From a Cornish Window Part 11

I.--THE WESTMINSTER SCUTORIUM.

Let me begin by a.s.suring the reader that the Westminster Scutorium has absolutely no connection with the famous Aquarium across the road. I suppose that every Londoner has heard, at least, of the Aquarium, but I doubt if one in a hundred has heard of the little Scutorium which stands removed from it by a stone's throw, or less; and I am certain that not one in a thousand has ever stooped his head to enter by its shy, squat, fifteenth-century doorway. It is a fact that the very policeman at the entrance to Dean's Yard did not know its name, and the curator a.s.sures me that the Post Office has made frequent mistakes in delivering his letters. So my warning is not quite impertinent.

But a reader of antiquarian tastes, who cares as little as I do for hypnotisers and fasting men, and does not mind a trifle of dust, so it be venerable, will not regret an hour spent in looking over the Scutorium, or a chat with Mr. Melville Robertson, its curator, or Clerk of the Ribands (_Stemmata_)--to give him his official t.i.tle.

Mr. Robertson ranks, indeed, with the four pursuivants of Heralds'

College, from which the Scutorium was originally an offshoot.

He takes an innocent delight in displaying his treasures and admitting you to the stores of his unique information; and I am sure would welcome more visitors.

Students of Const.i.tutional History will remember that strange custom, half Roman, half Medieval, in accordance with which a baron or knight, on creation or accession to his t.i.tle and dignities, deposited in the king's keeping a waxen effigy, or mask, of himself together with a copy of his coat of arms. And it has been argued-- plausibly enough when we consider the ancestral masks of the old Roman families, the respect paid to them by the household, and the important part they played on festival days, at funerals, &c.--that this offering was a formal recognition of the _patria potestas_ of the monarch as father of his people. Few are aware, however, that the custom has never been discontinued, and that the cupboards of Westminster contain a waxen memorial of almost every man whom the king has delighted to honour, from the Conquest down to the very latest knight gazetted. The labour of modelling and painting these effigies was discontinued as long ago as 1586; and the masks are no longer likenesses, but oval plates of copper, each bearing its name on a label. Mr. Robertson informed me that Charles I. made a brief attempt to revive the old practice. All the Stuarts, indeed, set store on the Scutorium and its functions; and I read in an historical pamphlet, by Mr. J. Saxby Hine, the late curator, that large apartments were allocated to the office in Inigo Jones's first designs for Whitehall. But its rosy prospects faded with the accession of William of Orange. Two years later the custody of the s.h.i.+elds (from which it obtained its name) was relegated to the Heralds' College; and the Scutorium has now to be content with the care of its masks and the performance of some not unimportant duties presently to be recounted.

A reference from the Heralds' College sent me in quest of Mr.

Melville Robertson. But even in Dean's Yard I found it no easy matter to run him to earth. The policeman (as I have said) could give me no help. At length, well within the fourth doorway on the east side, after pa.s.sing the railings, I spied a modest bra.s.s plate with the inscription _Clerk of the Ribands. Hours 11 to 3_.

The outside of the building has a quite modern look, but the architect has spared the portal, and the three steps which lead down to the flagged entrance hall seem to mark a century apiece.

I call it an entrance hall, but it is rather a small adytum, spanned by a pointed arch carrying the legend _Stemmata Quid Faciunt_.

The modern exterior is, in fact, but a sh.e.l.l. All within dates from Henry VI.; and Mr. Robertson (but this is only a theory) would explain the sunken level of the ground-floor rooms by the action of earthworms, which have gradually lifted the surface of Dean's Yard outside. He contends the original level to be that of his office, which lies on the right of the adytum. A door on the left admits to two rooms occupied by the _nomenclator_, Mr. Pender, and two a.s.sistant clerks, who comprise the staff. Straight in front, a staircase leads to the upper-apartments.

Mr. Robertson was writing when the clerk ushered me in, but at once professed himself at my service. He is a gentleman of sixty, or thereabouts, with white hair, a complexion of a country squire, and very genial manners. For some minutes we discussed the difficulty which had brought me to him (a small point in county history), and then he antic.i.p.ated my request for permission to inspect his masks.

"Would you like to see them? They are really very curious, and I often wonder that the public should evince so small an interest."

"You get very few visitors?"

"Seldom more than two a day; a few more when the Honours' Lists appear. I thought at first that your visit might be in connection with the new List, but reflected that it was too early. In a day or two we shall be comparatively busy."

"The Scutorium is concerned then with the Honours' Lists?"

"A little," replied Mr. Robertson, smiling. "That is to say, we make them." Then, observing my evident perplexity, he laughed.

"Well, perhaps that is too strong an expression. I should have said, rather, that we fill up the blanks."

"I had always understood that the Prime Minister drew up the Lists before submitting them to Her Majesty."

"So he does--with our help. Oh, there is no secrecy about it!" said Mr. Robertson, in a tone almost rallying. "The public is free of all information, only it will not inquire. A little curiosity on its part would even save much unfortunate misunderstanding."

"In what way?"

"Well, the public reads of rewards (with which, by the way, I have nothing to do) conferred on really eminent men--Lord Roberts, for instance, or Sir Henry Irving, or Sir Joseph Lister. It then goes down the List and, finding a number of names of which it has never heard, complains that Her Majesty's favour has been bestowed on nonent.i.ties; whereas this is really the merit of the List, that they _are_ nonent.i.ties."

"I don't understand."

"Well, then, _they don't exist_."

"But surely--"

"My dear sir," said Mr. Robertson, still smiling, and handing me his copy of _The Times_, "cast your eye down that column; take the names of the new knights--'Blain, Clarke, Edridge, Farrant, Laing, Laird, Wardle'--what strikes you as remarkable about them?"

"Why, that I have never heard of any of them."

"Naturally, for there are no such people. I made them up; and a good average lot they are, though perhaps the preponderance of monosyllables is a little too obvious."

"But see here. I read that 'Mr. Thomas Wardle is a silk merchant of Staffords.h.i.+re.'"

"But I a.s.sure you that I took him out of _Pickwick_."

"Yes, but here is 'William Laird,' for instance. I hear that already two actual William Lairds--one of Birkenhead, the other of Glasgow-- are convinced that the honour belongs to them."

"No doubt they will be round in a day or two. The Heralds' College will refer them to me--not simultaneously, if I may trust Sir Albert Woods's tact--and I shall tell them that it belongs to neither, but to another William Laird altogether. But, if you doubt, take the Indian promotions. Lord Salisbury sometimes adds a name or two after I send in the List, and--well, you know his lords.h.i.+p is not fond of the dark races and has a somewhat caustic humour. Look at the new C.I.E.'s: 'Rai Bahadur Pandit Bhag Rum.' Does it occur to you that a person of that name really exists? 'Khan Bahadur Naoraji ('Naoraji,' mark you) Pestonji Vakil'--it's the language of extravaganza! The Marquis goes too far: it spoils all verisimilitude."

Mr. Robertson grew quite ruffled.

"Then you pride yourself on verisimilitude?" I suggested.

"As I think you may guess; and we spare no pains to attain it, whether in the names or In the descriptions supplied to the newspapers.

'William Arbuthnot Blain, Esq.'--you have heard of Balzac's scouring Paris for a name for one of his characters. I a.s.sure you I scoured England for William Arbuthnot Blain--'identified with the movement for improving the dwellings of the labouring cla.s.ses'--or is that Richard Farrant, Esq.? In any case, what more likely, on the face of it? 'Frederick Wills, Esq., of the well-known tobacco firm of Bristol'--the public swallows that readily: and yet it never buys a packet of their Westward Ho! Mixture (which I smoke myself) without reading that the Wills's of Bristol are W. D. and H. O.--no Frederick at all."

"But," I urged, "the purpose of this--"

"I should have thought it obvious; but let me give you the history of it. The practice began with William III. He was justly scornful of the lax distribution of honours which had marked all the Stuart reigns. You will hardly believe it, but before 1688 knighthoods, and even peerages, went as often as not to men who qualified by an opportune loan to the Exchequer, or even by presiding at a public feast. (I say nothing of baronetcies, for their history is notorious.) At first William was for making a clean sweep of the Honours' List, or limiting it to two or three well-approved recipients. But it was argued that this seeming n.i.g.g.ardliness might injure His Majesty's popularity, never quite secure. The Scutorium found a way out of the dilemma. Sir Crofton Byng, the then Clerk of the Ribands, proposed the scheme, which has worked ever since.

I may tell you that the undue _largesse_ of honours finds in the very highest quarters as little favour as ever it did. Of course, there are some whose services to science, literature, and art cannot be ignored--the late Lord Leighton, for instance, or Sir George Newnes, or Sir Joseph Lister again; and these are honoured, while the public acclaims. But the rest are represented only in my collection of masks--and an interesting one it is. Let me lead the way."

But I have left myself no s.p.a.ce for describing the treasures of the Scutorium. The two upper stories are undoubtedly the least interesting, since they contain the modern, unpainted masks.

Each mask has its place, its label, and on the shelf below it, protected by a slip of gla.s.s, a description of the imaginary recipient of the royal favour. One has only to look along the crowded shelves to be convinced that Mr. Melville Robertson's office is no sinecure. The first floor is devoted to a small working library and a museum (the latter undergoing rearrangement at the time of my visit). But the cellars!--or (as I should say) the crypt!

In Beaumont's words--

"Here's a world of pomp and state Buried in dust, once dead by fate!"

Here in their native colours, by the light of Mr. Robertson's duplex lantern, stare the faces of the ill.u.s.trious dead, from Rinaldus FitzTurold, knighted on Senlac field, to stout old Crosby Martin, sea-rover, who received the accolade (we'll hope he deserved it) from the Virgin Queen in 1586. A few even are adorned with side-locks, which Mr. Pender, the _nomenclator_, keeps scrupulously dusted.

In almost every case the wax has withstood the tooth of time far better than one could have expected. Mr. Robertson believes that the pigments chosen must have had some preservative virtue. If so, the secret has been lost. But Mr. Pender has touched over some of the worst decayed with a mixture of copal and pure alcohol, by which he hopes at least to arrest the mischief; and certainly the masks in the Scutorium compare very favourably with the waxen effigies of our royalties preserved in the Abbey, close by. Mr. Robertson has a theory that these, too, should by rights belong to his museum: but that is another story, and a long one. Suffice it to say that I took my leave with the feelings of one who has spent a profitable afternoon: and for further information concerning this most interesting nook of old London I can only refer the reader to the pamphlet already alluded to, _The Westminster Scutorium: Its History and Present Uses_. By J. Saxby Hine, C.B., F.S.A. Theobald & Son, Skewers Alley, Chancery Lane, E.C.

This article appeared to my beloved editor innocent enough to pa.s.s, and to me (as doubtless to the reader) harmless enough in all conscience.

Now listen to the sequel.

Long afterwards an acquaintance of mine--a barrister with antiquarian tastes--was dining with me in my Cornish home, and the talk after dinner fell upon the weekly papers and reviews. On _The Speaker_ he touched with a reticence which I set down at first to dislike for his politics.

By and by, however, he let slip the word "untrustworthy."

"Holding your view of its opinions," I suggested, "you might fairly say 'misleading.' 'Untrustworthy' is surely too strong a word."

"I am not talking," said he, "of its opinions, but of its mis-statements of fact. Some time ago it printed an article on a place which it called 'The Westminster Scutorium,' and described in detail. I happened to pick the paper up at my club and read the article. It contained a heap of historical information on the forms and ceremonies which accompany the granting of t.i.tles, and was apparently the work of a specialist.

Being interested (as you know) in these matters, and having an hour to spare, I took a hansom down to Westminster. At the entrance of Dean's Yard I found a policeman, and inquired the way to the Scutorium. He eyed me for a moment, then he said, 'Well, I thought I'd seen the last of 'em.

You're the first to-day, so far; and yesterday there was only five.

But Monday--_and_ Tuesday--_and_ Wednesday! There must have been thirty came as late as Wednesday; though by that time I'd found out what was the matter. All Monday they kept me hunting round and round the yard, following like a pack. Very respectable-looking old gentlemen, too, the whole of 'em, else I should have guessed they were pulling my leg.

Most of 'em had copies of a paper, _The Speaker_, and read out bits from it, and insisted on my searching in this direction and that . . . and me being new to this beat, and seeing it all in print! We called in the postman to help. By and by they began to compare notes, and found they'd been kidded, and some of 'em used language. . . . I really think, sir, you must be the last of 'em.'"

MAY.