The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-26 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 26, 1851

CHRISTMAS LITERATURE AND ART.

by the paters maker: good Heavens! if that were what,
here and everywhere la H:4's creation, I am? And a
world all dying because I am, and show myself to be, and
to have long been, even that 1 John, the carriage, the car-
riage: swift! Let me go home in silence, to reflection,
perhaps to sackcloth and ashes. This, and not amusement,
%wild have profited those high-dizened pe”ous.
Many "high-dizened" persons are, as usual, repre-
sented in the pictorial department of the Keepsake.
It is pleasant to see that the aristocracies both of
rank and talent rally round the fair editor, the niece
and successor of the Countess of Blessington.
Of the peculiar sort of Christmas books invented
by Mr. Dickens we have no lack of imitators this
season. That by Mr. Wilkie Collins is perhaps the
best.' Mr. Wray is an actor retired to Sidbury-on-
the-Marsh to teach elocution. He had been appren-
ticed in early life to a statuary, and is seized with a
longing desire to obtain a cast of Shakespere'a face
from tee tomb at stratford. Ho resolves to make
trial in the middle of the night, and conceals himself
in the church for that purpose.
It was quite dark now; and I began to feel cold and awe
struck again. The only thing I could think of to keep my
spirits at all, was first saying my prayers, and then quoting
Shakspeare. I went at it, Annie, like a dragon; play after
play—except the tragedies; I was afraid of them, in a
church at night, all by myself. Well : I think I hail got
half through the Midsummer Night's Dream, whispering
over bit after bit of it ; when I whispered myself into a doze.
Then I fell into a queer sleep ; and then I had such a
dream! I dreamt that the church was full of moonlight—
brighter moonlight than ever I saw awake. I walked out
of the vestry ; and there were the fairies of the Midsummer,
Night's Dream—all creatures like sparks of silver light—
dancing round the Shakspearo bust! The moment they
caught sight of me they all called out in their sweet night-
ingale voices—" Come along, Reuben ! sly old Reuben ! we
know what you're here for, and we don't mind you a bit!
You love Shakspeare, and so do we—dance, Reuben, and
be happy ! Shakspeare likes an old actor ;he was an actor
himself—nobody sees us! we're out for the night ! foot it,
old Reuben—foot it away !" And we all danced like mad ;
now, up in the air; now, down on the pavement; and now
all round the bust, five hundred thousand times at least
without stopping, till—Bang went the clock! and I woke
up in the dark in a cold perspiration.
"I'm in one, too !" gasped " Julius Censer," dabbing his
brow vehemently with a ragged cotton pocket-handker-
chief.
Well, after that dream I fell to reciting again ; and got
another doze ; and had another dream—a terrible one,
about ghosts and witches, that I don't recollect so well as
the other. I woke up mice more, cold, and in a great fright
that I'd slept away all the precious morning daylight.
No! all dark still! I went into the church again, and then
back to the vestry, not being able to stay there. I sup-
pose 1 did this a dozen times without knowing why. At
last, never going to sleep again, I got somehow through the
night—the night that seemed never to be done. Soon after
day-break' 1 began to walk up and down the church
briskly, to keep myself warm, keeping at it fur a long time.
Then, Just US I saw through the windows that the sun was
rising, 1 opened my bag at last, and gut ready for work. I
can tell you my hand trembled and lay ,ight grew dim-1
think the tears were in my eyes; but I dou't know why—us
I first soaped the bust alt over to prevent the plaster 1 was
going to put on it from sticking. Then I mixed up the
plaster and water in my quart basin, taking care to leave
no lumps, and finding it come us natural to me as if I had
only lett the statuery's shop yesterday ; then—but, it's no
use telling you, little Annie, about what you don't under-
stand; I'd better say ehortly I made the mould, in tour
pieces, as I thought I should—two for the upper part of the
face, and two for the lower. Then, having put on the outer
plaster ease to h Id the mould, I pulled nil off clean toge-
ther, and looked, and knew that I had got a mask of
Shakspe ire from the Stratford bust!
He keeps his treasure in a cash-box. That is the
mystery ; with this " treasure" he is supposed to be
a rich man, and suffers the usual iwnalties of wealth,
among others that of being robots!. The story is
very pleasantly told.
The author of " Olive" has not been so successful
in the subject she has chosen for Christmas:l. The
scene is laid in Scotland, which has no associations
whatever with this season ; Christmas being no fee.
tival in the Scottish church,or regraded as a holiday
by the people. Neither can the ethereal imaginings
of fairy land be gracefully associated with
the Sto.tish dialect, which abounds in this
tale. Elegance and euphony are requisite in a
fairy tale, even if it be one of child stealing. The
illustrations, though scratchily engrnved, arc admi-
rably designed and drawn by Mr. Godwin,—a new
new name in this branch of art; but one manifestly
destined to be soon better known.

Of late years Christmas has produced, if not with
the same abundance, with equal regularity, its intel-
lectual food as well as its creature comforts. The
purveyors of beef and pudding decorate the sturdy
I sirloin on the shambles, and the piquant fruits and
spices in their windows, with every symbol of Christ-
mas that misletoe and holly can supply. In like
manner, the bookseller relieves the more solid
literature which lies on his counter and
stands on his shelves with the dazzling
colours and gilt arabesques which adorn the
bindings of the Christmas ephemera. "The Com-
pliments of the Season" are not, as of yore, accom-
panied so frequently with boxes of game, barrels of
" October," and poultry "from Norfolk," as with
elegant emanations from the artist's atelier, the
author's study. and the bookbinder's shop. These
tasteful and amusing Christmas offerings arc not—
wisely, we think--calculated to oppress the intellec-
tual faculties of the recipients, or to damage their
digestion of the grosser good things of Christmas life.
They arc simply meant to add such charms to the
festivities and amenities of the season as art and lite-
rature in its mildest and most benevolent forms can
furnish.

Foremost amongst such present books must stand
those in which the secular and more sensuous joys
of the time are sought to be hallowed and softened
by the selection and adornment of scriptural pas-
sages. The Messrs. Longmans were, we believe, the
originators of that class of books. The " Ser-
mon on the Mount," the " Good Shunamite,"
the " Lord's Prayer;' &c., illuminated by the
gorgeous ornamentation of the middle ages, adapted
and executed by Mr. Owen Jones and Mr. Noel
Humphries, set the fashion. It is followed with
great success this year by Mr. John Franklin,' who
has illustrated the " Parables of the Saviour "
with great breadth and mastery. The man-
nerism is well compensated by varieties of treat-
ment, if not by varieties of style. Some
of the designs show great proficiency in
figure drawing and skilful grouping. The groups
designed for the parable of the ten virgins are classi-
cally composed, and full of expression ; the artless
cartlessnes.s of the foolish virgins being well con-
trasted with the diligence expressed in their wiser
companions. In the second subject, the force and
energy with which one of the former is endeavour-
ing to force open the door (" Lord, Lord, open
to us!") is finely wrought. The Crucifixion at
the end of the book is full of figures, all well
drawn; their faces expressive of different emotions
amongst the crowd, from the incredulous smile of
the Pharisee to the pas+ionate grief of the two
Marys. Twelve designs complete the work; and
from their size they partake of an historical charac-
ter. They are most carefully enmraved by Messrs.
Lightfoot, W. 11. Watt, Itianchar%, Joubert, Good-
all, and Messer. The text is printed in old English
with red letters and margins, over which a biblio•
maniac would gloat with rapture, and call " gorge-
ous." As the externals of books of this class are not
too unimportant to be passed over, we must add that
the binding of the work under notice is superb.

In the fashionable world Christmas cannot be
thoroughly kept without The lieepsake."t Upon
its gilded leaves art and literature join hands, and
lead the reader an agreeable dance through the
mazes of graphic and poetic fancy. The volume
for the present year is unusually brilliant in both
respects. Dickens, Carlyle, Barry Cornwall, and
Mrs. Newton Crosland are contributors. Dickens
tells us in his pages that they must be read at dusk,
for they are filled with a couple of appari-
tions embodied in one talc—a double-barrelled
ghost story. The master of description tells us about a
certain countenance which haunts a young married
woman so hideously often in her sleep, that 11.... r hus-
band takes her abroad, in the hope that change of
scene might change the horrible face for a pleasanter
visage, or banish it from the sufferer's dreams en-
tirely. Her dread of seeing the face in some Italian
picture during her travels is wonderfully depicted
by their courier, who tells the story. At Genoa, he
says:
tipon my word I was fearful after this of our coming to
the old palazzo, lest some ill-starred picture should happen
to be there. I knew there were many there; and, as we
got nearer sad nearer to the place, I wished the whole gal-
lery in the crater of Vesuvius. To mend the matter, it was
a stormy, dismal evening when we at last approached that
part of the Riviera. I thundered, and the thunder of my
city and its environs, rolling Amon; the high hills, is very
loud. The lizards ran in and out of the chinks in the
broken stone wall of the garden, as if they were frightened;
the frogs bubbled and croaked their loudest ; the sea-wind
moaned, and the wet trees dripped; and the lightning—
body of San Lorenzo, how it lightened !
We all know what an old palazzo in or near Genoa is—
how time and the sea-air have blotted it—how the drapery
painted on the outer walls has peeled off in great flakes a
plaster—how the lower windows arc darkened with rusty
bars of iron—how the court yard is overgrown with grass
—how the outer buildings are dilapidated—how the whole
pile seems devoted to ruin. Our palazzo was one of the
true kind. It had been shut up close for months. Months !
—years! It had an earthy smell, like a tomb. The scent
of the orange-trees on the broad back terrace, and of the
lemons ripening on the wall, and of some shrubs that grew
around a broken fountain, had got into the house somehow,
and had never been able to get out again. There it was, in
every room, an aged smell grown faint with confinement. It
pined in all the cupboards and drawers. In the little rooms of
communication between great rooms it wan stifling. If you
turned a picture—to come back to the pictures--there it
still was, clinging to the wall behind the frame, like a sort
of bat.
The lattice-blinds were close shut, all over the house.
There were two ugly grey old women in the house to take
care of it; one of them with a spindle, who stood winding
and mumbling in the doorway, and who would as soon have
let iu the devil as the air. Muster, mistress, la belle Caro-
lina, and I, went all through the palazzo. I went first,
though I have named myself last, opening the windows aid
the lattice blinds, and shaking down on myself splashes of
rain and scraps of mortar, and now and then a dosing mos-
quito or a monstrous fat;blotehy, Genoese spider.
When I had let the evening light into a room, master,
mistress, and la bells Carolina, entered. Then we looked
round at all the pictures, and I went forward again into
another room. Mistress secretly had great fear of meeting
with the likencu of that face—we all had ; but there was
no such thing. The Madonna and Bambino, San Francisco,
San Sebastiano, Venus, Santa Caterina, Angels, Brigands,
Friars, Temples at Sunset, Battles, White Horses, Forests,
Apostles, Doges, all my old acquaintances many times te-
rated )—Yes. Dark handsome man in black, reserved and
secret, with black hair and grey moustache, looking fixedly
at mistress out of darkness :—no.
The theme chosen by Mr. Carlyle startles one as
much as if we were to see a book on Short Whist
advertised an from the pen of an eminent Quaker, or
an essay on horse-racing by the Archbishop of Can-
terbury. Mr. Carlyle puts aside his historical pen
and gives the sledge-hammer with which he demo-
lishes " shams " a rest to discourse on the Italian
Opera. hear the creaking of the ponderous wheel
on which he breaks that winged-fly—the Ballet !

Mr. Dickens himself appears this year in company
with his disciples. One of the tenderest and moat
pathetic fancies ho has ever yet, to our thinking,
given forth, appears in his Christmas number
of " Hou.schold Words."l In picturing " what
Christmas is as we grow older," he bays:
On thin day we shut out nothing !
" Pause," says a low voice. " Nothing? Think ;"
" on Christmas Day, we will shut out from our fireside,
nothing."
" Not the shadow of a vast city where the withered
leaves are lying deep:" the voice replies. " Not the slr.
dow that darkens the whole globe ? Not the shadow of the
city of the dead ?"
Nut even that. Of all days in the year, we will turn our
faces towards that city upon Christmas laiy, and from its
silent hosts bring those we loved among us. city of the
dead, in the blessed eame wherein we are gathered together
at this time, and in the presence that is hero among us ae-
, cording to the premise, we will receive, and not dismiss, thy
people who are dear to us.
Yes. We can look upon these children angels that alight,
so solemnly, so beautifully, among the living children by
the tire, and can bear to think how they departed from us.
Entertaining angels unawares, as the Patriarchs did, the
playful children are unconscious of their guests ; but we
can see them—can see a radiant arm around one favourite
neck, as if there were a sculpting of that child away.
Among the celestial figures there is one, a poor mis-shapes
boy on earth, of a glorious beauty now, of whom his dying
mother said it grieved her much to leave him here, name,
for so many years as it was likely would elapse before he
came to her—being such a little child. But he went
quickly, and was laid upon her breast, and in her hand she
leads him.
There was a gallant boy who fell, far away, upon a burn-
ing sand beneath a burning sun, and said, "Tell them at
home, with my last love, how much I could have wished to
kiss them once, but that I died contented and had done my
duty !" Or there was anothir, over whom they read the
words, "Therefore we commit his body to the deep!" and
so consigned him to the lonely ocean, and sailed on. Or
there was another who lay down to his sat in the dark sha-
dow of great forests, and, on earth, awoke no more. 0
shall they not, from sand and sea sail forest, be brought
home at such a time!"
There was a dear girl—almost a woman—never to be one
—wko made a mourning Christmas in re house of joy, and
went her trackless way to the silent City. Do we recollect
her, worn out, faintly whiTering what could not be heard,
and falling into that last sleep for weariness? 0 look upon
her now! 0 look upon her beauty, her serenity, her
changeless youth, her happiness! The daughter of Jairus
was recalled to life, to die ; hut she, more blest, has heard
the same voice, saying unto her, "Arise for ever!"
We had a friend who was our friend from early days,
with whom we often pictured the changes that were to
come upon our lives, and merril . imagined how we would
speak, and walk, and think, and talk, when we came to be
old. Ills destined habitation in the City of the Dead re-
ceived him in his prime. Shall he be shut out from our
Christmas remembrance ? Would by love have so excluded
w? Lost friend, lost child, last parent, sister, brother,
husband, wife, we will not no discard you! You shall
bold your cherished places in our Christmas heart., and by
our Christmas fires ; and in the season of immortal hope,
and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out
nothing !
Ilia begins Christmas in a sad key; but the
melody rings out in a merrier strain as we proceed.
Mr. Prupper spends a jolly Christmas in prison. The
manner of that gentleman's arrest was as follows :
It wits Christmas-eve; and I—my name is Prupper—
was taking my walks abroad. I walked through the
crowded Strand, elate, hilarious, benignant, for the feast
was prepared, and the guests were bidden. Such a turkey
I had ordered! Not the prize one with the ribbons—l mis-
trusted that; but a plump, tender, white-breasted bird, a
king of turkeys. It was to he boiled with oyster-sauce ; and
the rest of the Christmas dinner es...s to consist of that noble
sirloin of roast beef, and that immortal cod's head and
shoulders! I had bought the materials for the pudding,
too, souse half-hour previously; the plums and the currants,
the citron and the allspice, the flour and the eggs. I was
happy.
Onward, by the bright grocer's shops, thronged with
pudding-purchasers. Onward, by the bookseller's, though
lingering, it may be, for a moment, by the gorgeous Christ.
mss books, with their bright binding, and brighterpictures.
Onward, by the pastrycook's! Onward, elate, hilarious,
and benignant, until, just as I stopped by a poulterer's shop,
to admire the finest capon that ever Loudon or Christmas
saw, a band was laid on my shoulder !
" Before our sovereign lady the Queen"—" by the grace
of God, greetiug"—" that you take the body of Thomas
Prupper, and him safely keep"—" and for so doing, this
shall he your warrant."
These dread and significant words swam before my
dazzled eyelids, dancing maniac hornpipes on a parchment
slip of paper. I was to keep Christmas in no other com-
pany than that of the once celebrated fictitious personage,
supposed to be the familiar of all persons similarly situated
—loan Dos.
I remembered with horror, that some fortnight previously,
a lawyer's clerk deposited on my shoulder a slip of paper,
which he stated to be the copy of a writ, and in which her
Majesty the Queen (mixed up for the nonce with John,
Lord Campbell) was pleased to command me to enter an
appearance somewhere, by such a day, in order to answer

The very ballet girls, with their muslin saucers round
them, were perhaps little short of miraculous ; whirling and
'Mooing there in strange mad vortexes, and then suddenly
fixing themeelves motionless, each upon her left or right
gnat toe, with the other leg stretched out at an angle of 90
degrees—.as if you hail suddenly pricked into the floor, by
one of their points, a. pair, or rather • multitudinous co-
hort, of mad restlessly jumping and clipping scissors, and so
bidden them rest, with opened blades, and stand still, in the
devil's name. A truly notable motion—marvellous, almost
miraculous, were not the people there so used to it. Motion
peculiar to the Opera ; perhaps the ugliest, and surely one
of the most difficult, ever taught a femaie creature in this
world. Nature abhors it; but Art does at least admit it to
border on the impossible. One little Ceriso, or Taglioni
the Second, that night when I was there, went bounding
from the floor as if she had been made of Indian-rubber, or
filled with hydrogen gas, and inclined by positive levity to
bolt through the cei it og ; perhaps neither Semiramis nor
Catherine the Second had bred herself so carefully.
Such talent, and such martyrdom of training, gathered
from the four winds, was now here, to do its feat and be
paid for it. Regardless of expense, indeed! The purse of
Fortunatus seemed to have opened itself, and the divine
art of musical sound and rhythmic motion was welcomed
with an explosion of all the magnificences which the other
arts, fine and coarse, could achieve. For you are to think
I of some Ressioi or Bellini in the rear of it, too ; to say nothing
of the Stanfields, and hosts of scene-painters, machinists, en-
gineers, enterprisers ;—fit to have taken Gibraltar, written
the History of England, or reduced Ireland into industrial
regiments. had they so set their minds to it !
Alas, and of all these notable or noticeable human
talents, and excellent perscrerances and energies, backed
by mountains of wealth, and led by the divine art of music
and rhythm vouchsafed by Heaven to them and us, what
was tobc the issue here this evening? An hour's amuse-
ment, not amusing either, but wearisome and dreary, to a
high-dizened select populace of male and female persons,
who seemed to me not worth much amusing ! Could any
em• have pealed into their hearts once, one true thought,
and glimpse of self-vision : " High-dizened, most expensive
=, aristocracy so called, or best of the world, beware,
what proofs you give of betterness and bestnem !"
And then the salutary paz.g of conscience in reply " A
saint populate, with money in its purse, and drilled a little

• "Mr. Wray's Cash-box; or, the Mask and the Mystery."
Bendal.
t "Alice Learmont, a Fairy Tale," by the author of
" Olive," " The Head of the Family," &e., with illustra-
tion, by James Godwin.
j Extra number for Christmas of " Household Words. '
Bradbury and Evans.

• 0 The Parablcs of Our Lord," illustrated by John
Franklin. Mitchell, Old Bond-streo.
I " The Keepsake for 1332." Edited by Miss D. Powcr.
Bogue.