The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-25 00:00:00

BRUIN'S PEACE.

Say, is Old England knave or fool ?
Which evil is the stronger—
Thus to wrap Bruin's claws in wool,
To let them grow the longer !
MARCO.

GRINLING GIBBONS' CARVINGS.

RESTORED BY W. G. ROGERS•

It is a melancholy fact that the exquisite wood
carvings of that Velvet Brueghel of the chisel,
that Michelangelo del Canipidoglio of the wainscot,
Grinling Gibbons—are crumbling to dust upon
the walls of various public churches and private
mansions throughout the United Kingdom. Won-
derful works of art—works of art quite matchless
in their way—these carvings by Gibbons are
perishing (not becoming merely injured, but lite-
rally perishing) at Wollaston, Petworth, Burleigh,
Belton, Chatsworth, Oxford, Windsor, Cambridge,
Cashiobury, Hampton Court, Gosford House,
Lowther Castle, and elsewhere. A little while
longer—and there must be an end to even the
faintest hope of their preservation. A terrible
decay has been slowly consuming their very sub-
stance during upwards of a century and a half—
insects honeycombing the interior, and mildew
spreading insidiously over the exterior, of these
rare and inestimable productions. The destruc-
tive effects of this double disease (from within
and from without) have already so far advanced
in regard to the majority of these same famous
carvings from the chisel of Grinling Gibbons, that
any one on examining into their condition might
reasonably enough suppose that, even now, it were
altogether hopeless to dream of saving them from
total, and apparently inevitable, destruction.
Imagine for instance—some of these most beauti-
ful old " carvellings," masterpieces of artist-
handicraft from the hand that fabricated Lord
Orford's celebrated " point lace knot," once the
pride of Strawberry Hill, and now the property of
Miss Burdett Cutts : imagine for an instant, we
say—some of these •
exquisite carvings by Gib-
bons (festoons of flowers for example like
those preserved among the art-collections of
the Earl of Dchester): imagine these lovely
but ill-fated products of genius, taste, and
ingenuity, so decayed,so worm-eaten, so mildewed,
that a child might crumble them up to dust by
the mere pressure of them between thumb and
finger ! And observe—this is no exaggeration !
The carvings of Grinling Gibbons aro in the vast
majority of instances thus decayed, and worm-
eaten, and mildewed. Light and brittle as poppy-
busks with the gnawing of insects at their interior !
Blooming with a faint whitish superficial bloom by
reason of the outer mildew—a bloom as charming
in its way but 45 fatal ae the hectic of omparap.

tion ! What is that our poet-laureate sings about
the sea-shell in " Maud" ?
See what a lovely shell,
Small and pure as a pearl,
Lying close to my foot,
Frail, but a work divine,
Made so fairily well,
With delicate spire and whorl,
How exquisitely minute,
A miracle of design.
It is, for all the world, just the very image of a
shell, a flower, a fruit, carved " fairily well " in
wood by the magical tools of Grinling Gibbons !
But—mark what Tennyson adds while still musing
over the sea-shell—

Slight, to be crushed with the tap
Of my finger nail on the sand,
Small, but a work divine.
The carvings of Grinling Gibbons still to a T--
this delicate description ! As slight, as fragile—
time has rendered them by reason of the worm
preying at their heart and the mildew deposited
upon their surface. Yet thus perishing, thus
blighted, thus eaten into a honeycomb, these
same wonderful carvings have been proved
to be capable, even now, of the most effec-
tual, the most complete, the most perfect pre-
servation. Several exquisite specimens restored
all but miraculously by Mr. W. G. Rogers—an
artist-carver, thoroughly imbued with a love for
the genius, and an appreciation of the works of
Grinling Gibbons—have within the last two or
three days been on view at No. 54, Strand. They
are specimens from the walls of Belton House, the
domain of the Earl of Brownlow. They repre-
sent " drops" of dead-game, fruit, and flowers.
Originally—before they were touched by Mr.
Rogers—they were in the deplorable condition we
have described. Shaken—they showered down a
cloud of dry powdery dust ! Compressed—they
crumbled into so much fibre, like mere touchwood!
Now—on the contrary—they are firm, hard,
solid ; shining with all the gloss of their first
polish, but dark with the mellow darkness of age
—and so far, at least, we may be certain, more
beautiful than when they first left the workshop-
studio of the Great Carver ! Yet they are strictly,
and literally, and actually the works not of Rogers
—they are strictly, and literally, and actually the
works of Gibbons. The modus operandi of the
restorer may be readily enough described. Impri-
mis he carefully takes photographs (for after guid-
ance and comparison)—photographs of the carvings
prior to their removal from the place where they
have been slowly perishing as very precious but /le-
-1 glected ornaments. Next—he immerses these

worm-eaten carvings bodily in a strong solution
of corrosive sublimate, thereby most successfully
" destroying" the secret cause of " destruction."
Subsequently he restores the original colour to
the wood (lost by the influence first of all of the
mildew, and afterwards of the corrosive subli-
mate), doing this by means of another very simple
chemical application. Thereupon having
adroitly accomplished all this—he most ingeni-
ously imparts strength and body to the fragile
woodwork by injecting into its honeycombed in-
terior, little by little, a magical compound of
vegetable gum and gelatine. Ultimately—to
crown all—putting the separate pieces delicately
together according to the original design of
Grinling Gibbons as preserved in the photograph
—and so—voila tout—here before us is the solid,
substantial, accurate, all but miraculous restora-
tion ! Here and there of course a chipped-off
fragment has to be supplied, but this only when
such an addition is perceived to be absolutely
necessary for the sake of completeness. Yonder
a bunch of primroses—here the claw of a duck
—there two or three of the wing-feathers of a
woodcock. But invariably—at these times where
a positive flaw has to be rectified, or a splinter
repaired—the addition is effected by the restorer
with a wonderfully reverential regard for, the
obvious design of the broken masterpiece. Out
of all which delicate care, and exquisite caution,
and scrupulous and conscientious handling of
these lovely fabrications of the taste and genius
of Grinling Gibbons—there come forth (under
the loving hands of one of the latest and most
successful of Ilia disciples) these marvellous, and
almost magical, and all but miraculous restora-
tions.

TILE NAVAL REVIEW.

-.0.-

The Houses of Parliament—Lords and Commons
—are most genuinely angry, and so much in ear-
nest in their anger, that they are not very parti-
cular whom they fall foul of. And, to say the
truth, one cannot expect that men should be in a
perfectly reasonable state who have just returned
battered and worn, with their wives tired, tattered,
and torn, from a calamitous journey, undertaken
to see a national spectacle, got up for their special
amosement and instruction, but which, after all,
though they were dragged out of their beds at five
o'clock on the one morning, and kept out of them
till six the next morning, they only succeeded
in being too late for. It is very natural, too, that
the faithful Commons should be especially annoyed
and disgusted at the Admiralty treating them with
some parsimony, the practice of which they have
so often forced upon the country, and their tables
on hoard their pleasure steamers spread on the
same pi inciple which they have for years so syste-
matically applied to the public service. The legis-
lative temper could not stand such a practical joke
as this—turning the tables on them by making a
contract with Mr. Quartermaine of Crown and
Sceptre renown for seven shillings and sixpence
a-head for breakfast and dinner. Only bser and
soda water on board the Perseverance and Transit,
while champagne flowed on board the Pacific ; only
cold roast beef and plain roast fowls on the tables
of the former, while those of the latter were covered
with truffied turkeys, and what, in the language of
artistes, are termed the delicacies of the season--
all suppliel in perfection by the same host of the
Crown and Sceptre. It was too much of a joke to
be taken as a good one. Sir Charles Wood has
done wisely to keep himself sheltered at Ports-
mouth during the burst of the Parliamentary
storm.

However, it must be owned, to ire the term
made famous by the paragraph in the Royal Speech
on the battle of Navarino, that the Southampton
business was an "untoward" affair, and we suspect
" the raven down of darkness of Parliament will
take a good deal of stroking before it smiles again."
A personal collision with the House of Commons
the Government may find a much more awkward
affair to manage than a political difference, and we
should not be the least surprised if the house
was to take its revenge to-night by putting an
extinguisher upon the fireworks which have al-
ready made such a splutter and fizzing. It is a
pity that this question of the fireworks, which the
Government has contrived to stumble over, was
not brought under the notice of Parliament in a
different manner. If a member of the Administra-
tion had just come quietly down, and, at the pro-
per time, simply stated that, in accordance with
precedent, it was intended to have a display of
fireworks to celebrate the ratification of the peace,
and that the Board of Works intended to put up a
building in each of the parks for the purpose, the
proposition would have been accepted, as a matter
of course, and nothing, in all probability, would
have been thought or said about the matter. But,
from the mode in which the business has been
(lane, th© Louse has conceived a notion that there
has been an attempt to jockey them, and they are
proportionably angry. There was, no doubt, no
such intention, and steps being taken without first
consulting Parliament was, probably, the result of
simple bungling inadvertence. The awkward part
of the business, however, is that the hesitation
of the house, and the discussion that has ensued
and promises to be continued, has tended to give
a new and untrue aspect to the question ; and the
letting off of these fireworks may come to be con-
sidered as bearing a political significance, and as
' furnishing to Europe an indication of the feelings
of the British people upon the peace. If such an
idea should gain possession of the public mind, it
will create, in all probability, considerable hostility
to the display; for the country, upon the whole, is
not disposed to rejoice in the conclusion of the war.
Reason is satisfied, no doubt, by the peace, in fact
and in terms, but Feeling is not contented. Every,
man must recognise it to be a truth that the Go-
vernmen t would. have been most unjustifiable—nay,
wick ed—to have refused peace when such terms
were offered as have been secured; but a very large
proportion of the population would rather, as a
matter of feeling, that peace had not been tendered,
and that Russia has given us fair occasion to show
in a new campaign what we could do with the com-
plete army and the magnificent navy which has
been organised by the vigour and ability of our
Government. We believe there exists a very ex-
tensive and strong feeling of this character, and
those who entertain it will unquestionably view
with reluctance any display which can be construed
abroad as being an indication of rejoicing that we
are relieved from the burden of continued war.—
Morning Post.

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