Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/148

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NOTES- AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. AUG. 17, iwi.

pictures for the Jubilee Exhibition at Syden ham, I venture to forward a note.

It should be remembered that at the middl< of the last century we had but two journals that were ornate of xylography one was the Illustrated London News and the other Punch or the London Charivari. The News was a journal that at this period bore a penny stamp, and was printed upon taxed paper Punch was a demy quarto of a serio-comic tone, touching upon politics. Both are in- valuable to the historian of the time, as portraying by the pencil what the pen could not convey.

With regard to Punch, the early cuts I find were small ones, the first depicting a shed crowned with the kepi that the Prince Consort designed to serve for the infantry. This was of the pre-Paxton period, when the Palace question was a sore difficulty. The second was the site, and this Richard Doyle depicted by representing the vagabonds who took siestas thereon ; the third was idle boys peeping through the crevices of the hoarding ; and the fourth John Bull walking over rub- bish heaps and broken ground. Then came the lodgment and the difficulties of housing all nations, who, preparatory to the opening, had to resort to bivouacking in Hyde Park. The first double-page cut or cartoon by John Leech was depictive of the delay the picture representing Britannia cleaning plates and knives in preparation for a big party, whilst the Prince President dons with difficulty his livery. Now commence the big cartoons by Leech the opening, the Queen, the Prince Consort, the Prince and Princess, the spec- tators being ladies ; this was entitled 'Royalty surrounded by Conspirators and Assassins.' The next was the shilling day, all sorts and conditions taking dinner beneath a statue. Now we arrive at the ddbut of Sir John Tenniel, whose jubilee has been duly honoured. It was called 'The Cinderella of 1851,' and exhibits the crystal fountain that John Leech travestied by designing a fountain of beer, showing that the malt beverage was not forgotten. Next we have Hyde Park, and the Queen receiving the haut ton, bereft of their beloved park promenade, which they had come to regard as their own exclusive property. A double page of a Derby race shows all the 'animals of the Ark headed by Paxton, a Yankee bringing up the rear. The next, by John Leech, shows stalwart navvies, working men, and others confronted by the Mite, who exclaim, "Who would have thought of seeing you here ! "

From Richard Doyle Punch at this period had few pictures, though there was one show-

ing congested London ; whilst Leech deals with irrepressible ladies who refuse to obey policemen in tall hats, swallow-tail coats, and white trousers. Tenniel we find taking Doyle's place, and in a full -page block showing the Prince pointing out * The Happy Family in Hyde Park.' Tenniel now headed the twentieth volume of Punch, and Leech proposed that the Admiralty should show a tub in full sail and glass cases with distressed needlewomen and stonebreakers. Of cartoons we have Lord Brougham, the modern Atlas bearing the world and Palace on his head, on that obsolete aid a porter's knot, and as a wind-up Lord John Russell and Paxton before the footlights bowing to the cries of " Author ! " In another we have 'Praise and Pudding' Prince Albert giving Paxton 20,000/. in the shape of a huge slice.

Leech showed the Ministers as shipwrecked, saved by the Exhibition vessel, and the revo- lutionary element in France that broke out with the close of the World's Fair. As a superlative ending Leech gives us 'The Amazon' of Kiss, who puts on her bonnet and shawl whilst the Greek Slave, habited as a Bloomer, bids adieu. Then appears the dawn of Sydenham, and we see with the dying year John Bull enjoying a botanical work in his winter garden.

So whiles the world away. Three years later, Tenniel, in 1854, gives us a 'Reverie in the Crystal Palace,' by depicting, on a full-page upright, the two Egyptian figures that graced the end of the long vista of glass and iron at Sydenham (Egypt and Assyria both suffered by flame), which remains unique. We have seen exhibitions without number, but no palaces wholly con- structed of glass and iron. ^ Sir Joseph Paxton's original design for the Crystal Palace was made upon a blotting- pad that may be seen, with other jubilee relics, in the south transept at Sydenham. JOHN LEIGHTON, F.S.A. Ormonde, Regent's Park.

NOBILITY. Having often been puzzled as bo the way m which the subject of nobility is treated in England, I shall esteem it a favour t any one will kindly enlighten me as to the time when the idea prevailing in England vith regard to nobility took its present orm. On the Continent all the descendants legitimate) of a noble are counted as nobles respective of wealth or position, whereas n England it seems that a man must be possessed of wealth to be generally regarded as noble, and even sons of peers are spoken it as commoners. This seems to me very