Central Literary Magazine. It must be borne in mind that this Magazine is neutral in Politics and Religion; its pages are open to a free expression of all shades of opinion without leaning to any. No. 5. JANUARY, 1884. VOL. VI. In Memoriam: 30bn benry Chamberlain. HERE are many and diverse ways in which the removal by death of a well known and active man may affect those among whom he has lived and worked. Over some the great wave of life closes completely and immediately; they are rather remembered with respect than missed. For others the regret is of a personal character. Their passing is as the passing of a well loved friend, and the doing of their work by other hands, even were it better done, lightens in no wise the sorrow of those whom they have left lonely. Some there are whose death is no less than a public calamity, whose place long remains void, and whose memory lives-if no otherwise-in the bitter need of services no more to be rendered, and help no longer to be had. The loss of Birmingham in John Henry Chamberlain sorrowfully unites the breadth of a public, with the depth of a private grief. It is possible to write calmly now of a blow the suddenness of which bewildered for a time; but a calmer view reveals only more clearly the magnitude of the loss. All who knew Mr. Chamberlain personally, loved him; and they the most who knew him best. All who have any knowledge of the public work of this town miss him; and none are so keenly aware how difficult his place will be to fill, as those who best know what that place really was, and how he filled it. Of the mere incidents of his life, there is little to say. He was born at Leicester on the 26th of June, 1831, the son of a Baptist minister; and received the ordinary educational training of an architect, which, it may safely be said, helped him only in the lower, though necessary, groundwork of his profession. His higher qualifications were inborn and original, and fostered mainly by independent study, in the course of which he not only became thoroughly acquainted with Italian art, but drank deeply from the teaching of Ruskin, to whom he was doubly akin-in the hatred of all shams, and in the power of eloquent expression.. Coming to Birmingham a young man of twenty-five, his earlier works astonished rather than pleased the critics of the day, and, while his personal character made him many friends, his professional reputation was a plant of slower growth. His originality was distinctly indeed in advance of the local art feeling of the time, and in 1864, after eight years of somewhat thankless labour, only the opportune offer of a partnership with Mr. William Martin saved our town from the loss of its most able and characteristic architect. From this time his life was a busy and successful one, and while the nature of his work was such as to give it a lasting prominence, its quality was such as to ensure him an enduring fame. It is not possible, within our limits, to do more than specify a few instances of the various branches of his art in which he has left examples. None, perhaps, are more noteworthy than the Board Schools, with which his name will be always associated; striking proofs of his fertility of resource under ever changing circumstances: always picturesque, and admirably adapted to the purpose for which they were designed. The different edifices which he erected for the Water Works Committee are almost equally remarkable, and are sometimes most singularly happy in their union of utility with real beauty. Among commercial buildings the business premises of Messrs. Chamberlain, King, and Jones (his first work in this way), of Messrs. Marris and Norton, of Mr. Avery, and of the Household Supply Association, are very notable. The house of the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain at Moseley, and his own residence, are but two of many successful private houses due to his skill. Last, not least, we must mention among his public buildings the Central Free Library, and the noble home of the Midland Institute, to which great educational institution he devoted the most unwearied and unselfish labour, and in whose service he may be said to have died. This is but the barest outline of a work which in extent and value might represent the outcome of a long and busy life. It faintly indicates the public loss which his sudden death must mean, but it leaves all untold the many-sided intellectual power which gave him a commanding influence in our town, and the charms of character which endeared him to all who knew him. It must suffice to say, that in him wit, eloquence, and capacity, were blended with untiring industry, and with a most perfect and unselfish modesty. His help was never intruded, and never refused. Beyond comparison the most graceful and winning speaker in Birmingham, his powers were as willingly and frankly exercised for a nascent Debating Society as for a great public meeting. Yet, withal, his keen sensitiveness must have made his public life sometimes a torture; and if ever his sarcasm waxed sharp, we know that it was his own pain which wrung it from him. He died suddenly and peacefully, immediately after delivering to the members of the Institute, which of all public bodies lay nearest to his heart, a lecture which he himself had never surpassed. It was surely, now that we can see it calmly, a death the most honourable, the most desirable, the most happy, which could befal one who had served his fellow men long and well. And for us who are left to mourn him there remains one duty which cannot be neglected, and one memorial to raise to him which we cannot postpone. It is the completion of the good and generous work upon which his grasp never slackened in weariness, but which Providence has taken from his hands. To the Midland Institute he devoted his utmost energies, and his best years; and a Midland Institute, useful, honoured, valued, and freed from debt, will be the true memorial of John Henry Chamberlain. ACHESPE. IN The Leisure of Business Men.* N rising to deliver the short address which the custom of this Association demands from its retiring Presidents, two facts present themselves to my mind with irresistible force. The first is, that nearly twenty years have gone by since I found myself thus addressing a C. L.A. audience in discharge of the same duty; and the second, that of those who listened to me on that occasion there are many present this evening with whom I have walked in pleasant and more or less constant C.L.A. companionship ever since. Twenty years is a large slice out of the working part of a man's life, and if we elders could tell off the mental and moral changes which time has wrought in us as accurately as certain unmistakeable signs mark the development of our physical exteriors, some parts of the recital, at any rate, might prove profitable as well as interesting. Not one of us but in those early days had visions and dreamed dreams concerning the future of himself and his surroundings, which have either been only faintly realised or altogether dispelled. Circumstances have proved stronger than our wills; the logic of facts has slowly but surely overcome the rhetoric of fancy; and now, whatever of wisdom or happiness we may have gained in the interval, we have certainly lost something of our freshness and elasticity and enthusiasm. Journeying along the path of life together, as many of us have done; regularly performing our round of daily duties, and ever and anon coming across each other both within and without the walls of this Association in our search for social and intellectual recreation; we are apt to lose sight of the changes worked in us by time's silent but remorseless machinery since those happy days when the C.L.A. was neither fat nor flourishing, and its members very much to match. But on an occasion like this, almost unique of its kind, when one of us suddenly finds himself just where he was twenty years before, perched up aloft in the peremptory style of old, whether he likes it or not; meeting the same kindly but critical faces, all hoping for the best but fearing the worst; with a sort of lay-sermon to deliver, the begetting of which recalls mental agonies of a bygone time as vividly as though it had been but yesterday—I say, under such circumstances, memory will assert her prerogative; a pondering over the past becomes inevitable; and although I cannot expect you younger members quite to enter into my mood, nor to appreciate the deeper meaning which such retrospect has for some here to-night as well as for myself, you will, at any rate, pardon it as one of the admitted privileges * Being the Presidential Address delivered to the members of the Association, October 12th, 1883. |