The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-21 00:00:00

LETTER OF 1845.

The additional matter in Dr. Barry's pamphlet
does not change the aspect of the letter of 1845.
Neither does this document, nor do the previous
letters of my father, make the least reference to the
transactions of 1835, but to arrangements in ope-
ration ten years later ; and the reports about my
father arose from the original transactions, and not

from the revived conuection of the architects for

the execution of carvings and decorations. In the
absence of any information whatever as to Sir C.
Barry's reply to my father's proposal in June, to
do what was only carried out iu September, I can
only state my suspicion that Sir Charles wanted
him to lend himself to something to which he re-

fused to accede, and that the published letter was
a compromise. This would account for the agita-
tion and distress of mind to which I have testified,

together with Mrs. Mares, who could make no mis-
take on the matter. This is now further confirmed

by Mr. Early, who saw him at the time, and re•
members his state of agitation and excitement.

The evidence of the different gentlemen named
in Dr. Barry's pamphlet I cauuot doubt to be in
accordance with facts as presented to them, but 1
repeat with increased emphasis that I have a most
exact personal knowledge of everything done in my
father's office from 1844. Mr. Talbot Bury makes
a most gratuitous misstatement in saying that I was
at school till the age of 16. I never was at school
in my life. I worked in my father's studio from a
very early age, and I never left it, I know there-
ore the enormous amount of work done there, and
the vast mass of designs which were daily emanat-
ing from him. May I ask Mr. T. Bury also to re-
concile two other statements he makes (p. 9, Dr.
Barry's pamphlet) ? He observes—" No one saw
the set of designs we (he and my father) were en-
gaged on for Mr. G. Graham but ourselves." Mr.
Osmond knows that these designs were mostly done
on his premises at Salisbury, and implies that he
saw them there. Mr. T. Bury says that he saw
Sir Charles Barry's drawings at the same time that
he was working on Mr. Graham's designs, i.e., from
Sept. 12th to Oct. 3d, 1835 ; and yet he states
that my father first saw Mr. Barry's "remarkable
design" on or about October 12th, and returned to
his (Mr. Bury's) house to describe it to him. Mr.
T. Bury says that " Pugin did not have 400
guineas from Mr. Barry—he did not receive over
£300." Dr. Barry says he received £413 14s.
My father received and paid away several large
sums of money in 1835 ; but I am unable to say
with any exactness who paid them to him. I
certainly was, as I have been often reminded, an
infant in 1835, but nothing was more improbable
than that my father was working so incessantly
(some eighty days, as far as I can make out) during
that year for Sir Charles without any payment ;
and although I have no personal knowledge of
these transactions, one of the very first things to

which my recollection reverts is the statement of
my father that he received 400 guineas from Sir
Charles in 1835, and the reproaches my mother
directed against him for ,4 selling his brains:,
_ _ _

That no memorandum of this payment appears in
Sir C. Barry's diary is no disproof of its being
made ; whereas, the amount of work confessedly
done by my father in 1835 makes my statement, to
say the least, more than probable.
My father's letter from Nottingham confirms my
own experience of the effect so often produced on
him by drawing for Sir Charles Barry. In a letter
to my mother he says complainingly of Sir Charles,
who wanted elaborate drawings entirely changed
—" He thinks nothing of my head-work." He
was often wearied out and exasperated by Sir
Charles's vacillation and difficulty in making up
his mind, and I know that he became so disgusted
at losing his time in preparing useless drawings
that he determined to discontinue doing so until
Sir Charles had thoroughly " made up his mind
as to every arrangement," when he felt that he
could be of "real service" in supplying the " de-
tails," which would not involve that " dreadful
loss of time " in making " drawings of no real use."
But to conclude from this that my father never
did, or could, design, or lacked the power of de-
signing anything but details, is rather too mon-
strous a conclusion in the face of all the work he
had done in the course of his life. On one point
I am perfectly clear—that of the throne. The
original deSign was made,
I have reason to be-
lieve, at the time of the competition, as the
diary testifies. To the best of my recollection it
was with reference to the throne that Sir
Charles first resought my father's assistance ; for I
myself saw him within a few days prepare three
distinct designs (one of them on board a Rams-
gate steamer) which were submitted to Sir Charles;
and I have a vivid remembrance of the irritation
and annoyance my father suffered from Sir Charles's
repeated changes and fastidious objections. After
wasting my father's time he would often revert, as
he seems to have done in this instance, to the ori-
ginal conception ; and it was my father's experi-
ence of all this which accounts for the letter from
Nottingham. When Sir Charles had " made up
his mind as to every arrangement," my father felt
that he had got on ground where Sir Charles could
not follow him, and then worked to some purpose.
As regards the throne, from first to last, lam
absolutely certain that it was entirely my father's
design. I saw the various original sketches made,
I saw them worked into shape, and Mr. Burton, to
whom I have appealed, and who was then engaged
by Mr. Hardman at Birmingham, distinctly re-
members the three designs I have spoken of, which
were taken to Birmingham, lost at the railway
station, and subsequently found by him and dis-
cussed in his presence. He remembers my father's
distress at the loss, carefully examined the draw-
ings, and knows that they were original concep-
tions and designs of my father. He also remembers
the vanes shown in the photograph to Dr. Barry's
pamphlet, which were actually made and subse-