JULES JANIN AND THE EXHIBITION.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 570, 1 October 1851, Page 3

JULES JANIN AND THE EXHIBITION.

! M. Jules Janin, the incomparable, unnpproacliable "J. J." of tbe Fiencb feitillrton, the Apollo in stiawcoloured kids, the oiacle of Parisian criticism, is among; us. He visited the Crystal Palace the clay previous to its State opening, and has announced his fiat of appro— | bation in the Journal dcs Debuts. Henceforth we. ire safe. The great critic has sanctioned the G'eat Exposition. We give some samples of the many things be has I to say touching it, which tbe dull English mind could I never have conceived, so exquisitely apt are bis olassic.il allusions, so delicately fanciful his similes, so intensely [ poetical bis line raptures, and so toucbingly profound his sympathetic sensibilities. After describing his I journey to London, he proceeds— " I shall not desciibe my stupor, or more correctly : my awe, diractly I found myself in the mid*t of this immensity and of this tumult, of this smoke, and of this t fog. So many objects moving backwards and forwards*, and the hubbub of so great a city, produced upon ma the effect of a dream. I seemed to be sleeping 1 with my eyes open. Nevertheless, stiange to say, 1 was not | seized witii that utter despair which I have always ex~ i perienced upon finding myself alone, left entirely to I myself in a foreign town ; and whether it was that the I French house, where I found a kindly asylum, or that the anticipated emotion at what 1 was about to see, had protected and guarded me against the first assaults of this despair, I have not much fault to find with my inward frame of mind. And when morning came— a pale and gloomy Aurora, bearing yet in her unkempt hair a few stray Hakes of tbe snow that had fallen on the eve, I emerged biavely from my den, and walked through one or two of the long thoroughfares of the sleeping city. The city slept, wearied with ambition and with toil, drunk with its smoke and with its glory; it slept, as happy nations sleep, when they ate certain to find on their awakening the laws, the habits, the belief, the customs, and the riches of their fathers. Heaven alone and a Hew policemen watched over tbe sleeping city, and meanwhile on all sides, from the farm and the market gaiden, tbe day's provi-ions were on the road. In another moment the whole population will be awake and afoot like one mau ; here" no one halts-,' and pvery one says to himself what M. Arnault said to M. Nicolle when tbe latter advised, him to take a little rest ere death came.-— "Rest," said M. Arnault, "can you think of such a thing, Sir? Have we not all eternity for rest?" "At midday, in a tolerable burst of sunshine, we at last found our way, through the marvellous Hyde Park, to the famous Crystal Palace which is at this moment the greatest rendezvous of the whole world. In .spite of oneself, on approaching this solemn meeting-place of the results of so many and such various labours, one is seized with that deep and painful emotion which overcomes the spirit of man at the approach of some portentous event. * * At one step you are in the midst of that glorious transept, which is like the vault of the Pantheon— save that the summit of tliia Pantheon is lost in the depths of the blue j>ky, and admits into the area which it shelters the light and heat of the day. On either side of 'bis aerial vault— to your right, to your left, above your bead, and at your feetappear the zones, the latitudes, the spaces, the deserts, the sands, and the oases of this chaos of machines, of enterprises, of miracles in which by degrees a certain order is seen to prevail. Industry, also, in its turn, baa fixed upon its word of command and its point of departure ; in the depth of these abysses she has proclaimed, with a commanding voice, 'Let there be light,' and there was light; and among these caravans, hastening from every quarter of the civilized universe, there have established themselves an order, a disposition, an uniform law, a harmony, and correspondence so complete that they seem like the several parts of some great poem, sprung from the brain of one great man. Fernet opus! The work grows and advances with giant steps. You hare seen in the warm ram of the month of March the bare tree clothe itself in one day with budding leaves j it seems as though we actually saw the verdure grow. Well, so in the Crystal Palace is seen to spring up on all the walls, at the corner of every avenue, a crop of splendid works swathed but a few moments back in the Holland and brown paper of the bale maker. It is tbe effect of the magician's wand, and the French portion is especially remarkable for the ease and rapidity with which the wand is obeyed. '1 he space, which but now was empty, when you pass a second time you find filled by France. She waited till the last moment— her invariable custom— and then went a-bead. At thi« very moment— and I have just left the spot— nothing is done on our side, nothing is ready, and yet nobody appeals anxious, so certain is it that we shall be ready to-mor-row. This is our strength. And it is our motto, 1 toujonrs prets ! ' The most complete branch ot tbe Exhibition at tbe present moment is the American 5 it is complete ; it is largely and solidly established. Order reigns in the American exhibition ; but it is open to one objection — namely, the want of objects to exhibit. The Americans have sent, among other productions (I don't speak of raw productions for certain reasons), a qi eat number of wigs and of beaver bats > among other hats were shown those of the famous hatter, Genin, celebrated throughout the universe for having purchased, at the highest possible price, the first ticket for the first concert of Jenny Lmd. Such is glory-— the greatness of a name i To purchase a great name for l2oof. — su(A is happiness. "I say nothing of the English Exhibition ; it is truly formidable ; firm at its post, England is represented by a swarm of machines formidable even when at rest. There are printing-presses striking off 7000 copies an hour, and men are astounded beforehand at the results which must flow in the luture. One novelty worthy of interest is, that all these machines, now motionless, will, at a given signal, all begin working. These powers are placed upon a flooring, beneath which flooring circulates the powerful spirit of these inanimate wheels, and the same breath will soon have marked out the work to be done. Quite a novel effect in my eyes is the name of each nation in&cubed in the national language of the people who -have hastened to join in these great jousts. Russia and Poland here cease to speak the same lano ire. ua Germany and Spam have used the alphabet proper to each ; and we may read in a fair Gieek character the inscription of Athenian manufacturers. Athens a place of trade! Ye Gods and Goddesses! That Athens should send her scarfs and tissues to the same spot where the impeiishable marbles of the Parthenon languish beneath a cloud-veiled sky I Who had predicted this of the country of Homer and Phidias ! " Not fax fiom the trade of Gieece stands the art of : Turkey. Your Tuik is indeed an artist. Ife addresses himself to the eye •, that which he is curious of above all is splendour and richness; the useful he leaves to England, the graceful, to Fiance. He believes in embroidery, in purple, in pearls and diamonds ! He would give all the coals of England for the famous Koh-i-noor —the Mountain of Light ; I have seen him, this honest 1 Turk, seated in melancholy wise within his little compartment, full of amber, musk, and carpets, his eyes ' half-closed, and in the attitude of resignation. Doubtless he asks himself what on earth has. brought Uim Ueie amid the infidels, among Christians, Protestants, Jews, idolators, lenegades — the new prophets and the old prophets of ecu nation. To what end has he been dragged into this stiife? He would measure his strength with, no man ! Why show him your inventions and your machinery 1 He wants them not ; he will have nothing I to do with them. He leaves us our looms, our hammers, our anvils, together with the necessities implied in all these various labours. What is steam to him 1 .— has he ' not his sun, his wine, his opium, his newspaper, his dreams, his poetry, his tobacco 3. ■ "Alas, worthy individual, he is at the pi esent moment deprived of the everlasting festival of his thoughts and of his life. Etiquette and custom have torn from his hands his faithful companion, his graceful dispenser of the grateful vapour, his counsellor and hospitable friend —his pipe ! 'On ne funia pas ici'— such is the law of ibis caravanserai of human industry ; and that each nation may be advised thereof, it is written in every language ' On ne fume pas ici,' 'No smoking allowed, ' Nou c permesao di fumare,' <uul so on to the end ; and the poor Tui k has been constrained to obey. It is trod 0 will ! It w the will of the Englishman ! X the Exposition of Industry h.ive us maityrs, this suieiy is one " In the finest phce in the tianscpt, between the two trees, buried in a massive gioup of ihodoclendia and fresh blown roses, rises the throne of hei Majesty the Queen. On each side of tbe tin one spnngs up a jet of water descending into a maible basin ; a range of statues foims both an avenue and a coihge; au amphitheatre of

benches covered with relvet await the spectators of this festival, which is about to render illustrious the month of May ; the month of May, so dear to merry England — a month, as I conceive, celebiated rather from a feeling of friendship than gratitude. The month of May is loved bert* as we love those beauties of the mind, and of our juvenile days, which we have npver seen, and which smile on us frcm distant ages — Aglai'a, the youngest^ of the Graces, LaYs Lasthenia, Tyndaris, and the three vernal Graces whom the poet Horace saw dancing be,neath the gentle beams of the May moon, and whom the poet Thackeray sang this very morning in the Times:— • Gratia cum nymphis geminisque sororitms audet, ' Ducere nuda choros., <( To-morrow comes the Queen, surrounded (another marvel) with all the splendours of her throne nnd all -the majesty of a secular crown. She will come, and we shall hear that glorious hymn resound which the fortunate nations addressed to the sons of the gods, as La Bruyere used to say. Already, yesterday the Queen cam© incognita; and thus, without ceremony, came the other day to the Exposition another Queen, the Queen of that great French nation, who loved her to adoration, and who nevertheless allowed her to depart — the King and her, her husband and her children, and her chidren's childien. Oh, august Queen ! She has remained to us, and to the end she will be our Queen. All saluted her as she passed. Every head was bent in the presence of that benevolent Majesty and before that more than human courage. It has been said, however, that in the ciowd one or two voices, hoarse with gin, attempted to murmur the Maneillaise. Indignation silenced them, and contempt chastised them. Yesterday, too, an assemblage of those emigrants who, every morning abandon their country and seek their bread in distant lands presented themselves at the gates of the Exposition. The gates wrrc opened and these old men and these children — this wretchedness and these tears — these rags and this wandering youth, will have had a glimpse at least, ere they quit their nativesoil.of these accumulated marvels which not one of us living in this exhausted century will ever see again. Was it benevolence, or was it cruelty to show these unfortunate wretches a spectacle resplendent with such witnesses of greatness whey they are about to murmur on the banks of some unknown Euphrates the plaintive elegy which is sung with bleeding hearts -and streaming eyes because we • remember Zion.