TO 1820.] IMPROVEMENTS IN VARIOUS MANUFACTURES. shire, by exposing the pig iron on the hearth of a reverberatory furnace to the flame of pit-coal. This process was improved into what was called puddling, in puddling or reverberatory furnaces. Cort also introduced the drawing out of iron betwixt cylindrical rollers; but he became ruined in his experiments, and other iron masters of more capital came in to reap the profit. Many years passed before a pension was conferred on some of his children for his services. It would have been greatly more creditable to the enormously wealthy iron masters of this kingdom to have acknowledged their vast obligations to Mr. Cort, by putting him and his family in comfortable independence. In 1755 the whole population of Carron was only one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four; in 1795 the workmen alone employed in the works were one thousand, the population four thousand, when the foundry had five blast furnaces, sixteen air furnaces, three cupola furnaces, and consumed one hundred and thirty-six tons of coals daily. It supplied to the government eleven thousand tons annually of cannon, mortars, shot, shells, &c.; to the East India Company six thousand tons; and to all customers together twenty-six thousand tons. The growth of the iron trade in Great Britain, through these improvements, may be seen from the fact that, in 1802, there were one hundred and sixty-eight blast furnaces, producing two hundred and twenty thousand tons of iron; in 1820, the annual production of iron was four hundred thousand tons; in 1845 the production was calculated at twice that amount—that is, in twenty-five years the production had doubled itself; and by our continually expanding demand for railways, both at home and abroad, and for all kinds of machinery, the production now is not less than four million tons. In 1771 the use of iron ropes, instead of hempen ones, was suggested by M. Bouganville, and this was made a fact by captain Brown, in 1811. Before this, in 1800, Mr. Mushet, of Glasgow, discovered the art of converting malleable iron, or iron ore, into cast steel; and in 1804 Samuel Lucas, of Sheffield, extended the benefit by the discovery of a mode of converting any castings from pig iron at once into malleable iron, or cast steel, so that knives, forks, snuffers, scythes, and all kind of articles, were converted into steel," without any alterative process whatever between the blast furnace and the melting-pot." In 1815 it was calculated that two hundred thousand persons were employed manufacturing articles of iron, the annual value of which was ten million pounds. With the war the manufacture of guns and arms of all kinds was greatly increased, and several important improvements were made in the construction of gun-barrels and their breeches. All kinds of cutlery were improved, but, at the same time, both government, by contractors, and foreign countries, by merchants, were imposed on by articles that had more show than use, to the serious injury of the British reputation. Knives and razors were sent out of mere iron, and our pioneers and sappers and miners were often supplied with axes, picks, and shovels more resembling lead than iron. The same extension of production and consumption of copper, tin, and other ores, marks this reign, owing to the increase of both commerce and population. Great attention 617 during this reign was devoted to the manufacturing of clocks and watches. To such eminence had the English manufacture of watches arrived, that in 1799 it was calculated that the value of watches and marine chronometers alone manufactured in and around London amounted to a million of money yearly. In 1762 John Harrison claimed the reward offered by act of parliament for a chronometer which would ascertain the longitude within sixty, forty, or thirty miles. For the least accurate of these the reward was ten thousand pounds, for the next more accurate fifteen thousand pounds, and for the best twenty thousand pounds, Harrison produced a chronometer which, after two voyages to the West Indies, entitled him to the highest prize, but a fresh act of parliament was passed, refusing him more than two thousand five hundred pounds until he had made known the principle of his invention, and assigned his chronometer for the public use. Even when these new terms were complied with he was only to receive ten thousand pounds, and the remainder on the correctness of the chronometer having been sufficiently tested. Harrison very justly complained of these new stipulations, and of the delays thus interposed; but in 1767, nine years before his decease, he obtained the full amount of the premium. In 1774 a premium of five thousand pounds was offered by act of parliament for a chronometer that should keep the longitude within one degree of a great circle, or sixty geographical miles; seven thousand five hundred pounds for one that would keep the longitude within two-thirds of that distance; and ten thousand pounds for one that would keep it within half a degree. This called out the efforts of various competitors-Harrison, Meadge, Kendal, Coombe, and numbers of others. In 1777 Meadge produced two, which were submitted to the test of the astronomer-royal, Dr. Maskelyne, and pronounced unfavourably upon; but Meadge petitioned parliament against this decision, and, on the report of a committee on his chronometers, he was awarded a premium of two thousand five hundred pounds. In 1783 the English carriage-builders, who had before been considered inferior in elegance to the French makers, began to receive large orders from Paris itself. In 1759 Walter Taylor and son introduced machinery for cutting blocks, sheaves, and pins for ships-a great improvement, but which has been carried far beyond that step by the machinery of Brunel, now in use at our government dockyards. Saw-mills were also introduced into this country, in 1767, by Mr. Dingley, of Limehouse. In the art of printing, the process of stereotyping was re-invented by Mr. Tulloch, in 1780. In 1801 lithography was introduced into England from Germany, but was not much used till Mr. Ackermann began to employ it, in 1817. In 1814 steam was first applied to printing in the Times oflice. The art of coining received, like so many other things, a new facility and perfection from the application of the steam-engine. Messrs. Boulton and Watt, at the Soho Works, set up machinery, in 1788, which rolled out the metal, cut out the blanks, or circular pieces, shook them in bags to take off the rough edges, and stamped the coins-in higher perfection than ever before attained at the rate of from thirty to forty thousand per hour. To this prolific it was used in Golden Lane, in London; in 1809 Mr. Winsor, a German, lit up Pall Mall with it; and in 1813 the first chartered gas company was established in London, and it soon spread through all the large towns. In astronomy, Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in 1781, in 1802 he published, in the "Philosophical Transactions," his catalogue of five hundred new nebula and nebulous stars; and in 1803 announced his discovery of the motion of double stars round each other. In chemistry, Sir Humphry Davy, in 1807, extracted their metallic bases from the fixed alkalies; in 1808 demonstrated the same fact as it THE FINE ARTS. Amongst these arts, the first to which we direct sttention, that is, MUSIC, was warmly patronised by the royal family, and therefore maintained the status which it had acquired in the las reign, though it produced no great original genius. Church music continued to be cultivated, and the anthems of Kent, published in 1773, and those of Nares, published in 1778. were of much merit. To these we may add the services at anthems of doctors Hayes, Dupuis, Arnold, Cooke, Ayrus, were much admired. For the rest, there were numbers of lovers and professors of the art, both in sacred, operatic, and glee music. The Catch Club was formed in 1761, and zealously supported, as well as the Concerts of Ancient Music in 1776. Under the patronage of this society, and particularly of his majesty, took place Handel's celebrated "Commemoration" in Westminster Abbey, in May and June of 1784. During the early part of the reign, too, appeared several distinguished works in this department. composition, except for the stage, where Arnold, Shield, Storace, and Dibdin produced the most delightful and lasting compositions. Arnold's "Castle of Andalusia," "Inkle and Yarico," "The Surrender of Calais," and "The Mountaineers: " and Shield's "Rosina," "The Poor Soldier," "The Woodman," and "The Farmer," are universally admired. The sea songs of Charles Dibdin are as imperishable as our navy, to which they have given a wealth of its own. He wrote about one thousand four hundred songs, thirty dramatic pieces, "A Musical Tour," and a " History of the Stage," and was allowed, after all, to die in deep poverty, after charming all the world for half a century. During the latter part of the reign music was in much esteem, and musical meetings in various parts of the country-in London, the opera, Ancient Concerts, and performances by foreign composers, as Handel's "Messiah," Beethoven's "Mount of Olives," Mozart's opera of "Don Giovanni," &c.—were flocked to, but little native genius appeared. ARCHITECTURE. 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. Sir John Soane, who had been a pupil of Dance, Holland, and Sir William Chambers, introduced a more purely Greek style, and his achievements may be seen in Dulwich Gallery, the National Debt Office, the law courts at Westminster, Trinity Church, Marylebone, and the State Paper Office. The most eminent disciples of this school were William Wilkins and Sir Robert Smirke. Wilkins was a servile copyist, and the National Gallery is the chief monument of his skill, or want of it. Sir Robert Smirke was of a higher order, and his erection of Covent Garden Theatre, the Mint, the Post-Office, the College of Physi cians, the law courts at Gloucester, Lowther Castle, &c., speak for themselves. Nash, the cotemporary and successor of these architects, has left us abundance of his GræcoRomano-Italian medleys in the church in Langham Place, Regent's Park, Regent's Street, and Buckingham Palace. The great merit of Nash was, that, like Adam, he gave us space, and showed, as in Regent's Park, what was needed for our immense metropolis. Towards the end of the reign Gothic architecture was more cultivated, and one of Wyatt'a last works was Ashridge House, in Buckinghamshire, a vast and stately Gothic pile, imposing in general effect, but far from pure in style. Still less so was Eaton Hall, in Cheshire, built by William Pordon; but the real AngloGothic was now receiving the true development of its Britton; and, finally, Thomas Rickman, in 1816, published his "Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Archi tecture," which placed these principles perspicuously before the public. 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, &c., 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 semiRoman semi-Italian style, as Caenwood House, at High-principles by the works of James Bentham, Carter, John gate, 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, and the screen at the Admiralty is a beautiful erection. James Wyatt, who succeeded Sir William Chambers as surveyor-general in 1800, destined to leave extensive traces of his art in this To do justice to the history of painting under George III. generation, commenced his career by the erection of the would require volumes; we can give only a few lines to it. Pantheon, in the classical style, and then took up the Gothic Under Sir Joshua Reynolds a perfect revolution in the art, style, which had begun to have its admirers, and in which as practised in England, was effected. He threw aside pas James Essex had already distinguished himself by his re- traditional fashions, and returned to nature; and his portraits storation of the lantern of Ely Cathedral, and in other at once excited the consternation of the painters of the day, works at Cambridge. Wyatt was employed to restore and placed him in the very first class of artists. In 1768 some of the principal colleges at Oxford, and to do the was established the Royal Academy, and amongst its foreig same work for the cathedral of Salisbury and Windsor members were Benjamin West and Angelica Kauffmann. Castle. In these he showed that he had penetrated to a West produced all his great works in England, and, howcertain extent into the principles of that order of architec- ever much they may now be criticised, they were a gre ture, but was far from having completely mastered them. A advance on past art in England, and had the merit of introgreater failure was his erection of Fonthill Abbey, for Beck-ducing modern costume for modern heroes, as in the "Death ford, the author of "Vathek," where he made a medley of of General Wolfe," contrary to the advice of even Reyne's half an abbey, half a castle, with a huge central church himself. Barry made a spasmodic attempt to lead t tower, sc little based on the knowledge of the Gothic archi- public back to what he deemed the classical, but in vain tects, that in a few years the tower fell. Wyatt, however, and the successive appearance of Wilson, Gainsborougs, was a man of a bold and enterprising genius. Cotemporary and Opie, in different styles, but all genuinely Eng with Wyatt, George Dance made a much less happy established the public in its attachment to the true Engin attempt in Gothic in the front of Guildhall; but he built school. Wilson, during his lifetime, indeed, was neglecte Newgate and St. Luke's Hospital in a very appropriate style. and died in poverty; but the next generation made t One of the most elegant erections at this period was the amende to his fame, though too late for his own enjoyme Italian Opera House, by a foreigner, Novosielsky, in 1789. of it. To Paul Sandby we owe the origin of the water PAINTING. TO 1820.] PAINTING, SCULPTURE, ENGRAVING, COINS AND COINAGE. colour school, now grown so extensive and so rich in production. Amongst eminent painters of this portion of the reign, we must mention Wright, of Derby, Mortimer, Stubbs and Sawrey, animal painters, and Copley, who, though an American by birth, produced most of his works here. 621 painter and his own engraver, in a style of his own. Towards the end of the reign flourished, chiefly in architectural illustrations, Le Keux, John and Henry, pupils of Bazire, Roffe, Ransom, and Scott; in landscape, William and George Cooke, William and Edward Finden, Byrne, and Pye; in portrait, Charles and James Heath, John Taylor, Skelton, Burnet, Bromley, Robinson, Warren, Lewis, &c. Of water-colour painters who extended the fame of the school were Payne, Cozens, Glover, Girtin, and Turner; but Turner soon deserted water for oil. In 1804 the In wood engraving, Thomas Bewick, of Newcastle-onWater-Colour Society was established, and Turner was Tyne, revived the art, and threw such fascination into it not amongst its numbers, having already gone over to oil- by the exquisite tail-pieces in his "Natural History," that painting; but there were Varley, Barrett, Hills, Rigaud, it has ever since continued to extend its use and imPocock, &c. Wild and Pugin were exhibitors of archi-portance. tectural drawings at its exhibitions. Afterwards came COINS AND COINAGE. Heapy, Francia, Westall, Uwins, De Wint, Mackenzie, Of the coinage of this reign little is to be said. It was of Copley Fielding, Robson, Prout, Gandy, and Bonington. the most contemptible character, till Boulton and Watt, as In their rear, but extending beyond the reign, appeared a brilliant host. In general art the names of Fuseli, Northcote, and Stothard stand eminent, and were the foremost contributors to alderman Boydell's celebrated Shakespeare Gallery. After them came Hoppner, Beechey, Morland; in Scotland, Allan and Raeburn. In 1805 a great step in British painting was made by the establishment of the British Institution; and in 1813 this institution opened the National Gallery. The annual exhibitions soon became enriched by the consummate works of Hilton, Etty, Haydon, Briggs, Sir Thomas Lawrence (in elegant portraits), Phillips, Shee, Carpenter, Harlow, Wilkie, Mulready, Turner, Calcot, Collins, Landseer, Martin, Danby, Howard, Cooper, Leslie, and Hone. No age in England had produced so illustrious a constellation of painters, as varied in character as they were masterly in artistic power. SCULPTURE. This art, like that of painting, took a new spring in this reign, but the early part of it was encumbered by the tasteless works of Wilton, Read, and Tyler. It remained for the genius of Banks, Nollekens, Bacon, Baily, Behnes, and Chantrey, to place sculpture on its proper elevation in England. ENGRAVING. To this department of art Woollett and Strange gave a first-rate eminence, and were successfully followed by Browne, Byrne, Rosker, and Major. In mezzo-tint M. Ardell admirably rendered the portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds; and Smith, Green, Thomas, and Watson also excelled in this class of engraving. In engravings for books Heath and Angus stand pre-eminent; and Boydell's "Shakespeare" spread the taste, though his illustrations were chiefly done in the inferior style of dot engraving. In line engraving the names of Sharp, Sherwin, Fittler, Anker Smith, Neagle, Lowry, Turrell, Scott, and others, are of high repute. In landscape engraving no names, in the middle period of the reign, stood more prominent than those of Middiman, Watt, Angus, Milton, Pouncey, Peak, and Taylor. There arose a second school of mezzo-tint engravers, the chief of whom were Earlom, Reynolds, Daniell, Sutherland, and Westall. The strange but intellectual Blake was both A SHILLING. HALF-CROWN. SOVEREIGN. already mentioned, struck the copper pence in 1797 in a superior style. In 1818 was issued a gold and silver coinage, which was intrusted to a foreign artist, Pistrucci, and which was turned out of very unequal merit. Flaxman would have produced admirable designs, and we had a medallist of high talent, Thomas Wyon, who would have executed these designs most ably. In fact, the best part of the silver coinage was produced by Wyon, from the designs of Pistrucci. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. In the early portion of the reign these differed little from those described in the preceding one. There was great dissipation, and even coarseness of manners, amongst the nobility and gentry. It was the custom to drink to intoxication at dinners, and swearing still greatly garnished the language of the wealthy as well as the low. Balls, routs, the opera, the theatre, with Vauxhall and Ranelagh, filled up the time of the fashionable, and gaming was carried to an extraordinary extent. Amongst our leading statesmen, Charles Fox was famous for this habit. Duelling was equally common, and infidelity amongst fashionable people was of notorious prevalence. George III. and his queen did what they could to discourage this looseness of morals, and to set a different example; but the decorum of the court was long in passing into the wealthy classes around it. An affluent middle class was fast mingling with the old nobility, and this brought some degree of sobriety and public decency with it. Amongst the lower classes dog, cock, and bull fights were, during a great part of the reign, the chief amusements, and the rudest manners continued to prevail, because there was next to no education. Wesley and Whitfield, and their followers, were the first to break into this condition of heathenism. Robberies and murders |