The arch was adapted by Nash from the Arch of Constantine at Rome, and cost £80,000. It will no doubt be seen to better advantage when its isolation now in process is carried out. The idea originated with Mr. F. W. Speaight, to whom all honour is due, for wishing to relieve the most congested bit of traffic in all London.
Many people will remember when Decimus Burton’s beautiful triple arch at Hyde Park Corner was surmounted by Wyatt’s ridiculous equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington. It was happily removed when the gateway was set back and the roads replanned in 1882-83, and London lost a perpetual subject of merriment to foreigners. It had been intended that the Marble Arch, at the other corner of the Park, should bear a statue of George IV. mounted on horseback, by Sir Francis Chantry, but this project was never carried out.
Only brief mention is here necessary of the Great Exhibition of 1851, held in the vast glass building erected by Paxton for the purpose in Hyde Park, which now constitutes the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Though but an enormous extension of Paxton’s design for a conservatory, built by him at Chatsworth for the flowering of the Victoria Lily, it was, by reason of its size and the material employed, considered one of the world’s marvels. The Palace was nearly twice the breadth, and fully four times the length, of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It covered twenty acres of park between Prince’s Gate and the Serpentine, and contained eight miles of tables.
A couple of most interesting letters written at the time of the opening of the Great Exhibition are contained in the recently published volumes of Letters of Queen Victoria. The first, bearing the date 2nd May 1851, is from the Duchess of Gloucester, who wrote to Her Majesty:
“My dearest Victoria,
“It is impossible to tell you how warmly I do participate in all you must have felt yesterday, as well as dear Albert, at everything having gone off so beautifully. After so much anxiety and the trouble he has had, the joy must be the greater.
“The sight from my window was the gayest and most gratifying to witness, and to me, who loves you so dearly as I do, made it the more delightful. The good humour of all around, the fineness of the day, the manner you were received in both going and coming from the Exhibition, were quite perfect. Therefore what must it have been inside the building?... It surpassed the Coronation in magnificence.”
Queen Victoria on the next day writes to the King of the Belgians:
“My dearest Uncle,