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THREE:In the interval, the character and conduct of the Prince of Wales came prominently before the public. The two great friends of the prince were Fox and Sheridan. If the intellectual qualities of these two remarkable men had been equalled by their moral ones, no fitter companions for a young prince could have been found. But, unfortunately, they were as distinguished for their drinking and dissipation, and Fox for his reckless gambling, as for their talents. Pitt and they were in violent opposition, and as Pitt, with his cold, unimpulsive nature, stood firmly by the king, Fox and Sheridan were, as matters of party, warmly the advocates of the prince. Hence the king and his son, sufficiently at strife on the ground of the prince's extravagance and debauchery, were rendered doubly so by the faction fire of their respective adherents. Pitt, who might have softened greatly the hostile feeling between the royal father and son, by recommending less parsimony on the part of the king, and kindly endeavouring to induce the prince to exhibit more respect for his father, never displayed the slightest disposition to act so generous and truly politic a part. Sheridan and some others of the Whig party mentioned the prince's debts, and urged the propriety of something being done to save the honour of the Heir Apparent; but Pitt turned a deaf ear, and the king informed the prince that he could not sanction the payment of his debts by Parliament, nor was he disposed to[337] increase his allowance from the Civil List. On this the prince determined to break up his household, which had been appointed by the king, and cost the prince twenty thousand pounds, to sell his horses and carriages, and to live in a few rooms like a private gentleman. This he did; his fine horses were paraded through the streets on their way to Tattersall's to be sold, and he stopped the building of Carlton House. All this would have been admirable had it proceeded from a real desire to economise on the part of the prince, in order to satisfy his clamorous creditors, and to commence a real reform of his habits; but the whole was only a mode of mortifying the king and Court party by thus exhibiting the Heir Apparent as compelled, by the refusal of a proper allowance, to abandon the style befitting his rank, and sink himself into that of a mere lodger of scanty means. If this grand man?uvre did not accomplish its object at Court, it, however, told on his own party, who resolved in the next Session to make a grand effort for the liquidation of his debts.

THREE:The spirit of gambling thus set going by Government itself soon surpassed all bounds, and burst forth in a thousand shapes. It was well known that the king, his mistresses, his courtiers, his son and heir apparent, were all dabbling busily in the muddy waters of this huge pool of trickery and corruption. A thousand other schemes were invented and made public to draw in fresh gudgeons, and the Prince of Wales allowed his name to stand as governor of a Welsh Copper Company. All ranks and classes rushed to Change Alley—dukes, lords, country squires, bishops, clergy (both Established and Dissenting), were mixed up with stockjobbers and brokers in eager traffic. Ladies of all ranks mingled in the throng, struggling through the press and straining their voices to be heard amid the hubbub. There and all over the kingdom were advertised and hawked about the following and other schemes:—Wrecks to be fished for on the Irish coast; plans for making of oil from sunflower seeds; for extracting of silver from lead; for the transmuting of quicksilver into a malleable and fine metal; for importing a number of large jackasses from Spain; for a wheel for perpetual motion; and, finally, for an undertaking which shall in due time be revealed!

THREE:

THREE:[77]

THREE:During this reign architecture was in a state of transition, or, rather, revolution, running through the Palladian, the Roman, the Greek, and into the Gothic, with a rapidity which denoted the unsettled ideas on the subject. At the commencement of the reign James Paine and John Carr were the prevailing architects. Worksop Manor, since pulled down, and Keddlestone, in Derbyshire, were the work of Paine; but Robert Adam, an advocate for a Roman style, completed Keddlestone. Carr built Harewood House, and others of a like character, chiefly remarkable for Grecian porticos attached to buildings of no style whatever. The Woods, of Bath, employed a spurious Grecian style in the Crescent in that city, Queen's Square, the Pounds, etc., which, however, acquired a certain splendour by their extent and tout ensemble. To these succeeded Robert Taylor, the architect of the Bank of England and other public buildings, in a manner half Italian, half Roman. Sir William Chambers, of more purely Italian taste, has left us Somerset House as a noble specimen of his talent. Robert and James Adam erected numerous works in the semi-Roman semi-Italian style, as Caenwood House, at Highgate, Portland Place, and the screen at the Admiralty. In Portland Place Robert Adam set the example of giving the space necessary for a great metropolis. James Wyatt, who succeeded Chambers as Surveyor-General in 1800, destined to leave extensive traces of his art, commenced his career by the erection of the Pantheon, London, in the classical style, and then took up the Gothic style, which had begun to have its admirers, and in which James Essex had already distinguished himself by his restoration of the lantern of Ely Cathedral, and in other works at Cambridge. Wyatt was employed to restore some[200] of the principal colleges at Oxford, and to do the same work for the cathedral of Salisbury and Windsor Castle. In these he showed that he had penetrated to a certain extent into the principles of that order of architecture, but was far from having completely mastered them. A greater failure was his erection of Fonthill Abbey, for Beckford, the author of "Vathek," where he made a medley of half an abbey, half a castle, with a huge central church tower, so little based on the knowledge of the Gothic architects that in a few years the tower fell. Wyatt, however, was a man of enterprising genius. Co-temporary with Wyatt, George Dance made a much less happy attempt in Gothic in the front of Guildhall, London; but he built Newgate and St. Luke's Hospital in a very appropriate style. One of the most elegant erections at this period was the Italian Opera House, by a foreigner, Novosielsky, in 1789. Nor must we omit here the publication of John Gwynn's "London and Westminster Improved," in 1766, by which he led the way to the extensive opening up of narrow streets, and throwing out of fresh bridges, areas, and thoroughfares, which have been since realised, or which are still in progress.DUBLIN CASTLE. (From a Photograph by W. Lawrence, Dublin.)