What surprises one is the rapidity with which the trees grow. There are some which in fifteen years have grown as large as they would have grown in forty or fifty in England. They have very little idle time, for there is no winter, and, if they get plenty of water, they grow rapidly in the summer. The orange tree is very fine in Algeria, but they are cultivated more extensively at Blidah, thirty miles in the interior, than here. They require a great deal of water at their roots. In fact, all the fruit, whether dates or other things, depends on irrigation. “Their feet in water and their heads in the fire” is the phrase used by the natives to show the treatment that agrees with them. If the climate did not make people idle, what an immense production there might be where there is no winter and the land of waters requires no rest! The vegetable market in Algiers at eight in the morning is a sight to see, such piles of cauliflowers, beans, peas, and new potatoes. I cannot say a word about politics; I am busy with _Adam Bede_, _The Woman in White_, and other equally amusing volumes. I spend as much time as possible out of doors. There are forty or fifty English visitors here for their health, besides a few residents, and there is a staff of engineers and navvies employed by Peto and Co. on a railway and a boulevard, for which they have a contract. The hotels are good, but not cheap. Many people find lodgings a little way in the country. There—I am afraid I have exhausted nearly all my Algerian news. Pray give my kind regards to Mr. Nevill. I hope the severe weather has not interfered with his farming operations. I hear a good account of my lambs. I shall remain here till I get quite strong, and my return home will depend on the weather in England. I shall not attempt to be in the House at the opening of Parliament. I was working in Paris the whole of last summer and autumn, and can therefore take a little holiday with a clear conscience. My wife joins me in kind regards to you and family.—Very truly yours,

R. C.

It was through Mr. Cobden that I obtained a special sort of silkworm which at one time I kept in my garden. Before this I had from time to time experimented with the ordinary silkworm which feeds upon mulberry leaves; but my experiences had not been very satisfactory, for, in addition to other inconveniences, my silkworms, which were kept in the house, used occasionally to stray about and get up people’s trousers, much to their inconvenience and horror. So I determined to make an altogether new departure, and had a sort of regular silkworm farm laid out in a part of the garden where it could be under constant observation. A certain portion of this ground was entirely devoted to the _Ailanthus glandulosa_, or “Tree of Heaven,” which is quite hardy. On its leaves lives the Ailanthus silkworm, which I then set about to procure, and wrote to several of my friends asking them to assist me. Eventually it was through the kindly efforts of Mr. Cobden that my ambition was achieved, as the following letter will show:—

ALGIERS, _23rd February 1861_.

MY DEAR LADY DOROTHY—My wife will have the pleasure of writing to you with the beads, and I merely wish to add that I am also sending some amber beads they procured for me. Having called at the Jardin d’Essai here, and spoken with the intelligent director, he tells me that he has only about one hundred cocoons of the kind of silkworm you allude to, and that he obtained them from Paris, where he advises me to apply for some. He wrote me the following:—“Pour avoir des œufs ou des cocons de ver à soie de l’Ailante, s’addresser à M. G. Ménéirlle, secrétaire de la société Impériale d’acclimatation à Paris.” I give you this address so minutely that you may be enabled, if you are impatient to possess these little animals, to send for them before I return through Paris, otherwise, if you will be so good as to express the wish, I shall be delighted to execute the commission for you on my way home. The weather is delightful here. Last week I placed a thermometer on a table in the sun in front of the house, and it stood up to 95°. We find it too warm. With kind remembrances to Mr. Nevill,—I remain, very truly yours,

R. C.

These silkworms did very well indeed, and I actually obtained enough silk to have a dress made out of it; but in the end I was compelled to give up keeping the Ailanthus moth on account of the small birds—tits in particular—which were so taken with what they came to regard as an irresistible gastronomic treat, that all precautions, such as nets, scarecrows, and the like, proved powerless to save the poor silkworms from destruction.

At that time the cult of gardens was not, as now, universally popular; it was before the day of garden books, though some very good works on horticulture of a more serious type were occasionally published. Such a one was a very interesting book called _My Garden_, written by a Mr. Smee, who had a beautiful garden near Carshalton. This was embellished with cuts of nearly every plant, bird, or insect which the owner had observed upon his domain—a most excellent idea which was admirably carried out. Of course, amongst modern garden books there is none to compare with the delightful _Potpourri from a Surrey Garden_, a work which, in addition to containing much valuable horticultural information, is also permeated with the personal charm and originality of its gifted writer.

Though people did not, as a rule, formerly devote so much care and attention to their gardens as is now the case, many country houses had attached to them “a garden of friendship.” One of these, at Cortachy, in Scotland, I particularly recall to mind, on account of the many happy days I have spent with its mistress, Lady Airlie, a very dear and old friend of mine. Mr. Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke) once wrote on this garden some very pretty verses, a tribute to a hostess for whom he entertained the very highest admiration. It was, alas, but seldom that Mr. Lowe exercised his gift of graceful versification, but the lines in question show that his talents in this direction were of no mean order:—

THE GARDEN OF FRIENDSHIP AT CORTACHY

Is life a good? then if a good it be, Mine be a life like thine, thou steadfast tree; The selfsame earth that gave the sapling place Receives the mouldering trunk in soft embrace, The selfsame comrades ever at thy side, Who knows not Envy, Wilfulness, or Pride. The Winter’s waste repaired by lavish Spring, The rustling breezes that about thee sing, The intertwining shadows at thy feet, Make up thy life, and such a life is sweet. What though beneath this artificial shade No Fauns have gambolled and no Dryads strayed! Though the coy nurslings of serener skies Shudder when Caledonian tempests rise, Yet sways a cheering influence o’er the grove More soft than nature, more sedate than love. And not unhonoured shall thy grove ascend For every stem was planted by a friend, And she, at whose command its shades arise, Is good and gracious, true and fair and wise.

XIII

A Diorama at Florence—Vauxhall Gardens—Causes of their end in 1855—_Fête_ at Cremorne—The Coliseum—Rinks and roller-skating —Aquariums—Zazel and Mr. Watts—Nelly Farren—The rise of the Music Hall—A visit to Evans’—Paddy Green as a collector—The Opera in old days—Taglioni and Cerito—Paul Bedford—Mr. Toole —His joke upon Sir Henry Irving—The Exhibition of 1851— Houdin, the Prince of Conjurers—Theatre at Rome—Old days at Töplitz—A libel upon the Queen.

About the first public entertainment which I remember was a diorama of the Church of Santa Croce at Florence which I was taken to see when quite a child. It made a great impression upon my mind, and the recollection of the delight it gave me still lingers in my memory. The effect was beautiful and greatly enhanced by some extremely fine music which exactly simulated the swelling strains of an organ.

I suppose there are not many people alive who remember Vauxhall Gardens, an historic place of amusement to which I went several times—and very delightful I thought it. This, of course, was almost in the last days of prosperity which this once fashionable resort enjoyed, for towards the end it had become but a feeble and, I fear, none too reputable shadow of its former self.

Well do I recollect the ham sandwiches for which Vauxhall, or rather its expert carver, was famed. Rumour indeed declared that so great was this official’s talent for cutting transparent slices of ham that, if put upon his mettle, he could cut from one single ham sufficient slices to cover the whole gardens, which were by no means inextensive in area. It was a pleasant place with its music and coloured lights, and, above all, the many memories of the eighteenth century which clung about the old gardens. Some of the decorative paintings were by Hogarth, and the artistic taste of another age could clearly be discerned, though time and the weather had done their work in the way of spoiling a good deal which would otherwise have been artistic and interesting. To such an extent was this the case, that when the pictures came to be sold (there were, I think, two sales, the last in 1859) ridiculously small prices were realised, though many were the work of well-known and highly gifted painters.

Vauxhall Gardens were finally closed about 1855. I fancy that a succession of unfavourable and rainy seasons greatly contributed to their end, for in spite of the added interest of balloon ascents and other sensational performances the public declined to be attracted. So bad was the weather one season that the management, with considerable sense of humour, sent out men bearing huge umbrellas upon which the attractions of Vauxhall as an open-air pleasure resort were vividly set forth.

At Cremorne, which lasted well into the ’seventies (when its reputation became such as to call forth loud Puritanical protests which eventually caused its closure), fashionable _fêtes_ used sometimes to be held, when the gardens presented much the same appearance as Vauxhall in its palmy days. I went to some of these _fêtes_, but not to the last, on which occasion, I believe, considerable disorder prevailed on account of a number of the usual frequenters of Cremorne obtaining admission and squirting ink at the ladies’ dresses as a sign of their displeasure at the intrusion of another society than their own. In consequence of this no more of these _fêtes_ were held, the gardens being entirely abandoned to the class which eventually caused their end.

As a girl I used often to go with my sister to the Coliseum, a pseudo-classical building erected in 1824 from the designs of Decimus Burton. The buildings and grounds covered about an acre, and in addition to the main attraction, which was always a panorama, there were various other sights to be seen, such as to-day would be termed “side shows,” the chief of these being, I remember, a stalactite cavern. In 1844 the directorate made the first attempt to introduce roller-skating (or rather “wheel-skating,” as it was then called) upon a floor of boards; this, however, proved an unsuitable surface, and the new amusement did not at all take the public fancy and had a very short vogue. Some thirty years later, however, it was revived, under more favourable and more modern conditions with extraordinary and, for a time, almost frenzied success. In the middle ’seventies, indeed, the mania for roller-skating suddenly caught hold of every class, and rinks, some improvised and some specially built, sprang up in almost every town of any importance; whilst London, and more especially fashionable London, went mad about the new amusement. The craze, however, did not last as long as many speculators had confidently anticipated, and a great deal of money was eventually lost by those who, convinced of the permanency of the roller-skating rage, had invested or rather risked their money in the construction of rinks. The mania indeed died out as suddenly as it had originated, though some years ago skating on artificial ice secured a certain amount of popular support.

Roller-skating whilst it lasted called forth many witticisms and jokes, some of them, it must be added, of none too refined a taste. Certain ladies, for instance, were said to stand on a very unsteady footing, whilst others of irreproachable conduct and stern demeanour were spoken of as constantly falling. One could not help smiling to hear that people regarded as models of decorum had recently had many a slip. The whole craze, indeed, with the comical accidents it entailed, produced general and widespread hilarity.

Another craze of a somewhat more lasting nature was that for aquariums, which were greatly patronised when they were first started with the object, according to the promoters, of providing the public with palaces where amusement was to be unobtrusively blended with instruction.

The best known and, for a time, the most successful of these was the Westminster Aquarium, quite recently demolished, the opening of which created quite a sensation. For a time all London flocked to this resort, where, in addition to the denizens of the deep, there was generally some extraordinarily daring acrobatic feat to be seen. The most sensational of these performers was Zazel, a graceful female acrobat who was fired out of a cannon and caught a trapeze, if I remember rightly, at the end of her flight. In reality the mode of propulsion was a strong spring, though the illusion of a real cannon being fired was produced by the volumes of smoke which surged from the cannon’s mouth as the performer flew through the air. Zazel was presented to the public by Mr. Farini, an unrivalled purveyor of wonders. I was much struck by the grace and daring which this young lady exhibited, and being acquainted with some of the directors managed to get a quiet talk with her. I went one morning, I remember, and she explained to me exactly how the feat was performed, giving, indeed, a special and private performance of it for my benefit, in her working dress.

Zazel—a model, I may add, of the domestic virtues—was a singularly graceful athlete, and, in addition to the sensational cannon act, used to perform upon a trapeze slung high up near the aquarium roof. Her grace of movement, indeed, was such that many artistic people were attracted to the performance; amongst others, I remember, the late Mr. Watts, whom, on more than one occasion, I met observing this artiste with the greatest interest and delight. He told me that he had seldom seen a more perfect example of graceful human motion, and had come there as much for the purpose of study as for the sake of amusement. When Zazel’s cannon feat was first performed a considerable outcry was raised on account of the supposed danger to the human missile, and a high Government functionary was said to have been about to interfere, whereupon Mr. Farini (so ran the story) completely set the public mind at rest by proposing to demonstrate the safety of the performance by shooting the august official himself out of the cannon, not once only but as many times as he might like, undertaking that on each occasion he should be returned to his office perfectly unharmed and intact.

Seldom, I should say, has any acrobatic performance caused so much excitement in London as Zazel’s, and those who went to the Gaiety at that time will remember the amusing burlesque of the feat (given in, I think, “Little Doctor Faust”) by Edward Terry and that never-to-be-forgotten incarnation of clever vitality, Nelly Farren, in which the latter, having climbed into a burlesque cannon, was asked, “Are you in? Are you far in? Are you Nearly Far-in?”—sallies which were greeted with thunders of applause.

The music halls, to which to-day every one goes, were formerly not considered at all correct places for ladies. About the first time that society began seriously to realise their existence was, I think, at the time of the Russo-Turkish war, when Plevna, a sort of spectacular ballet, was being given at the Canterbury. A great benefit was organised in aid of the Turkish wounded, and a good many people crossed the river and took boxes. This incursion into what was to them an unknown world produced a certain taste for this kind of amusement, and led to music halls being gradually patronised by a very different sort of audience from the one which was formerly enraptured by the singing of the _lions comiques_. As years went on music hall after music hall abandoned its chairman,—a man, as a rule, of stentorian voice who in old days was a principal feature of these places. The entertainments given then gradually changed their character, and to-day every one goes to the music hall, where, for the most part, the performance is quite as innocent as a village penny-reading presided over by the vicar.

Before the days when the music hall had attained the popularity which it now enjoys, vague rumours, of course, used to reach society as to its chief stars, and occasionally some of us used to be unobtrusively taken to see them. One of the chief was George Leybourne, whose song “Champagne Charlie,” with its sparkling music and catchy refrain, combined with the fact that he used to drive about in a carriage drawn by four horses, created quite a sensation in London. Another was the great Macdermott, whose song “We don’t want to fight, but by Jingo if we do,” originated the expression a “jingo,” so often used in political controversy. The _lion comique_ is now but a memory of the past, his very direct and somewhat robust methods being unsuited to the taste of the generation which takes its pleasures in a very different way from that popular in less squeamish times.