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THE ARTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Series Editor
Nancy Kindelan
Department of Theatre
Northeastern University
Boston, MA, USA
More information about this series at
https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14452
Samantha Broadhead
Editor
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Sam Broadhead, Carole Broadhead, Percy Whiteley, and Rosaline
Whiteley; they dedicated their working and caring lives for the benefit of
their families so that they too could have happy, productive futures.
Foreword: Arts Education Social
Justice Praxis
It is hard. It is hard when you are utterly passionate about an area of edu-
cation (practice-based art and design education) and it feels under attack
from so many angles. Read this book to understand the many challenges
facing arts higher education. These challenges cut across funding, pro-
posed student number caps, policies that have reduced the numbers of
young people doing practice-based art and design subjects at school and
government measures that seek to measure ‘poor value’ degrees by mea-
suring graduate earnings across different disciplines.
What do we do in response to this attack on art and design education?
The danger is that collectively we can feel ‘on the back foot’ feeling mis-
understood, defensive or defeatist about the policy attack on art and
design education. Certainly, I have felt like this at times. But perhaps there
is another response and this is what you will find set out in this book.
The authors in this edited collection interrogate and probe the many
challenges encountered in arts higher education with a focus on social
justice and widening participation. The contributing authors nuance the
implications of different policy agendas. Some of the authors situate our
UK context into the wider field of play to see what we can learn adopting
a more global lens.
So what next? What do those of us who are passionate about the per-
sonal, collective, and societal benefits and contribution of an arts educa-
tion do? This book points to the ways we can do the work. It shows us
how we can assert with confidence the value of an emancipatory art and
design education. The authors and editors do not shy away from the chal-
lenges faced within art and design education that can serve to narrow
vii
viii FOREWORD: ARTS EDUCATION SOCIAL JUSTICE PRAXIS
Conclusion
In 2017 Alison Shreeve and I (Orr & Shreeve, 2017) published a book in
which we set out a theory entitled The Pedagogy of Ambiguity in Art and
Design Higher Education. I often reflect on our book and its key premise
in light of the uncertainty thrown at us in the pandemic. When we wrote
this book I am not sure we considered just how uncertain and ambiguous
the future was. I say this as a reminder that arts education has so much to
offer across wider territories. For example, managing uncertainty—which
is core to studio-based education—is a valued attribute for any student
regardless of the discipline they study.
Clearly there are strong economic arguments for arts education in the
UK—for example, UK’s Creative Industries contribute almost £13 mil-
lion to the UK economy every hour and new statistics tell us that the
Creative Industries are growing more than five times faster than the
national economy (DCMS, 2020). But there is a wider point to be made
that goes to the heart of our humanity—to misquote the famous phrase:
the sciences help us live longer, the arts make us want to live longer.
I want to finish by citing the words of Dr Dori Tunstall who edited a
recent edition of the journal Art, Design and Communication in Higher
Education. Tunstall called for:
I would argue that this book offers an eloquent and important response
to Tunstall’s call.
References
British Educational Research Association (BERA). (2018). BERA statement on
close-to-practice research. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/bera-statement-
on-close-to-practice-research. Accessed 27 Oct 2021.
Dept for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). (2020). UK’s creative indus-
tries contributes almost £13 million to the UK economy every hour. https://www.
gov.uk/government/news/uks-creative-industries-contributes-almost-13-
million-to-the-uk-economy-every-hour. Accessed 15 Nov 2021.
Orr, S., & Shreeve, A. (2017). Art and design pedagogy in higher education:
Knowledge, values and ambiguity in the creative curriculum. Routledge.
Tunstall, D. (2021). Guest editor introduction. Art Design and Communication
in Higher Education, 20(1), 3.
Preface
One of the motivations for compiling this book was to recognise the work
educators have done in promoting equity, diversity, and inclusion in arts
higher education. It seems that many higher education institutions are
structured in such a way that access and widening participation work is
often carried out by specialist practitioners working in discrete depart-
ments rather than embedding those practices within subject/discipline
areas. The expertise of access and widening participation practitioners
should be recognised and valued. However, there are also other profes-
sionals who can contribute valuable insights on access and widening par-
ticipation in arts higher education. This book includes the work of
educational leaders and arts academics who address educational social jus-
tice issues in their own practice and research.
Another motivation was the concern that arts curricula nationally and
globally appear to be diminishing. Due to a strategic focus by policy mak-
ers on science and technology, the opportunities for studying the arts may
narrow. The danger is that the arts will be open only to those privileged
students who do not perceive the arts as a risky career path. Arguments
about the value of arts education for individuals, the cultural industries,
and wider society do not seem to be heard by those in power. Students
from under-represented backgrounds who decide to study in higher edu-
cation are faced with a substantial financial cost and do not necessarily
have an economic ‘safety net’ from families to fall back on. So they need
to think carefully about choosing an arts education. Educators should
ensure that students who do choose the arts have a valuable and meaning-
ful learning experience where they feel stretched and included.
xi
xii PREFACE
xiii
Praise for Access and Widening Participation in Arts
Higher Education
“This is an opportune, thorough, and insightful book that considers access to arts
education from a multitude of perspectives, describing factors influencing access,
participation, and progression into related careers and their intersections. The
wealth of experience of the authors means the finer details of personal, political,
and pedagogical barriers are illuminated alongside an evident passion and care for
arts education that is vital at this moment of threat. A must read for educators,
widening participation practitioners, and those with an interest in seeing the arts
thrive!”
—Emily Towler, Plus Programme Lead Officer, University of Leeds
Contents
1 Introduction 1
Samantha Broadhead
xvii
xviii Contents
11 Concluding Thoughts225
Samantha Broadhead
Glossary235
Index247
Notes on Contributors
xix
xx NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
xxiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Samantha Broadhead
S. Broadhead (*)
Leeds Arts University, Leeds, UK
e-mail: sam.broadhead@leeds-art.ac.uk
The authors represented in this book share common values and beliefs
about the importance of the arts to society in general. For example, there
should be a diversity of cultures referenced within arts higher education
and opportunities to study these should be inclusive. At the same time the
authors wish to safeguard against the danger that the arts speak only to the
privileged because only the dominant culture’s forms, knowledge and
practices flourish. Having access to and being able to participate in mean-
ingful arts education should be possible for all who wish to pursue their
creative aspirations (InSEA, 2021). A diversity of students, creative prac-
tices, pedagogies and contexts can enrich the arts leading to lively
innovation.
These aims are not easily achieved due to a range of social disadvantages
experienced by some groups and a perception by prospective students and
their families that an arts education can lead to a precarious career
(Elzenbaumer & Giuliani, 2014; Bale et al., 2020). The decision to study
an arts subject at undergraduate level means that students have to think
carefully about financial risk, but also risks to their identities and the atti-
tudes of family and friends. When students successfully enrol onto a for-
mal arts course it could also be argued that the arts curricula they
experience may be too narrow, not reflecting the artistic interests of people
from different social groups (Freedman et al., 2013). Also, sometimes the
pedagogies and assessment strategies employed by courses benefit some
students and disadvantage others thus perpetuating inequality (Broadhead
& Gregson, 2018). Specialist languages related to arts education may also
be exclusionary especially when employed to support particular
1 INTRODUCTION 3
pedagogies from the ‘art school’ tradition (Broadhead & Gregson, 2018;
Bernstein, 1975).
Educational policy makers are also concerned that a career in the arts is
precarious and not likely to lead to a highly paid career. This is problem-
atic for those wishing to increase access and participation in the arts higher
education. Burke (2002) pointed out that the neoliberal and instrumental
context of higher education strives for increased access for under-
represented groups because of a possible economic benefit for the indi-
vidual, communities and nation states. The focus on graduate outcomes in
terms of financial success means that engagement in the arts could be seen
as a risk by students and policy makers. The consequence of this is the
rhetoric around arts courses being of low value and quality. These negative
discourses around the arts have culminated in the UK government consid-
ering restricting the numbers of arts students because they may enter
careers that do not pay large enough salaries to pay back their student
loans (Fazackerley, 2021). At the same time the grant funding for creative
arts degree courses in England has been cut (Weale, 2021). Thus, those
students without secure resources such as the required cultural, social and
economic capitals are disadvantaged in accessing arts higher education
where opportunities to study are diminishing.
Any definition of the arts can be problematic as new art forms and arts-
based knowledge are continuously being created, testing, stretching and
breaking disciplinary boundaries (Adajian, 2018).
The arts disciplines addressed include creative writing, visual arts and
popular music.
The primary focus of the content is about the education of arts produc-
ers. However, the arts also involve the imagination and reception of critics,
audiences, consumers and viewers. Nairne expresses the diversity of arts
practices and how important it is for people to have access to the arts:
Culture and art are a lifeblood for people both as individuals and as part of
communities. Whether enjoying a visit to a museum or art gallery, singing
in a choir, listening to extraordinary musicians, reading poetry or relishing
the excitement of street performance, this is a part of what makes life worth-
while. (Nairne in Arts Council, 2013, p. 18)
Higher education has a role in making the arts available to people, through
educating creatives, but also through supporting artistic production that
has an impact beyond academia. There is another role for developing a
critical appreciation of the arts not only as a possible profession but as part
of living a good life (InSEA, 2021). Graduates who decide to work in the
cultural industries will find inequalities in terms of gender, age, race, class
and disability that pervade the sector (Banks, 2017; Burger & Easton,
2020). A lack of diversity in the creative professions that are well paid and
of high status is not something that can be easily addressed; however,
attending to the homogeneity of successful arts graduates would be an
important step forward.
mathematics (STEM) subjects (Payne & Hall, 2018; Furniss et al. 2020).
Policy directions such as accountability measures, funding cuts, curricu-
lum narrowing and the erosion of the arts teaching profession have
impacted the numbers of students studying subjects like music and the
visual arts (Bath et al., 2020; Clarke & McLellan, 2021). The introduc-
tion in 2011 of the English baccalaureate certificate (EBacc) has been
detrimental to the arts (Thomson et al., 2020; Bath et al., 2020; Fautley,
2019; Johnes, 2017; Neumann et al., 2016). This is because, “both stu-
dents and schools are assessed by examination in given subjects, this
standards-based model contributes to an imbalance in the status of differ-
ent curricular subjects” (Lilliedahl, 2021, p. 2). Lilliedahl (2021) claims
that the arts are not perceived as being core subjects such as mathematics
and English.
Lilliedahl (2021) also argues that the decline in arts education is a
transnational phenomenon, citing, “in the US, both the 2001 No Child
Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the 2009 Race to the Top (RTTT) legisla-
tion have had a negative impact on the relative status of the arts” (p. 2).
Neumann et al. (2020) suggest that young people are guided or nudged
towards choosing subjects that are considered valuable educational knowl-
edge policy makers such as science and away from courses such as the arts
that are deemed not as important in filling skills gaps or progressing to
professional and managerial careers. In addition to these policy issues
there are also social and cultural reasons why some groups of students are
less likely to choose arts subjects during their secondary education
(Thomson et al., 2020; UKADIA, 2021).
The narrowing of the talent pool has been identified by United
Kingdom Arts and Design Institutions Association (UKADIA)’s (2021)
research on the take up of creative GCSEs and A-levels. It has found that
the most advantaged in society are most likely to hold an arts qualification
at level 3 and therefore eligible to study in higher education. They are
more likely to apply to take a degree-level qualification in the creative arts.
Conversely, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to
hold more than one arts qualification and are also far less likely to apply to
do an arts degree.
6 S. BROADHEAD
support and student loans) and the regulatory drive towards equality of
opportunity.
Language plays an important role in how inequalities are thought
about. Some of the terminologies used by regulating bodies that influence
how institutions and educators talk and think about social justice issues
have been contested. For example, the OfS may ask for ‘attainment’ data
which is information about degree outcomes for students. In 2019–20,
there was a difference of 18.3 percentage points between the proportion
of white and black students getting a first or upper-second degree classifi-
cation (OfS, 2021). It has been argued that ‘attainment’ implies a fault or
deficit in the students when the disparity is due to structural racism
(Jankowski, 2020). Therefore ‘award’ or awarding gap is preferred by
widening participation practitioners and researchers.
and higher education institutes, with the aim of promoting craft and mak-
ing to the next generation. They introduced school children to textiles’
skills and materials they would not have gained in a school curriculum; the
textile work that was generated was then exhibited in an arts university
(Wadkin & Pratt, 2018).
These programmes are working to close participation gaps; however,
non-continuation and awarding gaps in art higher education need to be
addressed by interventions that are realised within institutions, depart-
ments, disciplines and courses.
Section Overview
The main body of this book is divided into five parts, comprising two
introductory and contextual chapters followed by four sections The con-
tent refers to some of the areas of concern noted by the OfS where black
students, adult learners/mature students and those with disabilities are
not well served by higher education. Much of the work that underpins the
book can be described as close-to-practice research which was defined by
BERA (2018) as research that “focusses on issues defined by practitioners
as relevant to their practice, and involves collaboration between people
whose main expertise is research, practice, or both”. The contributors may
have various concurrent roles such as educator, researcher, creative practi-
tioner, widening participation manager or senior leader.
The first section discusses the global context in which access and widening
participation work operates and how the arts are positioned within this con-
text. The second part considers critically leadership and management
approaches to addressing gaps in participation, non-continuation and
achievement. Various approaches to Access education that are situated inter-
nally and externally to universities are evaluated in part three. Supporting arts
students with dyslexia is explored in part four. The final part examines the
work of educators who argue that arts knowledge and language have exclu-
sionary and inclusionary influences on students from diverse backgrounds.
Global Context
The focus of this book is on arts higher education within the UK which is
informed by the different policies and approaches adopted by England
and the devolved nations (Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland).
However, access and widening participation in creative arts higher
1 INTRODUCTION 11
learners to progress onto their chosen course of study without the entry
requirements of A-levels or, in Scotland, Higher and Advanced Higher
qualifications. They first consider those Access courses delivered in further
education which are referred to as Access to HE Diplomas (AHEDs). As
a level 3 credit-based qualification for students wishing to go to university,
the AHED makes the intended aim of progression explicit in its title. The
various AHEDs are specialised, for example law, medical sciences, educa-
tion and social sciences, but they do share a generic modular structure and
centralised regulation. This study considers the effectiveness of AHED
(art and design).
Broadhead and Macleod then describe a second approach that is prac-
ticed by those Access programmes delivered in higher education institu-
tions (HEIs). These bespoke and localised university programmes share a
number of common features. They are situated within individual HEIs
and facilitate internal progression to their own undergraduate degrees.
They build on the students’ life experiences in order to develop study skills
and preparedness for study but do not necessarily have the level of speciali-
sation that AHEDs have (Hudson, 2019).
These two forms of Access provision are compared and evaluated; one
is nationally recognised and delivered in English further education col-
leges. The other is a bespoke course tailored to meet the needs of an indi-
vidual university. A case study of Access in a prestigious Scottish university
is employed to compare with the English AHED.
Secondly, another manifestation of Access provision, offered by the
Open University, is considered. Butcher and Clarke point out that despite
the plethora of research on widening participation to higher education in
the UK over the last 20 years, access to the arts has remained relatively
under-explored. This ‘absence’ of the arts from national and sector dis-
course is compounded in relation to adult learners and those requiring
flexible routes into higher education.
Butcher and Clarke (Chap. 6) explore the challenges faced by a group
of part-time mature students, a group increasingly disappearing from uni-
versity study, whose needs are rarely mentioned in institutional Access and
Participation Plans and are virtually invisible in widening participation
policy at a national level. Yet there is increasing evidence, particularly in
the times of COVID-19 bringing redundancy, re-evaluation of life and
career opportunities and more online tuition at campus-based universities,
that students are still electing to study the arts and are doing so in increas-
ing numbers and across all age groups.
14 S. BROADHEAD
design students are excluded from dyslexia discourse and therefore the
additional support provided for dyslexic learners via the disabled students
allowance (DSA). Davies takes a critical look at Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
testing in relation to dyslexia assessment and conducts a textual analysis of
dyslexia support charities in order to argue that dyslexia support is repre-
sented as a mainly white space.
In Chap. 8 Tobias-Green interrogates writing in some of its many man-
ifestations, notably writing as an academic, assessed and measurable out-
come, and writing as a form of fluid and imaginative communication.
Tobias-Green questions dyslexia both as a fixed and medicalised model
and as a social model. She problematises dyslexia more widely than simply
as definitions and causes by looking at its constructions and its effects and
its shifting relationship to the lives of writers with dyslexia in an arts insti-
tution and—more broadly—to others who seek to forge a writing life.
Tobias-Green employs a post-humanist ‘thinking with theory’ approach
and acknowledges the critical disability perspective, both of which open up
the relevance of her radical pedagogy to under-represented groups and to
those who might be regarded as mainstream.
Tobias-Green disrupts ideas around both institutional power and con-
structs of the art institution and examines how these relationships interact
with and create each other. The ways in which Tobias-Green actively uses
ideas relating to place, space and materials and theories can be transported
to many institutions, amongst policy makers and educators as well as
individuals.
The final section of the book comprises the work of two authors who con-
sider both the exclusionary and potentially inclusive aspects of specialist
arts languages and knowledge.
Huxtable, as part of Chap. 9, explores the barriers to accessing a music
education. The analysis of entry requirements for undergraduate educa-
tion music courses reveals a demand for high-level music theory skills and
instrumental grade attainment relating to theoretical understanding of
score notation. Huxtable argues that modes of institutional capital relating
to theoretical music skills represent an exclusive and excluding form of
implicit discrimination (Daubney et al., 2019). These conspire to create
16 S. BROADHEAD
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1 INTRODUCTION 21
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CHAPTER 2
Laura da Costa
Introduction
Widening participation in higher education has international, national,
and localised manifestations. It is enshrined in the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals, with the aim that by 2030, “all women
and men have equal access to high quality, affordable technical, vocational
and tertiary education, including university” (United Nations, n.d.).
This chapter explores the global context of widening participation in
creative arts higher education through the policy model of neoliberalism.
From a global perspective, widening participation in higher education
more generally has been linked to economic prosperity by supplying a
workforce with high-level skills and knowledge. The neoliberal paradigm
conceptualises higher education as benefiting the individual, contributing
L. da Costa (*)
Leeds Arts University, Leeds, UK
e-mail: laura.dacosta@leeds-art.ac.uk
The British nation has just had one of its grand spontaneous
holidays—a holiday so universal and unanimous that imagination is
at a loss where to find that surprised and admiring spectator whose
supposed presence heightens ordinary festivities by giving the
revellers a welcome opportunity of explaining what it is all about.
There is not a peasant nor a babe within the three kingdoms which
has not had his or its share in the universal celebration, and is not as
well aware as we are what the reason is, or why every sleeper in
England was roused on this chill Tuesday morning by the clangour of
joy-bells and irregular (alas! often thrice irregular) dropping of the
intermittent feu-de-joie, with which every band of Volunteers in
every village, not to speak of great guns and formal salutes, has
vindicated its British rights—every man for himself—to honour the
day. We are known as a silent nation in most circumstances, and a
nation grave, sober-minded, not enthusiastic; yet, barring mountains
and moors, there is not a square mile of British soil in any of the
three kingdoms in which the ringing of joyful bells, the cheers of
joyful voices, have not been the predominating sound from earliest
dawn of this March morning. Labour has suspended every exertion
but that emulation of who shall shout the loudest and rejoice the
most heartily. If there was any compulsion in the holiday, it was a
pressure used by the people upon a Government which has other
things to do than invent or embellish festivals. We have insisted
upon our day’s pleasuring. We have borne all the necessary expenses,
and taken all the inevitable trouble. Is it sympathy, loyalty, national
pride? or what is it? It is something embracing all, yet more simple,
more comprehensive, more spontaneous than either: it is a real
personal joy which we have been celebrating—the first great personal
event in the young life which belongs to us, and which we delight to
honour. The Son of England receives his bride in the sight of no
limited company, however distinguished, but of the entire nation,
which rejoices with him and over him without a dissentient or
discontented voice. Our sentiments towards him are of no secondary
description. It is our wedding, and this great nation is his father’s
house.
His father’s house—not now is the time to enlarge upon these
words, nor the suggestions of most tender sadness, the subduing
Lenten shadow upon the general joy which they convey, and which is
in everybody’s mind. It is the house of his Mother whom her people
have come to serve, not with ordinary tributes of loyalty, but with
intuitions of love. England has learned to know, not what custom
exacts or duty requires towards her Royal Mistress, but, with a
certain tender devotion which perhaps a nation can bear only to a
woman, to follow the thoughts, the wishes, the inclinations of her
Queen. Something has come to pass of which constitutional
monarchy, popular freedom, just laws, offer no sufficient
explanation. The country is at one with the Sovereign. A union so
perfect has come about by degrees, as was natural; and the heart of
the race which expanded to her in natural sympathy, when, young
and inexperienced, she ascended the throne, has quickened gradually
into a warmer universal sentiment than perhaps has ever been felt
for a monarch. We use the ancient hyperboles of loyalty with
calmness in this island, knowing that they rather fall short of the fact
than exceed it. It is barely truth to say that any trouble or distress of
Hers affects her humble subjects in a degree only less acute than
their own personal afflictions; and that never neighbour was wept
over with a truer heart in the day of her calamity than was the Queen
in hers by every soul of her subjects, great and small. Intense sorrow
cannot dwell long in the universal bosom; but the country, not
contented with rendering its fullest tribute of grief for the lost, has
dedicated many an occasional outbreak of tears through all these
months to that unaccustomed cloud which veiled the royal house.
And now it is spring, and the purest abstract type of joy—young love
and marriage—comes with strange yet sweet significance in Lent, to
open, as we all hope, a new chapter in that household history in
which we are so much concerned. With all the natural force of
revulsion out of mourning, with all the natural sympathy for that
visible representation of happiness in which men and women can
never refuse to be interested, there has mingled, above all, a wistful
national longing “to please the Queen.” Curiosity and interest were
doubtless strongly excited by the coming of the bride—but not for the
fair Danish Princess alone would London have built itself anew in
walls of human faces, and an entire community expended a day of its
most valuable time for one momentary glimpse of the sweet girlish
countenance on which life as yet has had time to write nothing but
hope and beauty. The sentiment of that wonderful reception was but
a subtle echo of our Lady’s wish, lovingly carried out by the nation,
which is her Knight as well as Subject. To hide our dingy London
houses, we could not resort to the effective tricks with which skilful
French hands can make impromptu marble and gold: but we did
what art and genius could never attempt to do—what nothing but
love could accomplish; we draped and festooned and clustered over
every shabby line of architecture with a living illumination of English
faces, all glowing and eager not only to see the new-comer, but to
show the new-comer, what no words could ever tell her, that she
came welcome as a daughter to that heart of England in which,
without any doubt or controversy, the Mother-Monarch held a place
more absolute than could be conquered by might or won by fame. Let
us not attempt to read moral lessons to the princely lovers, who, it is
to be hoped, were thinking of something else than moralities in that
moment of their meeting, and were for the time inaccessible to
instruction; but without any moral meaning, the sentiment which
swayed the enthusiastic multitude on the day of the Princess
Alexandra’s arrival was more like that of a vast household, acting
upon the personal wish of its head, than a national demonstration
coldly planned by official hands. The Queen, who sat at her palace
window in the soft-falling twilight, looking out like any tender
mother for the coming of her son and his bride, till the darkness hid
her from the spectators outside, gave the last climax of truth and
tenderness to that welcome, which was no affair of ceremony, but a
genuine universal utterance of the unanimous heart.
Loyalty seems an inherent quality in our race; but it has been a
loyalty of sections up to the present time, whenever it has been at all
fervent or passionate. It has been reserved for Queen Victoria to
make of it a sentiment as warm as in days of tumult, as broad as in
times of peace. So thoroughly has she conquered the heart of the
nation, that it seems about time to give up explaining why. To those
who have been born under her rule, and even to her own
contemporaries, a pure Court and a spotless royal life appear no
exceptional glories, but the natural and blessed order of things; and
we love her, not consciously because of her goodness, but only for
love’s own royal reason, because we love her. Nothing can happen of
any moment in those royal rooms where so very small a number of
her people can ever dream of entering as guests, without moving the
entire mass of her people with a sentiment only second, as we have
already said, to immediate personal joy or grief. It is this alone that
can explain the extraordinary rejoicings of this day. We keep the
feast not by sympathy in another’s joy, but by positive appropriation
of a joy which is our own. The wedding has, in fact, been celebrated
in the presence of all England, with unanimous consent and
acclamation of the same. With blessings and tears, with
immeasurable good wishes, hopes, and joyful auguries, we have
waited at the princely gates to send the Bride and Bridegroom upon
their way. Speak it in audible words, oh Princes and Poets! Echo it in
mighty tones of power, oh awful cannons and voices of war, which
deal no death in England,—sound it forth over all the world and
space in inarticulate murmurous thunders, oh unanimous People!
Let the Mother smile among her tears to hear how every faithful soul
of her true subjects honours her children; and then let there be
silence in the midst of all—silence one moment, and no more, for the
missing Voice which would have made the joy too perfect—
“Nor count me all to blame, if I
Conjecture of a stiller guest,
Perchance, perchance among the rest,
And though in silence wishing joy.”
And now the thing we wish for most to complete our rejoicing is, if
we could but have some spectator worthy the sight, to see all our
great towns blazing up to heaven, and every village glimmering over
“beneath its little lot of stars,” with all the lights it can gather. A
group of sympathetic angels fanning the solemn airs of night with
grand expanded wing and flowing garments, watching the great and
strange marvel of a nation wild with joy, would be pleasant to think
of at this moment. Perhaps to such watchers, lingering on cloudy
mountain heights above us, the hamlets shining like so many glow-
worms all over the dewy darkling country would be the sweetest
sight. London, glowing in a lurid blaze into the night, doing all that is
in her to give splendour to the darkness; Edinburgh, more gloriously
resplendent, with valleys and hills of fire, improvising a drama of
illumination with lyric responses and choral outbursts of sweet light,
the emblem of joy, are but the centres of the scene. Here, too, past
our village windows, comes the blaze of torches, held high in unseen
hands, moving in a picturesque uncertain line between the silent
bewildered trees: though nobody wits of us, hidden in the night, that
is no reason why we should stifle the joy in our hearts on this night of
the wedding. Windsor itself did not begin to thrill with bells earlier
than we; and even Edinburgh will have commenced to fade slowly
out of the enchanted air into the common slumber ere we have
exhausted all those devious rockets which startle the darkness and
the dews. Nor we only, but every congregation of cottages, every
cluster of humble roofs, wherever a church-spire penetrates the air,
wherever there is window to light or bell to ring. Bear us witness,
dear wondering angels! Far off by the silent inland rivers, deep under
the shadows of the hills, perched upon rocky points and coves by the
sea, lying low upon the dewy plains, is there a village over all the
island that has not lighted a joyous blaze for love of its Queen, and in
honour of the Bride? Health, joy, prosperity, and increase to our
Prince and Princess! If they can ever be happier than at this sweet
moment, crowned by Love and Youth with that joy which human
imagination has everywhere concluded the height of human
blessedness, let the heavens advance them speedily to yet a sweeter
glory. If there were any better bliss we could win for them or
purchase for them, the world well knows we would spare no pains;
but as it is, all that loyal hearts can do is to wish, with hearty love and
acclaim, every joy short of heaven to the young heirs of all our hopes;
but not that for many a happy year.
And now the holiday is over, and the stars begin to show softly
over the waning lights and voices fatigued with joy. Is there, perhaps,
a Watcher in the royal chambers who weeps in the night when all is
over, and God alone sees Her solitude—Our Queen! There is not a
woman in England but thinks of you—not a man but would purchase
comfort for your heart by any deed that man could do. Since the
marriage-feast was spread for you, Liege Lady and Sovereign, what
have not Life and Time done for all of us—what happiness, what
anguish, what births and deaths! Now is it over, the joy of life?—but
still remain tender love and honour, dear duty and labour, God and
the children, the heirs of a new life. Oh, tranquil heavens! stoop
softly over the widowed and the wedded—over us who have had, and
they who have, the perfection and the joy! Enough for all of us, that
over all is the Common Father, whose love can accomplish nothing
which is not Well.
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