The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-11 00:00:00

hs dl and Westminster-hall for the exercise of your

inventive genius."

On the 11th of August, 1851 :—" I approve your
design and arrangement for the wall tiles, as well is
the floor tiles."

On the 22d October, 1851 :—" I really forget the
arrangement of the tiles in the angle spaces of the
central hall floor, but if you are satisfied with it, I
have no doubt I shall be content with the design as
it is. Therefore, give your orders to Minton for the
new tiles, as it seemeth best to you."
On the 7th November, 1851 :—" I approve the
principles of the rough sketches, which I return en-
closed without alteration."

On the 8th November, 1851, Sir Charles asks for
a " sketch of the regalia, as symbols of the dignity
of the house."

On the 26th November, 1851 :—" I am much
obliged to you for the satisfactory accounts of your
progress of all that is now in course of preparation
for the great work, as well as for your zealous and
unremitting exertions therein."

On the 18th December, 1851 :—" The drawings
for badges for the Commons' gallery front will do
very well, and Crace has orders to make use of them.
The arrangement of them which you propose will, I
have no doubt, answer. With some of them I am
unacquainted ; I shall therefore require instructions
respecting them." (Here Sir Charles is again ask-
ing for explanations from my father; the positions
are reversed.)
On the 27th December, 1851, referring to the
heraldry in front of the houses, he says :—" I shall
be very glad, if it would not be bothering you too
much, if you would give the subject your deliberate
attention, and favour me with your ideas."
On the 14th June (no year given) :—" I enclose a
rough tracing of flying buttress of central tower
(the designs for which I find, by reference to the
diary, my father had made in 1835), and shall be
glad of your advice at your earliest convenience."
The foregoing extracts declare in actual words
that from my father proceeded sketches, ideas,
drawings, proposals, instructions, explanations, in-
vention, arrangement, principles, advice, orders
—and all for—" glory," which another en-
joyed. More than this, Sir Charles was so
completely at fault, even in the smallest matters,
that he applied for sketches and designs for ink-
stands, blotting cases, umbrella :stands, paper
holders, ventilating roses, tapestries, papers, stuffs,
carpets, &c., for some of which he asks for fall-sized
drawings. I have myself a distinct recollection of
hearing my father constantly complain that without
him everything would come to a standstill, and the
time he lost, and the journeys he took in conse-
quence.
Now, first, will any one deny that the above ex-
tracts disprove the statements signed (but not
written) by Mr. W. Wright, upon whom Mr. E.
Barry called two days before my lawyer saw him,
when he bluntly refused to give any evidence what-
ever ?

Secondly, do they not indicate in what sense my
father was subordinate to Sir Charles Barry ? The
latter was the appointed and publicly recognised
architect of the Houses, and his decision was final.
He had the power of selecting and of refusing all
that my father submitted to him ; he had a great
plan in his head, and to carry out this plan he had
to give instructions. What he wanted he had to ask
for, and my father designed and supplied it. In
what other way he was " subordinate" it would
puzzle any one to make out.

Thirdly, do they not fully explain the nature of
the' details" to which my father's work was con-
fined ? The word " detail" has been so depreciated
in the minds of many people that it signifies t9 them
no more than the crockets of a canopy or the mi-
nutiae of a finial. Setting aside, however, the
above statements, which show thatmy father worked
out masses as well as parts, of what are the
houses composed if not of " details?" Why, they
are all " detail." So that, by my opponents'
own showing, the whole is the work of my father.
Yet Mr. Edward Barry, after saying, with Mr.
Wolfe, &c., that my father's share in the work was
confined entirely to details, coolly indites words for
the signature of Mr. Wright, declaring that " no one
portion of the louses at all accords with any details
prepared by my father ; while Mr. Wolfe says that
" not a single feature was designed by Pugin ;" and
Mr. Bury writes that " Mr. Barry did all the sections
and elevations," and that my father " had nothing
to do with the competition designs."

In the name of wonder, then, and common con-
sistency, for the sake of Sir Charles' sanity, will
they inform us what was the work for which my
father received from him 400 guineas and such com-
paratively large sums afterwards, in addition to his
salary from Government? (Although, indeed, he
has often assured me that Barry had received from
him drawings paid for in hundreds when thousands
were not sufficient remuneration.) Does any one in
his senses pay on this scale for enlarged drawings,
perspective views, details that were " set aside," and
other ordinary employments of third-rate clerks ?
Mr. E. M. Barry may fairlyplead ignorance of what
occurred previous to the date he has selected (1850)
but it is unwarrantable that he should state what is
positively false with reference to events which took
place after that period. He says in his letter to the
Pall Mall Gazette of Aug. 21, " I can state most
positively that after 1850 every design for the 'West-
minster Palace emanated from himself (Sir Charles)
alone, and was fully worked out by his own hands."
Ten of the extracts given above are from his father's
letters of 18b1.

After this what reliance can be placed on any one
of the statements made by himself or his witnesses?
I acquit them of all intentional misrepresentation ;
but it is evident there was something going on of
which they had no cognisance; a head and a hand
they saw not were thinking and working on, day
after day, encircling the brow cf another with glory
and conceiving marvels of art, to be recompensed
only by an equal balance of flattery and depreciation.
Fourthly--If the nature of Sir Charles Barry's
correspondence is so fully betrayed in the few letters
from which I have quoted the above extracts, what
might not have been proved from their entire num-
ber ? And what wonder that Sir Charles destroyed
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ship of which forms no part of the present question),
and broke his faith with me in regard to their resti-
tution ? I expect even yet to confirm the proofs I
now advance, by a further discovery of letters, &c.
My friends, I see, are doing their utmost to evade
the apparent difficulty in the letter of 1845 ; but to
my mind, viewing it even in the light they do, this
very letter is the most convincing and conclusive
evidence yet advanced in confirmation of my state-
ments. Long before I could have had any influence
on the question, what I have now been claiming for
my father was generally believed.
Now, it is reasonable to imagine that unless there
were some very great difficulty in preparing this
letter, it would not have been necessary for Sir
Charles Barry and his confidential friend Mr. Wolfe
to meet my father in consultation, to see how they
could best crush a report to the truth of which the
work itself is the strongest testimony. Giants are
not to be met with every day, and their youth and
growth, as well as their middle age, are generally
known to those around them. The great results
achieved by my father were foretold in his early
childhood ; and his drawings and his works all lead
up and point to the greatest of them all, the Palace
of Westminster. What, on the other band-, has Sir
Charles Barry got to show? Where is there one
executed work of his which would induce the belief
that he was, in very truth, the art architect of that
noble pile?

The-foregcing are some of my facts and my evi-
dence for them, but should I again be met by the
empty assertions of Mr. E. M. Barry and his friends,
although reluctant to call unwilling witnesses, I
shall not hesitate to produce men who can prove
everything by a word.
In conclusion, allow me to add, that from the
emphatic denials contained in Mr. E. M. Barry's
former letter, we had a right to expect proofs that
would have exhausted the subject ; but his remark-
able assertions have been followed by no proof
whatever. Had he any affirmatory evidence beyond
a few letters which nullify each other, he would at
once have met the question by the production of the
original drawings, which must yet be in existence.