LESSONS IN ARCHITECTURE. 



ns 



among othera the Bixhop of Gloucester (Wai-burton), and Lord 



Sandwich himxdf. It was on the point of innult to the bishop, 



however, ili.it U> Karl of Sandwich denounced the work an a 



f privilege. Only fourteen copies had boon printed at 



private proM, but of thin number the Government got 



hold i.f ono, uii'l this was the copy to which the attention of the 



of Lords was invited. In the same book was a lewd 



paraphrase of tho"Veni Creator," and the House o Lords, after 



some dixt'iiMriiun, voted both the poems to be blasphemous and 



breaches of privilege, but adjourned the further consideration 



of them for forty-eight hours, in order to give Wilkes time to 



I himself. 



In the House of Commons, at the same time that the Lords 

 were coming to thin vote, Wilkea rone to complain of the breach 

 of privilege which had been committed in arresting him ; where- 

 upon Lord North, one of the ministers, and the Attorney- 

 Oonorol, Sir Fletcher Norton, caused the depositions of the 

 printers who hod confessed that Wilkes wrote No. 45 of the 

 North Briton, to bo read, and asked the House to authorise 

 proceedings at law. After some discussion the House voted 

 No. 45 to be a false, scandalous, and seditious libel, tending to 

 traitorous insurrections, and ordered it to be burnt by the 

 common hangman. 



Ono result of the debate was a duel between Wilkes and Mr. 

 Samuel Martin, a member who had spoken of the writer, whoever 

 he might be, of certain other personal articles in the North Briton, 

 as "a cowardly, malignant, and infamous scoundrel." Wilkos 

 sent Martin a letter repeating the accusations made in the 

 North Briton, and avowing the authorship of them. At the 

 meeting, Wilkes was badly wounded in the body, but as soon as 

 he could be moved he went to France, to hide himself from the 

 storm which he saw was about to burst upon him. The House 

 of Commons expelled him from their body, the House of Peers 

 asked the Crown to prosecute him for his " Essay on Woman," 

 and when, after some time, he failed to appear iu answer to the 

 indictments which were preferred against him, the courts of law 

 prononnoed sentence of outlawry against him. Then resolutions, 

 with reference to the late decision of the Chief Justice, were 

 passed through both Houses of Parliament, to the effect "that 

 privilege of Parliament does not extend to the case of writing 

 and publishing seditious libels." Even the Earl of Chatham, 

 while objecting to the words and form of the resolutions, was 

 careful not to speak in favour of the subject of them, whom he 

 described as unworthy " to be ranked among the human species; 

 he is the blasphemer of his God, and the libeller of his king." 



For five years Wilkes lived abroad, afraid of the outlawry, 

 and seeing no chance, in the state of politics which existed during 

 that time, of making his peace with the Government. In 1768, 

 an attempt which he mode towards that end failed, and Wilkes 

 resolved to make a bold dash upon the popular favour as the 

 means of his getting back again. He came over at the disso- 

 lution of Parliament in the same year, and put up for the repre- 

 sentation of London, but not succeeding in the city, he went to 

 the county, and beat the Government candidates in the contest 

 for Middlesex. 



As soon as Parliament assembled, a question was raised 

 whether Mr. Wilkes, being on outlaw, could sit; and when, on 

 Wilkes surrendering, as he had promised to do, at the court of 

 King's Bench, the outlawry was declared null and void on 

 technical grounds, a further question arose upon the judgments 

 to which he submitted himself, on account of his " Essay on 

 Woman " and No. 45. Wilkes was fined .1,000, and sentenced 

 to two years' imprisonment ; the mob rescued him, and swore he 

 should bo at liberty, but he evaded their kindness, and sur- 

 rendered at the King's Bench prison. Riots followed in St. 

 George's Fields on account of "Wilkes and Liberty," and the 

 troops having been called out, several persons were shot. 



In prison, Wilkes, who was looked upon as a man persecuted 

 for political conscience' sake, was visited by many of the li'iuliir.- 

 liberal politicians, and continued to write fervid letters to his 

 friends on public affairs. Having in one of these commented on 

 Lord Weymouth's letter to the Lambeth magistrates, warning 

 them of an apprehended riot, and advising them to apply for 

 troops, he described the advice as " a hellish project," tending to 

 " a horrid massacre." For this he was brought in custody to 

 the bar of the House, where his letter was condemned as an 

 " insolent libel ; " and on the 3rd of February, 1769, Lord 

 Harrington, after recapitulating Wilkes' offences, and the judg- 



ment against him, carried by ft large majority 

 him the House. 



By a majority of 800 votes, the Middlesex 

 returned him again, but the House of Commons declare! that ha 

 could not sit, and that Colonel Lnttrell, who bad not polled 

 more than 300 votes, WM duly returned. The Middle*** men 

 were furious ; Lord Chatham warmly reprehended the Tot* of 

 the House of Common*, and Lord Catnden resigned the Great 

 Seal rather than continue in a Government which upheld thai 

 vote. 



In April, 1770, Wilke* WM released from prison, and having 

 been, while still in durance, elected alderman of Farringdon 

 Ward Without, was sworn in, and forthwith threw httr^lf oooo 

 more into politics. But eight yean had wrought a change in 

 public affairs ; Wilkes' old occupation was to great extant 

 gone ; and he himself, made wiser by experience, was anxious to 

 exchange the part of a mere agitator for some more staple 

 position. Though he continued to be a staunch Liberal, be was 

 less noisy in ventilating his opinions; and, as ft magistrate, he 

 conducted himself with reat propriety, and increased his repu- 

 tation with the better class of citizens. In 1775 be was chosen 

 Lord Mayor, and having been once more returned to Parliament 

 for the county of Middlesex, was allowed to sit without question. 

 In the end he became city chamberlain, an office which he filled 

 with ability and success ; and so little did this old demagogue 

 habit survive in him, that when, in 1782, he moved in the House 

 of Commons that the resolutions respecting his own expulsion 

 should be expunged, there was not found any enemy to gainsay 

 him. 



Accident mode Wilkes a political hero, accident bound him np 

 in the affections of the people with the cause of public liberty, 

 but it does not seem that on the whole he was unworthy of his 

 position ; and while we cannot fail utterly to condemn the 

 immorality by which his earlier life was marked, to condemn, 

 also, the tone in which he vindicated the principles he professed, 

 we cannot refuse some share of admiration for the popular 

 favourite, nor can we fail to see the meaning of those who 

 identified him with the cause that was symbolised by the 

 cry of " Wilkes and Liberty ! " 



LESSONS IN ARCHITECTURE. VIII. 



EXPLANATION OF 8OME OF THE TERMS USED IN ARCHI- 

 TECTURE. 



IT is now time to give an explanation of the terms used in 

 speaking of the different orders of architecture. Among the 

 Greeks, an order was composed of columns and an entablature. 

 The Romans added pedestals under the columns of various 

 orders, to increase their height. The column is generally a 

 round pillar, constructed either to support or to adorn an 

 edifice. 



Besides columns, the Greeks employed human figures to 

 support the entablature. Vitruvius informs as that when male 

 figures were employed, they were called Persians, to indicate 

 the contempt in wluch that nation was held ; and they repre- 

 sented these figures, accordingly, in the most suffering posture, 

 and loading them, as it were, with the heaviest entablature, 

 that of the Doric order: and when female figures were used, 

 they were called Caryatides, to signify their contempt for the 

 Carians, whose wives had been taken away captive in then- 

 wars with the Athenians. Some critics doubt the truth of 

 these stories of Vitruvius, and endeavour to account for the 

 origin of the figures and their names in a different manner. 

 Whether the Greeks were the inventors of this mode of sup- 

 porting entablatures, or copied it from the ancient Egyptian 

 edifices, or from the tombs and temples of India and Persia, it 

 is needless to inquire. Fragments of male figures, apparently 

 employed for the same purposes, have been found among the 

 ancient Roman monumental remains. 



The pilaster is a square pillar used for the same purpose as 

 the column. Instead of standing isolated like the oolnmn, it w 

 generally inserted in the wall of an edifice, showing only a 

 fourth or a fifth of its thickness. Pilasters have their bases, 

 capitals, and entablatures with the same parts, height*, and 

 projections as columns have ; and they are distinguished, like 

 them, by the names of the five orders of architecture Doric, 

 Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite. They are supposed 



