moments, he poured in grape and canister so that the fort was completely silenced, and her garrison were seen by our men in the tops of the Brooklyn, by the fitful flashes of their bursting shrapnel, running like sheep to their coverts. Thus passing the upper fort, Captain Craven engaged several of the rebel gun-boats at sixty to a hundred yards. He was an hour and a half under fire, lost eight killed and twenty-six wounded, while his ship was badly cut up by shot and shell; but she bore her full part in the attack on the rebel batteries below New Orleans next morning." *

The rest may be briefly told. On the next day, April 25th, Farragut steamed up to the wharves of New Orleans, the inhabitants of which, knowing that the city could be easily laid in ashes by the Federal squadron, abandoned the thought of further resistance. Very firm language was required from Farragut before the irritated people would leave the Union flag to fly undisturbed from the top of the City Hall. The civil government was committed to General Butler, and was by him administered with great firmness, and perhaps with no greater severity of repression than the circumstances substantially required. But being without the breeding of a gentleman, Butler did not know or feel that there are some means of repression which, whatever may be the previous provocation, must not be employed. He thus came to issue the celebrated proclamation, ordering that "hereafter, when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation." The civilised world received this ebullition with astonishment and indignation, Lord Palmerston declaring, in the House of Commons, that "Englishmen must blush to think that it came from a man of the Anglo-Saxon race." Yet there is no ground to think that Butler's order, hateful as it is, was ever put in force-that it was more than a brutum fulmen; and, on the other hand, Englishmen who have known their countrymen order the living bodies of Hindoo prisoners to be blown into ghastly and gory fragments of quivering flesh from the mouths of cannon, cannot predict to what lengths even their portion of the "Anglo-Saxon race may not proceed under circumstances of pressure. The execution of Mumford by Butler's order, for having been the ringleader of a mob which tore down the Federal flag from the roof of the Mint, after the Confederate forces had evacuated the city, was, perhaps, an act of extreme harshness, and not absolutely required for the security of a power which was then so firmly in possession; nevertheless, the plea of military necessity has been not seldom held sufficient to cover worse deeds.

Great progress was made in this year towards the complete emancipation of the slaves. Already Federal officers in command of corps or detachments serving in the Southern states had been forbidden to interfere in any way with the enjoyment of their freedom by slaves who had escaped from their masters within the Federal lines.

• Greeley, "American Conflict," vol. ii. ch. 5.

He

Mr. Lincoln displayed sound statesmanship and a wise deliberation in this whole matter. So faras military interest seemed to require it, he gladly took and approved of measures which tended to emancipation; but he would not let himself be hurried by the Abolitionists into any such premature declaration against slavery, regarded as an institution, as would, while everything was still in doubt, have estranged Kentucky and Missouri from the cause of the Union far more decidedly than was now the case. expressed himself very plainly, and with characteristic brevity, in a letter to Horace Greeley, written in August of this year. "My paramount object," he said, “is to save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it-if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it-and if I could save it by freeing some and letting others alone, I would also do that." In September, he published a proclamation, distinctly stated to be resorted to as a war measure, notifying that from the first day of January, 1863, all slaves owned in any state, or in any designated part of a state, which was then in rebellion against the Union, should be held to be from that time and for ever after free. In accordance with this notification, the President issued a second proclamation on the 1st January, 1863, which, considering the result of the war, practically amounted to the abolition of slavery in North America. This document, after reciting the previous proclamation, continued: "Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three .. order and designate as the States and the parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana [except certain parishes], Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia [except certain counties] and by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authori ties thereof, will recognise and maintain the freedom of such persons." The military effect of this proclamation, considered as a war measure, was probably less than Mr. Lincoln had counted upon: for either it was carefully withheld from the knowledge of the slave population in the Southern states, or, if even its contents became known to any of them, the fierce and desperate resolution which animated the whites deterred them from attempting, or even planning, anything like a general insurrection. But the political effect was enormous; in every Christian country the cause of the Union was thenceforward identified with the freedom of the negro, so that even those who on many accounts sympathised with the South could not

A.D. 1862.]

heartily and entirely wish their cause to triumph; moreover, the United States Government and people were irrevocably bound, in the event of their obtaining such military success as did in fact crown their arms, to maintain for the future that freedom of the negro population which had been thus proclaimed.

On the 1st of December, 1862, Mr. Lincoln sent down a message to Congress, thoughtful, lucid, and at times rising to a rugged natural eloquence, in which he laboured to show the physical unity of the territory of the United Ctates, and thence to conclude to the political indivisi

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quite so conveniently or profitably under two Governments as under one, therefore disruption is forbidden and branded by all laws, human and divine. Louisiana must remain one political community with Minnesota, however diverse may be the ideas, the political tendencies, the social habits, and the intellectual and æsthetic culture, of the two, because, if there were a custom-house between them, a percentage of profit might be lost to the Minnesota settler, and the " development" (by which is simply meant, in such reasonings, the filling up of a country with a motley, half civilised, and wholly uninteresting white

bility of the Union. There is no line of boundary, he said, which could possibly be drawn between the great corn-producing region of the interior, lying between the Alleghanies, the Rocky Mountains, and British America, and the sea margins south, east, and west of the said region, that would not cut off its population from one or more of the outlets which Nature had provided for its trade.

(An argument which, pressed by some future President, when the Union has a hundred millions of inhabitants, may perhaps be turned against the British, as marring and embarrassing the beneficent appointments of Nature, while we "cut off" the said population from the outlet of the St. Lawrence.) Mr. Lincoln argues the question ably and earnestly, yet, after all, he regards it solely from the commercial point of view. What he says amounts to this: that because men cannot trade together

population) of the interior region might proceed at a rather slower rate. And if it did, would the world be any the worse? Is not the rapid absorption of the vast and fertile prairies of America by a swarming semi-civilized population-insensible to the charm of ancient manners, dead to art, callous to philosophy, vulgarly self-confident in religion-one of the saddest among the many sad spectacles which the philosophic observer of mankind, during the last forty years, has been compelled to contemplate? What if some Virginian thinker had replied to Mr. Lin. coln: Doubtless you may be right in maintaining that trade flourishes better-ceteris paribus-where there is but one political organisation; but man is not born for trade alone; and there is much reason for holding that literature, art, science-in a word, all that constitutes the highest culture of a people-flourish all the more for

there being a number of cultivated independent centres? Would Greece have taught us so much, had she been all Spartan, or all Theban, or even all Athenian? Is the oppressive moral monotony which prevails in a vastly extended state, in which the majority reigns supreme-is this no drawback to the account of prosperity? Again, utter want of harmony in religious beliefs may make it more desirable for two contiguous populations to be independent of each other, than to be politically united. No physical barrier divides Holland from Belgium; if commercial principles are to override all others, they ought to be one; yet we know that difference of religion, and diversity of historical memories and associations, made the two peoples fret against the tie which temporarily united them, and that since their separation each has prospered-in regard to all the higher forms of national prosperity-in an eminent degree. Bred up in the rough West, Mr. Lincoln, intelligent and virtuous as he was, could not but be blind to this whole class of considerations, which would have appeared to him mere fanciful refinements. Does it conduce to trade? that was his sole test by which to try every political organisation.

CHAPTER III.

The International Exhibition of 1862: Its Origin: Erection of the Building at Brompton: Description of its Principal Features: Comparison of it with the Building of 1851: Ceremonial at the Opening Multifarious Contents of the Exhibition-Number of Exhibitors, British and Foreign-The French Department-Collection of Pictures-Close of the Exhibition-Number of Persons

that had visited it.

THE year 1862 was marked by a second grand display, on a scale of colossal magnitude, of the products of the material and artistic civilisation of our age, contributed by the industry of all countries, but especially by that of England and her colonies.

The origin of the Exhibition of 1862 is involved in some obscurity. Though such is undoubtedly the case, several conjectures were diligently offered upon the subject; most of these conjectures, however, were so very far-fetched, that serious consideration of them is quite out of the question. A cynical writer in the Saturday Review, writing two days after the opening, could see in it nothing but a "gigantic advertisement," a "gigantic joint-stock show-room," the "Palace of Puffs." On the other hand, a writer in the Illustrated London News, after severely condemning the levity or malice of his weekly contemporary, proceeds to refer the Exhibition to conceptions and motives which, however sublime they may be, are a little vague. "Looking," he says, "at this magnificent International Exhibition in the light of the high motives which originally suggested it, we see in it, first of all, a rich and multiform display of that Supreme beneficence which over-arches, if we may so express ourselves, the destinies of our race." The project of a second Exhibition has been often attributed to the Prince Consort, but it was said at the time, and on better authority, that so far from having initiated the Exposition of this year, he gave a somewhat reluctant assent to its being carried out, and was rather desirous of allowing his fame in connection

with enterprises of this kind to rest on the undoubted success of that of 1851. But sufficient light is thrown on the subject for our purpose by the statement contained in the address presented at the opening of the building by the Royal Commissioners. From this it appears that the Society of Arts, "a body through whose exertions the Exhibition of 1851 in great measure originated," began to take preliminary measures in 1858 and 1859 for the purpose of ascertaining whether a sufficiently strong feeling existed in the country in favour of decennial repetitions of that great experiment to justify the prosecution of the scheme. The continental war of 1859 caused a temporary suspension of proceedings; but on peace being restored, the Society resumed the consideration of the question, although at a period too late to allow of the Exhibition being ready by the year 1861, which was their original desire. The Society obtained decisive proof of the existence of a general desire for a second Great Exhibition in the most satisfactory form-namely, the signatures of upwards of 1,100 individuals for various sums of from £100 to £10,000, and amounting in the whole to no less than £450,000, to a guarantee deed for raising the funds needed for the conduct of the Exhibition. The scheme having thus been started, the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, in the most liberal spirit, placed at the disposal of the managers of the new undertaking, free of all charge, a space of nearly seventeen acres on their Kensington Gore Estate, and subsequently, when the original area was found insufficient, an additional plot of eight acres, being all the land which could be made available for the purpose. In this way was the scheme originated, the cost of the necessary buildings provided for, and an eligible site obtained.

The contractors for the greater part of the work were Messrs. Kelk and Lucas, and it could not have been in abler hands. But for the eastern dome the contract was taken by the Thames Iron Company. This dome was begun long before that on the western side; but a generous rivalry" sprang up between the builders, which resulted in something like a neck-and-neck race between them at last. The work was commenced in the latter part of 1861, and the contractors were bound to deliver the shell of the building, complete, to the Royal Commissioners on the 12th February, 1862. To do this they had to carry on the works by night as well as by day, and an interesting picture executed at the time represents the night effect of the western dome, as seen from the Horticultural Society's Gardens-the moonbeams from behind struggling to pierce through the network of ribs, rafters, and elaborate scaffolding of which the dome then consisted, and workmen swarming in all the galleries of the vast building, carrying on their work by artificial light. The contract was kept, and the building handed over on the 12th February. Applications for space from exhibitors were then invited, and the fitting up of the courts and galleries proceeded with; but with such numerous and varied interests and claims to adjust, the commissioners could not ensure the same rapid progress as that made in the erection of the building; and a large part of the edifice was still in

A.D. 1862.]

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The principal features of the building, when completed, are described in the following terms by a writer in the "Annual Register." They consisted "of two vast domes of glass, 250 feet high and 160 feet in diameter-larger (that is, broader across, but, of course, nothing like so high) than the dome of St. Peter's-connected by a nave 800 feet long, 100 feet high, and 85 feet wide; with a closed roof, and lighted by a range of windows after the manner of the clerestory of a Gothic cathedral. The domes opened laterally into spacious transepts; and the nave into a wide central avenue and interminable side aisles and galleries, which, being roofed with glass, much resembled the crystal inclosure of the Exhibition of 1851. These domes, naves, transepts, and corridors formed the main building, and covered sixteen acres of ground; but in addition were two annexes, of unpretending ugliness, which covered or inclosed seven and a half acres; the whole area occupied by the building was twenty-four and a half acres." Of the two annexes, the eastern was devoted to agricultural implements of all kinds; the western to the display of machinery, both at rest and in motion. The courts and compartments in which the majority of the articles displayed were contained were on the ground floor; among the galleries above, those which constituted one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest, attraction of the Exhibition were the long picture galleries, admirably lighted, containing an immense collection of the chief productions of modern English art, in painting and sculpture; and also a similar collection, though, of course, much less complete, of the modern painting and sculpture of foreign nations.

The same writer does but echo the general opinion of all those who witnessed the Exhibition of 1851, and could therefore compare the two buildings, when he makes the result of such a comparison unfavourable to the building of 1862. "Although none could deny," he says, "that the building of 1862 was greatly superior in extent, loftiness, and elegance, both of constructive detail and of decoration, to the Crystal Palace of 1851, yet the general impression seemed to be that there was a magical charm about the latter which was wanting to its successor. The distinctive difference probably was that the crystalline walls and roof of the Palace of 1851 admitted such an universally-diffused light that the idea of "inclosure did not present itself; while in the building of 1862 the solid roof and rayless walls of the nave, lighted by Gothic windows in the clerestory, gave the unavoidable impression that you were within a building. The two great domes were certainly much inferior in effect to the glorious transept of 1851; nor was there within the whole structure any one spot which offered that unconfined coup d'oeil that sensation of space to be felt but not described-which could be obtained from several points of vantage in its predecessor. The long avenue of the nave gave unquestionably a grand prospect; but it was so packed with 'trophies' and other large and unmanageable objects, that it suggested a confined and crowded feeling." The internal colour-decoration was committed

pillars in the nave appeared alternately a dark olive and a red chocolate, with gilded capitals and a line of gold round the base. The columns in the courts were coloured a green bronze, with dark red capitals and bases, and a similar dark line ran along the girders. The roof was decorated with gilt ornaments, and these, in connection with the scarlet and gold capitals of the pillars, though delicate, and perhaps too minute, were still, on a bright sunny day, on the whole agreeable to the eye. The walls of the picture galleries were painted a sage green-a colour well adapted for throwing the pictures into relief, but giving a somewhat gloomy aspect to the rooms. Connoisseurs were disposed to charge the style of decoration, generally, with a lack of boldness and inventiveness; however, as we have said, the effect was at least pleasing.

By a great effort, the executive staff of the Exhibition were enabled to present the building to the royal and other visitors on the day fixed for the opening ceremonial, May 1st, in a state of tolerable forwardness. Thirty thousand persons witnessed the spectacle. Beneath the western dome there was a raised dais, on which was erected a lofty throne, hung with crimson velvet and satin, and powdered with gilded roses and stars. On each side of a rich overhanging canopy were placed large marble busts of Her Majesty and the Prince Consort. From this platform, looking down the nave, the vista was charming, and would have been much more effective but for the interposition of two huge and hideous "trophies," one of which was an exhibition of candles, the other "a curtained erection, which looked like an exaggerated four-post bedstead." Thus was the sordid side of commercialism allowed to obtrude itself at a time and place when no considerations except those of æsthetic grandeur and beauty should have been entertained for a moment. The procession of the Queen's Commissioners for opening the Exhibition was formed at Buckingham Palace, and proceeded, fortunately under a bright and sunny sky, to the entrance of the building in Cromwell Road. As was to be expected, neither the Queen nor any of her children were present; but the royal family was ably represented by the Duke of Cambridge, supported by the Crown Prince of Prussia, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other august personages. The Lord Mayor of London lent his gorgeous and historical presence to grace the ceremonial, coming "in great state, with a suite of aldermen, common-councilmen, and city officers, in seventy carriages.” When all were in their places, the Duke of Cambridge standing on the raised dais in front of the throne, Earl Granville, as the representative of the Commissioners having charge of the Exhibition, stepped forward, and presented an address to the Duke, as the Chief Commissioner for the opening. In this address allusion was made to the loss which the Queen had recently sustained, in the following appropriate

terms:

"And, first of all, it is our melancholy duty to convey to Her Majesty the expression of our deep sympathy with her in the grievous affliction with which it has pleased

the Almighty to visit Her Majesty and the whole people of this realm in the death of her Royal Consort. We cannot forget that this is the anniversary of the opening of the first great International Exhibition, eleven years ago, by Her Majesty, when His Royal Highness, the President of the Commissioners of that Exhibition, addressed Her Majesty in words that will not be forgotten.... When we commenced our duties, and until a recent period, we ventured to look forward to the time when it might be our great privilege to address Her Majesty in person this day, and to show to Her Majesty within these walls the evidence which this Exhibition affords of the opinion originally entertained by His Royal Highness-evidence furnished alike by the increased extent of the Exhibition, by the eagerness with which all classes of the community have sought to take part in it, and by the large expenditure incurred by individual exhibitors for the better display of their produce and machinery. We can now only repeat the assurance of our sympathy with Her Majesty in that bereavement which deprives the inaugural ceremony of her royal presence."

After the Duke of Cambridge, in the name of the Commissioners for opening the Exhibition, had made a suitable reply, the procession was reformed, and passed down the nave to the eastern dome. It was here that the great mass of persons invited to be present at the opening were seated; for here the finest and most delightful part of the day's programme was to be performed. The renowned maestro, Meyerbeer, had composed an "Ouver ture en forme de marche" expressly for the occasion; the Poet Laureate had written a beautiful ode, which Sterndale Bennett, the Cambridge Professor of Music, had wedded to appropriate strains; and a grand march by Auber (which proved to be a work of extraordinary spirit and verve) completed the programme of this grand

concert.

When the music was over, the Bishop of London stepped forward and "delivered a fervent prayer suited to the occasion," which does not appear to have been any where reported. After that, the Hallelujah Chorus, from Handel's "Messiah," was performed with great power, and on its conclusion the National Anthem was again sung. Then the Duke of Cambridge rose, and in a loud voice proclaimed :-" By command of the Queen, I now declare the Exhibition open." This declaration was followed by a loud blast of the trumpets and great cheering from all present.

The logic of narration would seem now to require from us, that after having described the origin of the Exhibition, shown how the building was erected, described its principal features, and recounted the ceremony of its opening, we should proceed to give an account of what was in it. But just here is our difficulty; it is so hard to say what was not in it. It was like an enormous bazaar, containing everything which the fancy and invention, not of our country only, but of all countries, had at any time taxed themselves to produce for the use and the enjoyment of men. Take one single department of Exhibition, the western annexe, for machinery at rest

and in motion; when we have said that you might see there (and also hear, for the din was terrific) locomotives of many descriptions, Nasmyth hammers, marine engines, planing machines, weaving and spinning machines, brick-making machines, hydraulic cranes, and centrifugal pumps, we have, after all, indicated but a small part of the bewildering variety of machines that the annexe contained. The same may be said of all the other departments in that portion of the Exhibition which represented the industrial arts. A few particulars respecting the number of exhibitors will enable the reader to judge in some degree what this multiplicity must have been we quote them from an article written at the time :—

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'The three great foreign states, or collections of states, now exhibiting are, of course, France, the Zollverein (or German Free-trade Union, which includes Prussia), and Austria. The French courts will probably be filled by between 3,000 and 4,000 exhibitors, and the Austrian display will probably be furnished by an equal number of firms and individuals. The Zollverein display is furnished by about 2,500 exhibitors, of whom Prussia can claim about 1,400. Russia shows through about 400 exhibitors, Holland through about 350, Spain through about 1,150, Portugal through 1,000, Norway through about 200, Sweden through 500, and Belgium through about 900. Here, without reckoning Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Greece, Egypt, and a few small states, we have at least 13,000 foreign exhibitors in the foreign part of the Exhibition; and, when the list is made complete, they will reach three times the number of British exhibitors. The only part of the above list in which no very remarkable increase can be noted is the Zollverein, as the exhibitors from these states in 1851 numbered 2,300. The other states, without an exception, show a wonderful increase of exhibitors; and largely as France was represented at the first Exhibition, her exhibitors now will be nearly doubled. The enormous increase of foreign exhibitors shows a spirit of competition, a self-reliance, and a faith in Industrial Exhibitions, which speak well for foreign industry."

According to the ground-plan of the Exhibition building, there was an enormous area, in the angle between the southern transept and the nave, reserved for the French department; and a curious circumstance occurred in connection with this, which, when one thinks of the later relations between France and Prussia, is not without interest. The French asked and obtained permission to inclose their court, and they accordingly erected high wooden partitions all round it, greatly to the disgust of Prussia, exhibiting in a more limited space west of the south transept, because the chief supply of light on which her exhibitors had reckoned was thus cut off, or at any rate greatly obscured, and they had little left to depend upon but the light from the clerestory windows far above. The French were appealed to to reduce the height of their partitions; but the representatives of "la grande nation" would not recede an inch: they agreed with their Emperor that “when France is satisfied, the world is at rest," at any rate, ought to be; and as the partitions perfectly answered the purpose of