The Sun.
London, England, 1854-06-07 00:00:00

LITERATURE,

A Shilling Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park at
Sydenham. George Routledge and Co.
Londoners, and many others besides Londoners,
are perfectly well aware by this time that on Satur-
day next, the 10th of June, 1854, the People's
Palace and Park at Sydenham are to be opened
with all the pomp and ceremony of a royal inau-
guration. It is important news, therefore, for the
majority of the great multitude to hear that there
has already appeared a Shilling Guide to those
wonderful grounds and that marvellous structure.
What, we doubt not, will increase the satisfaction
created by that announcement, is the significant
fact, that this timely Guide to the Crystal Palace
appears, in a great measure, authoritatively—being
the compilation evidently f one eminently quali-
fied to act on the occasion as master of the
ceremonies, interpreter, cicerone, or dragoman.
It is the result manifestly from the first page to
the last, from the " title" to the "finis", from the
preface to the closing paragraph, of no superficial
knowledge of that vast and comprehensive enter-
prise which has elaborated ia the midst of the
verdure of the Surrey Hills, in the bosom of a
beautiful English landscape, what may be termed,
without exaggeration, a veritable microcosm. It
epitomises with admirable lucidity all the wonders
accomplished by the different officers of this cri-
gantic establishment. Everything accomplished,
for example, by Sir Joseph Paxton, as the Director
of the Winter Garden, Park, and Conservatories.
It affords us an opportunity of anticipating through
obvious inferences the brilliant hand-books—
shortly to be given to the world under the super-
vision of Dr. Samuel Phillips, the Director of the
Literary Department. Naturally, we might almost
say inevitably, the public could scarcely fail to have
the highest expectations as to the value and splen-
dour of the Crystal Palace collection—remember-
ing the importance of the names of the men selected
to supervise the labour of its accumulation and
arrangement. The probability of the success which
has already been secured to the whole undertaking
might have been recognised through the names consti-
tuting the Board of Directors—Anderson, Calvert,
Farquhar, Geach, Scott-Russell, Lushington—with
Francis Fuller as Managing Director, and S. Laing,
M.P. for Wick, as chairman. The excellence of the
mechanical part was insured from the outset by the
appointment of Heard Wild, as the engineer. The
loveliness of the interior effects of colouring was ren-
dered at once matter of tolerable certainty by the
association of Owen Jones, and Digby Wyatt, as
the joint-directors of decorations. Professor
Ansted, - moreover, consented to superintend the
arrangement of all the illustrations of natural his-
tory, relating to mining, to geology, and to phy-
sical geography. Beyond all this it cannot be
overlooked even on the most hurried glance
through all the bewildering wonders of the
Crystal Palace, that over its zoological de-
partment there have presided together Forbes,
Gould, and Waterhouse. Neither can
be forgotten that Dr. Latham has watched
over the Ethnological—Wilson over the Agricul-
tural—Thomson over the Natural History—and
Fothergill over the Machinery department.
Nothing indeed would seem to have been over-
looked that could tend to insure to the enterprise
the merit of minute completeness. As testimony of
which we have only to turn over the 200 pages of
this shilling index to the Contents of the Crystal
Palace a cheap and most acceptable guide,
for the issue of which, in the very nick of
time, we are indebted, as usual in such in-
stances, to the enterprise of Mr. George Rout-
ledge. The volume is appropriately enough intro-
duced to the reader by a lively description
of the Great Exhibition of 1851, commemorative
of its most remarkable facts and results. The au-
thor of the Guide, in this introductory portion of
his work, reminds us, agreeably enough under the
circumstances, of the opposition at first raised
against the Great Exhibition, describing soon
afterwards the removal of the building from Hyde-
park, and recounting the occurrences which gradu-
ally led to the ultimate salvation of the Crystal
Palace from destruction. Subsequently the reader
is carried from the pulling down at Hyde-park to
the building up again at Sydenham. Ii this por-
tion of the narrative we are treated to the following
lively account of—

" A TERRIFIC BANQUET IN AN IGUANODON.
" At the lower end of theipark, in a rude and tempo-
rary wooden building, almost inaccessible for deep ruts
and acres of swamp and mud—a miniature Serbunian
bog—Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins was steadily engaged
in the creation or restoration of a series of now extinct
animals, which it would appear were destined to roam,
as in their native state, through the deep Penge
morasses, or bury themselves in the deep excavatioos of
the park. By the close of the last year, Mr. Hawkins
had so far succeeded with the formation of some of the
members of his monster family, as to be in a position to
give effect to a design which he bad for some time pre-
viously contemplated, of giving a dinner to the directors
and stone of his friends within the carcass of one of his
antediluvian monsters. The last day of the old year
(1853) was selected. Accordingly Professors Owen and
Forbes, Mr. Gould, Mr. Francis Fuller, Mr. •Belshaw,
Mr. Ingram, and a number of other gentlemen, as-
sembledto do honour to tte unique and novel enter-
tainment. Twenty-one of theguests were acconirnodated
with seats ranged on each side of the table, within the
sides of the iguanodon. Professor Owen, one of the most
eminent geologists of the day, occupied a seat at the
head of the table, and within the skull of the monster.
Mr. Francis Fuller, the Managing Director, and Pro-
fessor Forbes, were seated ou commodious benches
placed in the rear of the beast. An awning of pink and
white drapery was raised above the hovel banqueting-
nail, and small banners bearing the names ot Cony-
beare, Buckland, Forbes, Owen, Mantell, and other
well-known geologists, gave character and interest to
the scene. When the more substantial viands were dis-
posed of, Professor Owen proposed that the company
should drink in silence " The memory of Mantell, the
discoverer of the iguanodon," the monster in whose
bowels they had just dined.
" The Professor paid an eloquent tribute to the value
of the labours in the wide field of geology and palioonto-
logy of such men as Cuvier, Hunter, and Conybeare. He
told the company how the researches of Cuvier iii com-
parative anatomy had provided the means of reconstruct.
ing an extinct animal almost from a single fossil-bone,
for so perfect was the individuality of species of animals,
and so peculiarly adapted was the construction of their
parts, to the purposes for winch they were des-
tined, that a skilful observer could tell, with the
most perfect accuracy, to what species of animal
any particular bone belonged. The researches of
Hunter had confirmed the theories of Cuvier, and from a
single bone, or a single tooth, Conybeare, Buckland,
and ethers, had succeeded in building up an entire ani-
mal. The beast in which he was then speaking, whose
original had once roamed through the vast forests of
Sussex, had perished there by some great convulsion of
nature ; a single bone was discovered a few years since
by Mantell, and from that fossil-limb the iguanodon had
beencunstructed."
Further on, the writer remarks :
" Many other toasts, and pleasing remarks, beguiled
the hours, till approaching midnight suggested the ap-
propriateness of the guests departing to their more con-
genial homes. Professor Forbes contributed some
verses suitable to the occasion. As the thoughts of the
learned professor have never yet appeared in print, an
apology will be needed for presenting them to the
visitor. The poet-geologist having told how the com-
pany were indebted to the hospitality of Mr. Water-
house Hawkins, for the opportunity of spending the last
day of the old year in an antediluvian dragon,' pro-
ceeded thus to refer to the iguanodon, the ' roaring'
chorus being taken up by the company in a manner so
fierce and enthusiastic as almost to lead to the belief
that a herd of iguanodons were bellowing from some of
the numerous pit-falls iu Penge Park, in which they bad
been entrapped :
" A thousand ages underground
His skeleton had lain ;
But now his body's big and round,
And he's himself again
His bones, like Adam 8, wrapped in clay,
His ribs of iron stout,
Where is the biota alive to-day
That dares with him turn out ? _
Beneath his hide he's got inside
The souls of living men,
Who dare our Saurian now deride
With life in him again ?
(Chorus) The jolly old beast
Is not deceased,
There's life in him again," (A roar.)
And so on, through two more verses, two more
choruses, and two more roarings worthy of iguano-
donouians ! Having listened to the account here
given of the rise and progress of the Crystal
Palace at Sydenham, we follow our guide de-
lightedly through the various Fine Arts Courts of
Exhibition—Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, Assyrian,
German-Gothic' French and Italian-Gothic, Eng_
lish or National, Renaissance, Elizabethan, Italian,
Mediwval, Byzantine and Romanesque—through
the Alhambra, among the Egina Marbles, to the
Colossal Nubian Shrine, into the Italian Vestibule,
along the Great Transept, down the North Nave,
into the Pompeian Court, from end to end of the His-
torical Portrait Gallery, through the Courts of Eng-
lish and German, of French and Italian Sculpture.
Elaborate records are given, moreover, not only of
the terraces, and fountains, and parks, but of the
various illustrations to Natural History and Eth-
nology, and before the close of the work of the
tertiary, secondary, and primary epochs in regard
to the geological islands and their 'antediluvian in-
habitants. Among the most curious portions of
the Guide, however, are those descriptive of.musi-
cal. instruments, printed fabrics, stationery, Bir-
mingham ware, Sheffield cutlery, furniture,
hardware, perfumery, china and glass, pre-
cious metals, leather, India rubber, machinery, and
carriages, all under the head of the Industrial De-
partment. The amount of interesting and valuable
information condensed into the 200 pages of the
Guide before us must be allowed to be really ex-
trao*aary. It oould only have bou guoirwt#4.