The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE SATURDAY REVIEW ON JENKINS IN EC-
STATICS !—On Wednesday last, and in the most
prominent and authoritative part of the7inzes, Jen-
kins displayed himself in his very highest form.
Ornithologists, in discussing the character of a bird's
feathers, which vary with the different times of the
year, always tell us that cock-sparrows look their
best in their spring plumage, which is their marriage
dress. So Jenkins is, of course, at his smartest at
a wedding. As with the bird, so with the man-
sparrow. He chirps and flutters and hops and
twitters and cocks his tail, and is the bodily pre-
sentment of all that is fussy, small, and impudent
at pairing time.
We shall not ask Jean-Jacques Rosseau
If birds confabulate or no ;
but if Mr. Bechstein or Mr. Gould had to translate
sparrow-gabble into the language of articulately-
speaking men, something like the column which de-
scribed Lord Granville's marriage would be the
result. Of course we owe some apology to a very
respectable nobleman for bringing him into juxta-
position with Jenkins. But the fault is not ours.
Very likely Earl Granville has much stronger rea-
sons than wo have to complain of the enthusiasm
which indicted in such rhythmical prose his
epithalamium. But our concern is with the
Catullus of the occasion, not with Acme and
Septimius. And we are bound to say that,
like all great artists, the poet of the temple of
Hymen rose with the difficulties of his sub-
ject. There was every inducement for him to do
his best. He had fresh fields and pastures new to
prancelhis Pegasus upon. Hitherto, the fashionable
journals, the Morning Post and Court Journal, had
bounded his capacities • but now, for the first time,
the rich pastures of capacities;
Times were open for his
curvetting. The noble animal, and his rider, knew
that he was not only caracolling before the ladies,
but before the whole world. Jenkins had his oppor-
tunity, and he used it. At first sight, the marriage
of a quinquagenarian widower with a young lady in
her teens does not seem a promising subject for the
full chorus, with variations, of the Hymeneal strain.
But a bungler's difficulty is an artist's triumph.
Great in what he says, greater in what he does not
say, is the consummate and gifted master of speech.
His reticence is more eloquent than other folks'
utterance. His very silence speaks. And, above
all, his silence on the bridegroom's age is significant.
Then with what skill does the gifted writer—uncon-
sciously one slides into the tongue and manner of
Jenkins when inspired by his presence—turn the
unfavourable accidents of the occasion into a deli-
cate and refined manner of glorifying it. Apia-
li
rently, the marriage party was small, and, with
very good taste, those most concerned wished to
have but little fuss about it ; the church was pot
the accredited fashionable temple of Hymen; there
were not half a dozen assistants, nor even a single
bishop, to get through the difficult job of making man
and wife. There was little sentiment, and no ro-
mance in the matter. Kensington Church, the vicar
of the parish, and some dingy weddings which had
preceded
" ie performance of the sentiment," are
not materials of a high aesthetic order. But here
the artist comes out. This gives him the oppor-
tunity his picture immediately acquires
the right of contrast
balance of ;
of relief. The marriage was only
one " among the marriages celebrated yesterday
morning at the parish church of St. Mary's, Ken-
sington." It " was conducted from first to last
with as complete an absence of display as any of its
predecessors." In " the eye of the Church"—as the
thought is beautifully expanded—" the couple who
were now kneeling were neither more nor less than
the couple who had knelt there an hour before."
Alike, but oh ! how different. This is just the way
in which all great writers hitroduce their heroes.

The world was going on in its usual course. People
got up and washed their faces ; clerks went to the
City; omnibuses pursued their usual trade; the sun
rose as though nothing was the matter ; the stars did
not even stop in their courses ; and the worthy
magistrate took his accustomed seat on the Bench.
Still, to the unconscious and uncaring world a great
event had happened, impressive by its awful sim-
plicity. Earl Granville, K.G., Lord-President of the
Council, had made Miss Castalia Campbell, younger
daughter of the late Mr. Campbell of Islay, his - •
second Countess Granville. What touching humi-
lity! what an impressive lesson on the littleness and •
greatness of human events ! It is very true that'
"in the eye of the Church" they were only com-
mon folks, just like John Smith and Sally Jones
who had bungled over the responses an hour before;
but, as the French Duke properly said that Al- -
mighty God would think twice before he damned a •
man of quality and a peer of France, so Jenkins - •
delicately hints that the Church might very profit-
ably keep " its eye" wide open when " the ceremony
now iu progress"—delicious phrase, redolent with
all the choicest bouquet of Jenkinism—" was giving
to the ranks of the British peerage one of the fairest-
additions it has long received." A slight scratch of
Priscian here, but the writer recovers himself with a -•
noble anti-climax. " And not the less was the - -
Countess Granville to be envied for drawing a bril-
lian c matrimonial prize." This last figure is not
very new, and, we must add, not very nice. To re-
present " Holy matrimony, that honourable estate •
instituted of God in the time of man's innocency": • - •
—Jenkins is so impressive about " the solemn -
message," and still more solemn " benediction
of the Church," that he will be familiar with
the passage—as a lottery in which girls go in for
tickets, and where there are a thousand tickets for
a single prize, and where the most brilliant one is a
widower of fifty, is not so polite either to the so-
lemnization of matrimony, or to the young ladies,
as we should have expected from so ardent a lover
of the Church and the sex' as Jenkins. But, after
all, this is not the true and high significance of the
great event of Tuesday last. The religiousness of
the ceremony which so deeply affected Jenkins,
"Irthe light blurTifitilEiffr, and that judicions
" just a sprinkling of orange-flower added to the
bonnet," and "the cl, Arming :-,7ortp" (ought it not
to have been " bevy ?") of " bridesmaids in their
simple but elegant uniform of white satin," are only
reminiscences—simple and elegant we admit, but
still only reminiscences—of Jenkins in the Post.
Now Jenkins is "on the Times," and in the
Times more serious considerations are in place.
There is the great political interest of Earl Gran-
ville's marriage. This takes the affair at once into
the category of " great public interest." " Lord
Granville has the good fortune to be not merely in
an official point of view, but one might almost say
by nature, the leader of that august assembly the
House of Lords No event happening in the
life of a man so distinguished can fail to be of in-
terest to the public, especially when it is taken into
account that this alliance affects the great family
of the Leveson-Gowers, who at this moment hold
in possession or in immediate prospect no less than
the eight peerages of Sutherland, Argyll, Leinster,
Westminster, Ellesmere, Granville, Cromartie, and
Blantyre"—not one of which eight coronets, by the
way, was represented on the occasion. To say that
this " event" " interests the public" is to say no-
thing. Here Jenkins fails ; the sublimity of the
occasion crushes him. Interest the public ! why, what
affects the great family of the Leveson-Gowers and
their eight peerages must affect not only men, but
angels—not only the public, but the solar system. The
" alliance" must be a matter of interest in Uranus,
if not a subject of congratulation and awful thanks-
giving in Sirius itself. That one of the greatest of
the greatest governing families of England—a Leve-
son-Gower himself—one whom " nature " designed
to be the leader of the House of Lords, born in the
purplest purple, and with an hereditary right to be
Premier, contracts matrimony (and the Church's
solemn message tells us " the causes for which
matrimony was ordained"), and may become the
progenitor of future leaders of the House of Lords
by the ordinary and normal designation of nature
herself—this is an event so stupendous that we can
pardon Jenkins for breaking down at the very con-
templation of it. Forty centuries looked down on
Napoleon at the Pyramids. Eight British peerages
and the whole power and pedigree of British Whig-
gism—in idea at least, if not in the body—clustered
round Archdeacon Sinclair and the altar on Tues-
day ; and, mystery of mysteries, though Jenkins
fained in spirit at the apocalyptic vision, he lived to
tell the wondrous tale.

THE " QUEEN" ON DECOROUS BATHING.—The
indignation of a weekly contemporary has been
latterly deeply moved with regard to the bathing
practices upon our coasts, and our facetious friend
Punch has, within the last week or so, made the
. manner _ which "the :mobs behave," and " how
they are treated by the sea-side," the subjectof OAF
very admirable sketches. Letters, moreover, from
private correspondents abound, in the columns of
local and metropolitan papers, complaining of cer-
tain infractions of the laws of good manners in
connection with salt-water bathing. At Margate,
Ramsgate, Dover, Deal, Ilastings, Brighton, the
scandal seems equally prevalent, and equally objec-
tionable. The worst of the matter appears, how-
ever, to be that, whilst every one is ready with an
objection or complaint, no one is prepared to sug-
gest a remedy. It must be admitted, it is true,
that the objections arc very various. In the ma-
jority of cases it is costume or no costume that forms
the substance of the complaint. In other cases
we hear that " young lathes," armed with opera-
glasses, frequent convenient spots upon the shore,
whence they can view the " gentlemen," as they
disport themselves in the waves. At Brighton, the
great objections to sea bathing are sewage and
shingle ; in Morecombe Bay, the practice is to be
avoided on account of quicksands ; and on the
Cornish coast it is dangerous by reason of the
strength and swiftness of the tides. Now, if ever
there were a season in which sea-bathing would be
likely to gratify and to benefit those who habitually
visit the sea-side, it is the present one—when the
ardours of a more than usually hot solstice are assail-
ing us, and we are doing all we can to keep our-
selves cool. Among people who can afford the
expense, and who are not abroad, there are few
who are not now listening to " the deep-resounding
sea," and who do not every morning enjoy their
cool plunge into the salt water. Why should there
be any objection to this ? The exercise is not a
cleansing one ; but there can be no possible reason
why it should become a disgusting one. It is a mis-
take to suppose that you are any cleaner for
plunging into the sea. The result of a sea-side
bath is to cause the incrustation of salt (or, as the
chemists would term it, muriate of soda), with all
manner of those other muriates and phosphates
which float around the shore of an inhabited place,
to settle upon the skin. All this has to be removed
by means of a subsequent bath of cold fresh water.
To a healthy person, however, the nervous shock
of the cold plunge and the iodine in the sea are
both restorative and invigorating, and there can be
little or no doubt that the temptation to take a dip
in " the briny" is among the most potent of those
which draw the Londoner, or even the inabitant of
the inland, to the sea-side. There is no need, how-
ever, that this healthy and invigorating_ exercise
should be made a scandal to anybody of decent mind.
As for the " ladies" who take opera-glasses to look at
the " gentlemen," and the " gentlemen" who (vide
Punch) row boats among the ladies' bathing ma-
chines, we have nothing to say, except that it would
be impossible, without the aid of the police, under
any circumstances, or with any regulations, to curb
their misconduct. As regards the rest of the sea-
side visitors, we must declare that, in our opinion,
the blame is to be principally imputed to the muni-
cipal authorities of our seaside towns. These worthies
—usually the most respectable, or rather the noisest
haberdashers, grocers, and attorneys of the place—
are well content to see visitors come every season by
flocks, to increase the reputation of the place and
drawing-room
ionwgn-rocousmtomflo.
orsne ony are glad to hear that the
the " Parade" are letting
for seven guineas, and that there are not enough of
open carriages upon the " Promenade" to supply
but it never occurs
to
brings with it its duties as
well as its advantages, and that one of these duties
is to see to the welfare of the people who bring the
profit. This neglect is, in itself, an act of com-
mercial folly. If the municipal authorities of the
towns upon our coast would consent to spend a
thethneemcessthiatties prosperity of the visitors ;
little money in the arrangement of fitting bathing-
places, constructed at proper distances from dwel-
ling-houses, and regulated bylaws of costume which
had a due regard to decency, the attractions of their
places would be so far increased that they would find
the improvement, as a mere speculation, a very re-
munerative one. If they desire a model to imitate, we
will point out that of the little island of Guernsey.
That island is a granite rock, and has no shores
but the shingly beaches of its bays ; yet it possesses
the best bathing-place in salt water that we ever
saw. IVlien the harbour-works were being con-
structed, a kind of nook or ingle
was set apart
among the rocks for a bathing-place for the male
sex. Here, screened from observation, a' plunge
may be enjoyed into some five or six fathoms of
water, so clear that the long leaves of the bright,
lush alga: may be seen waving about and inviting
the bather, as it were, into their cool retreats. Let
the authorities of our sea-side resorts take example
by this, by providing-bathing-places where the re-
crew ion may be indulged in without infringement
of the laws of decency, and by insisting upon it
that the laws of good manners and decorum be ob-
served, and we promise them that they will find
themselves all the better off for it in the matters of
their custom, and of their rates and taxes.

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