Sir Charles Barry was the architect of numerous buildings, but his greatest work was the New Palace of Westminster. When the old Houses of Parliament were burned down in 1834, amongst the numerous designs sent in Mr. Barry's was selected, and he had the honour of constructing the magnificent temple of legislation in which the most powerful body in the world debates and deliberates, upon the old, classic site, rendered sacred by so many events in our history. It has been disputed whether the style of the building is altogether worthy of the locality and the object, and whether grander and more appropriate effects might not have been produced by the vast sums expended. But it has been remarked in defence of the artist, that the design was made almost at the commencement of the revival of our national architecture, and that, this fact being considered, the impression will be one of admiration for the genius of the architect that conceived such a work; and the conviction will remain that by it Sir Charles Barry did real service to the progress of English art.Sir John landed in Calabria on the 1st of July, in the Gulf of Santa Euphemia, not far from Nicastro, and advanced to seek Regnier. He had not quite five thousand troops with him, all infantry, and a third of these Corsicans, Sicilians, and other foreigners in British pay. Regnier had started for Naples with ten thousand men, but some of these were lost, and others stationed to occupy different posts. On the 3rd of July Sir John Stuart learned that Regnier was near Maida, about ten miles from Sir John's landing-place. Leaving a detachment to guard the stores, Sir John, on the 4th, marched forward, under a burning sun, to come up with him. He found Regnier drawn up in a strong position on a woody slope below the village of Maida, flanked by a thick, scrubby wood on each hand, and having in front the river Amato, at this season of the year perfectly fordable. The position was formidable, and, had Regnier kept it, it must have tried the British severely to dislodge him, especially as they had no cavalry; but Regnier, probably honestly of opinion that the British need only be encountered to be beaten, descended from his vantage ground into the plain. One reason might be, that his cavalry could better avail him there; another, that, after his boasts, Lebrun, the Commissioner of Buonaparte, who always, in the old Jacobin style, had such a person in the field to watch the conduct of his generals, would be ready to condemn him if he showed any delay when engaged with so despised an enemy. The two armies approached each other about nine o'clock in the morning. They fired two or three rounds at each other, and then advanced with fixed bayonets. The officer commanding the British advance column, seeing that the men were oppressed by the blankets which they carried at their backs in that sultry weather, commanded a halt a little before they closed, and ordered them to let their blankets go. The French, seeing this momentary halt, were confirmed in their general's opinion of the cowardice of the British, and rushed on with loud cheers. They were bronzed and bearded veterans; the British, who composed the advance column, were chiefly young and beardless youths; and an officer present informed Sir Walter Scott, that, as he glanced first on the grim-looking French, and then at the smooth, young faces of the British, he could not help feeling a momentary anxiety. But no sooner were the British freed from their blankets than they dashed forward with loud hurrahs; and the French, who, since the battle of Austerlitz, had boasted that no soldiers in Europe could stand against them in a charge of bayonets, were, in their turn, staggered. Some few stood firmly to cross bayonets with the foe, but the greater part fell back. The French officers rushed along their lines to encourage their men, but in vain; nothing could urge them to the points of the British bayonets. The hills around were crowded with the Calabrians, anxious spectators of the fight. When the British halted, they raised loud exclamations of dismay, believing they were about to fly, but the next moment they saw them springing forward with shouts and the French waver, turn, and fly. The First Light Infantrya crack French regimentwere the first to break and run for the hills. But it was too late; the British were at their backs, and pursued them with a terrible slaughter. Regnier's left thus routed by our right, he rode furiously about, bringing all the force he could muster on our left, but there the result was just the same: the French scarcely stayed to feel the bayonets, but fled in headlong confusion. The British took all the forts along the coasts, and drove the French into Upper Calabria, where they were joined, near Cassano, by Massena, with a powerful army. But the British force was not strong enough to do more than it had done. Malaria also began to decimate his troops, and Sir John Stuart returned, in August, to Sicily, carrying with him a great quantity of stores and artillery, which the French had prepared for the reduction of Calabria. The chief benefit of the battle of Maida was to show that the British troops, in proper quantities, were able to drive the French before them, but that, in the small numbers usually sent on expeditions, they were merely wasted. The battle of Alexandria, and now that of Maida, demonstrated that, if Britain would continue to fight on the Continent, she must prepare to do it with a sufficient force; and the after campaigns of Portugal and Spain, and the conclusive battle of Waterloo, were the results of this public conviction. At the same time, the brilliant episode of Maida had wonderfully encouraged the Neapolitans and Calabrians. Joseph Buonaparte, the French intruded king, was once or twice on the very point of flying to the army in Upper Calabria, and many of his counsellors strongly advised it. Massena advised Joseph to remain, and assured him that he would soon reduce the whole kingdom to obedience to him. But, in fact, it took Massena and his successors five years to accomplish the subjugation, with the sacrifice of one hundred thousand men.Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil of Wren's, and an assistant of Vanbrugh's in building Castle Howard and Blenheim House, was the architect of St. George's-in-the-East, Ratcliff Highway, begun in 1715; of St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street; of St. George's, Bloomsbury; St. Anne's, Limehouse; of Easton Norton House, in Northamptonshire; and of some other works, including a mausoleum at Castle Howard, and repairs of the west front of Westminster Abbey. St. George's, Bloomsbury, is perhaps his finest structure. It has a Corinthian portico, like St. Martin's, and the steeple is surmounted by a statue of George II.
FORE:It was now expected by the Whigs, and by a[10] great part of the public, that they should come into office. At first the conduct of the Prince Regent favoured this supposition. He applied to Grey and Grenville to draw up the answer that he should return to the two Houses on their addresses on his appointment. But he did not quite like this answer, and got Sheridan to make some alterations in it. He then returned the paper to Grey and Grenville, as in the form that he approved. But these noblemen declared that they would have nothing more to do with the paper so altered; and Sheridan, on his part, suggested to the prince that he would find such men as Ministers very domineering and impracticable. Nor was this allLord Grenville and his family held enormous patronage. Like all the Whigs, the Grenvilles, however they might study the interests of the country, studied emphatically their own. Grenville had long held, by a patent for life, the office of Auditor to the Exchequer; and in accepting office in "All the Talents" Ministry, he managed to obtain also the office of First Lord of the Treasury. The Auditorship of the Exchequer was instituted as a check on the Treasury, but neither Lord Grenville nor his friends saw any impropriety in destroying this check by putting both offices into the same hands. They declared this union was very safe and compatible, and a Bill was brought in for the purpose. But when the King had become both blind and insane, and no Regent was yet appointed, Lord Grenville, being no longer First Lord of the Treasury, but Perceval, he suddenly discovered that he could not obey the order of the Treasury for the issues of money to the different services. It was strictly necessary that the Great Seal, or the Privy Seal, or the Sign Manual, should be attached to the Treasury orders, or, failing these, that they should be sanctioned by an express Act of Parliament. As neither Great nor Privy Seal, nor Sign Manual was possible until a regent was appointed, Lord Grenville's conscience would not let him pass the orders of the Treasury, and all payments of army, navy, and civil service were brought to a stand. Perceval, after in vain striving hard to overcome the scruples, or rather the party obstinacy of Grenville, was compelled to go to the House of Parliament, and get the obstacle removed by a resolution of both Houses. The notice of the public being thus turned by Grenville to his holding of this office, and his readiness to unite the two offices in his own person, which his pretended scruples of conscience now invested with so much danger, produced a prejudice against him and his party, which was hostile to their coming into power. Besides this, the Opposition were greatly divided in their notions of foreign policy. Grey and his immediate section of the party felt bound, by their advocacy of Fox's principles, to oppose the war; Grenville and his friends were for a merely defensive war, and for leaving Portugal and Spain, and the other Continental nations, to fight their own battles; whilst Lord Holland, who had travelled in Spain, and was deeply interested in its language and literature, was enthusiastic for the cause of the Peninsula, and the progress which Wellington was making there. It was utterly impossible that, with such divided views, they could make an energetic Ministry at this moment, and it was equally certain that they could not again form an "All the Talents" by coalition with the Conservatives. And, beyond all this, it does not appear that the Regent was anxious to try them. Like all heirs-apparent of the house of Hanover, he had united with the Opposition during his youth, but his friendship appeared now anything but ardent. Sheridan still possessed something of his favour, and the Earl of Moira was high in it; but for the rest, the prince seemed quite as much disposed to take the Tories into his favour; and he, as well as the royal dukes, his brothers, was as much bent on the vigorous prosecution of the war as the Tories themselves. No Ministry which would have carried that on languidly, still less which would have opposed it, would have suited him any more than it would have done his father. The King, too, was not so deeply sunk in his unhappy condition but that he had intervals lucid enough to leave him alive to these questions, and he showed so much anxiety respecting the possible change of the Ministry, and fresh measures regarding the war, that his physicians declared that such a change would plunge him into hopeless madness and probably end his life. The Queen wrote to the prince, saying how much satisfaction his conduct in regard to these matters had given to his father, and he wrote to Mr. Perceval, declaring that this consideration determined him not to change the Ministry at all. At the same time he expressed to the Minister his dissatisfaction with the restrictions which had been imposed upon him. Perceval, even at the risk of offending the prince, justified the conduct of Ministers and Parliament. In this he might be the more bold, as it was clear that there was no longer any danger of a Whig Government.
[398]Lord George Murray then said that, as they needs must go, he proposed that they should enter England on the Cumberland side, so as to harass Wade's troops, if he marched across to meet them. The idea was adopted as a great improvement; it was kept a profound secret. Still further to mislead the English, Lord George proposed another plan, which was also adoptedto divide the army into two columns, to march by two different routes, but to unite at Carlisle. One of these was to be led by the prince himself by Kelso, as if intending to march straight into Northumberland; the other to take the direct road through Moffat. It was resolved to leave Lord Strathallan to command in Scotland, to take up his headquarters at Perth, receive the expected succours from France, and all such reinforcements from the Highlands as should come in.The news from Boston could not have arrived at a moment when the public mind was more ill-disposed towards the Americans. The affair of the abstraction of Mr. Whately's private letters from his house or office, and their publication, contrary to custom and to its own engagement, by the Massachusetts Assembly, had produced a deep conviction in all classes in England of the utter disregard of honour both in the American colonists and their agent, Franklin. This disgraceful violation of the sacred security of private papers roused the indignation of Mr. William Whately, banker, in Lombard Street, and brother to the late Mr. Thomas Whately. He conceived strong suspicions of John Temple, afterwards Sir John Temple, Lieutenant-Governor of New Hampshire, and, though one of the Commissioners of Customs at Boston, really hostile to the Commission, and a strong partisan of Franklin. Whately challenged Temple, and was severely wounded in the rencontre. At this, Franklin came forward with an avowal that neither the late Mr. Whately nor Mr.[211] Temple had anything to do with the carrying off of the letters; that he alone was responsible for this act.It was thought time to put a stop to such[559] proceedings, and several of the leaders were arrested, namely, Messrs. Ernest Jones, John Fussell, J. Williams, A. Sharpe, and Y. Vernon. They were committed for sedition, but bail was accepted. At Ashton-under-Lyne, Birmingham, Liverpool, and other places, Chartist and confederate disturbances took place. The police hunted up their leaders, and in some towns seized the papers of the clubs as well as the pikes and fire-arms which they had concealed. There had, in fact, been an extensively ramified conspiracy, the headquarters of which were in the metropolis. On the 11th of August the police, acting upon information they had received, assembled at the station in Tower Street, 700 strong, and suddenly marched to the Angel Tavern in Webber Street, Blackfriars. Surrounding the house, Inspector Butt entered, and found fourteen Chartist leaders in deliberation. In a few minutes they were all quietly secured, and marched to Tower Street. On searching the place the police found pistols loaded to the muzzle, swords, pikes, daggers, and spear-heads, also large quantities of ammunition. Upon one man were found seventy-five rounds of ball cartridge. Some of the prisoners wore iron breastplates. Similar visits were paid to houses in Great Ormond Street, Holborn, and York Street, Westminster, with like results. In the last place the party got notice and dispersed before the police arrived. One man, leaping out of a window, broke his leg. Tow-balls were found amongst them; and from this and other circumstances it was believed they intended to fire the public buildings and to attack the police in every part of London. The whole of the military quartered in London were under arms on the night of the threatened attack, and an unbroken line of communication was kept up between the military and the different bodies of police. Twenty-five of the leaders were committed for felony, bail being refused; their principal leader being a man named Cuffey.In the lives of English painters the story of Benjamin Robert Haydon is perhaps the saddest. In youth he devoted himself with such zeal to the study of art that people wondered how he ever found time to eat. He was one of those men of genius who may be called "unlucky." He was always in pecuniary difficulties, though his father allowed him 200 per annum in the earlier part of his career. He applied for admission into the Academy, but did not obtain a single vote; and he got involved in controversies, which continued to embitter his life. He succeeded at last, however, by his energy, in commanding public attention and winning fame. For the "Judgment of Solomon" he received 700, with 100 voted to him by the directors of the British Institution, and the freedom of Plymouth. His pictures were, however, very unequal; here and there was a powerful piece of work, but the whole was generally rough and unfinished. He committed suicide in 1846. Sculpture, which was then at its lowest ebb, was relieved alone from vacuity by the works of Chantrey, Flaxman, and Gibson.On the 12th of October General Howe, who would have been better employed in driving the enemy before him than in waiting for his brother's useless negotiations, sent a considerable part of his forces, with flat-bottomed boats, through Hell Gate into the Sound, and landed them at Frog's Neck, about nine miles in the rear of Washington's position, thus cutting off all his supplies from the country. The ships ascended higher up the North River, cutting off the retreat into the Jerseys. Had Howe, instead of landing at Frog's Neck, done so at Pell's Point, he would have rendered Washington's retreat nearly impossible. But this was neglected till the 18th of October, by which time Washington, finding that he was getting gradually hemmed in, and Lee, who had now joined him from Sullivan's Island and the Carolinas, insisting that nothing but instant retreat could save them, they therefore made a rapid retreat into the open country called the White Plains. They had much difficulty in carrying away their artillery; and the whole of it must have been taken, had Howe shown any ordinary activity. Between this date and the 21st there was considerable skirmishing, which compelled Washington to retire farther into the White Plains, and from thence towards the Delaware.
