Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/525

Rh W E L W E L 499 Agitation &quot;or re- orm. M of VVelling- on minis- ,ry. jater ife. to war alone in 1828, nothing remained for him but to treat Greece as a pawn in Russia s hands, and to cut down the territory of the Greek kingdom to the narrowest possible limits, as if the restoration to the sultan of an inaccessible mountain-tract, inhabited by the bitterest of his enemies, could permanently add to the strength of the Ottoman empire. The result was the renunciation of the Greek crown by Prince Leopold ; and, although, after the fall of Wellington s ministry, a somewhat better frontier was given to Greece, it was then too late to establish this kingdom in adequate strength, and to make it, as it might have been made, a counterpoise to Russia s influence in the Levant. Nor was the indulgence shown by the cabinet towards Dom Miguel and the absolutists of Portugal quite worthy of England. That Wellington actively assisted despotic Governments against the constitutional movements of the time is not true. He had indeed none of the sympathy with national causes which began to influence British policy under Canning, and which became so powerful under Palmerston ; but the rule which he followed in foreign affairs, so far as he considered it possible, was that of non-intervention. As soon as Catholic emancipation was carried, the demand for a reform of parliament agitated Great Britain from end to end. The duke was ill-informed as to the real spirit of the nation. He conceived the agitation for reform to be a purely fictitious one, worked up by partisans and men of disorder in their own interest, and expressing no real want on the part of the public at large. Met with a firm resistance, it would, he believed, vanish away, with no worse result than the possible plunder of a few houses by the city mobs. Thus wholly unaware of the strength of the forces which he was pro voking, the duke, at the opening of the parliament which met after the death of George IV., declared against any parliamentary reform whatever. This declaration led to the immediate fall of his Government. Lord Grey, the chief of the new ministry, brought in the Reform Bill, which was resisted by Wellington as long as anything was to be gained by resistance. When the creation of new peers was known to be imminent, Wellington was among those who counselled the abandonment of a hopeless struggle. His opposition to reform made him for a while unpopular. He was hooted by the mob on the anniversary of Waterloo, and considered it necessary to protect the windows of Apsley House with iron shutters. For the next two years the duke was in opposition. On the removal of Lord Althorp to the House of Lords in 1834, King William IV. unexpectedly dismissed the Whig ministry and requested Wellington to form a cabinet. The duke, however, recommended that Peel should be at the head of the Government, and served under him, during the few months that his ministry lasted, as foreign secretary. On Peel s later return to power in 1841 Wellington was again in the cabinet, but without departmental office beyond that of commander-in-chief. He supported Peel in his Corn- Law legislation, and throughout all this later period of his life, whether in office or in opposition, gained the admiration of discerning men, and excited the wonder of zealots, by his habitual subordination of party spirit and party connexion to whatever appeared to him the real interest of the nation. On Peel s defeat in 1846, the duke retired from active public life. He was now nearly eighty. His organization of the military force in London against the Chartists in April 1848, and his letter to Sir John Burgoyne on the defences of the country, proved that the old man had still something of his youth about him. But the general character of Wellington s last years was rather that of the old age of a great man idealized. To the unbroken splendours of his military career, to his honour able and conscientious labours as a parliamentary states man, life unusually prolonged added an evening of impressive beauty and calm. The passions excited during the stormy epoch of the Reform Bill had long passed away. Venerated and beloved by the greatest and the lowliest, the old hero entered, as it were, into the immortality of his fame while still among his countrymen. Death came to him at last in its gentlest form. He passed away on the 14th of September 1852, and was buried under the dome of St Paul s, in a manner worthy both of the nation and of the man. His monument, a mere fraction of the work originally designed, stands in the chapel at the south-western end of the cathedral. Authorities. The Wellington Despatches, edited by Gurwood ; Supplementary Despatches ; and Wellington Despatches, Nciv Scries, edited by the second dnko of Wellington. Unlike Napoleon s despatches and correspondence, everything from Wellington s pen is absolutely trustworthy: not a word is written for effect, and no fact is misrepresented. Almost all the political memoirs of the period 1830-1850 contain more or less about Wellington in his later life. Those of Greville and Croker have perhaps most of interest. (C. A. F. ) WELLS, a municipal borough in the county of Somerset, England, at the foot of the Mendip Hills, 135 miles west of London. At present it is a place of little importance, except for its cathedral, markets, and assizes. The popu lation of the city (726 acres) in 1881 was 4634. The city of Wells is said to have derived its name from some springs called St Andrew s Wells, which during the Middle Ages were thought to have valuable curative properties. The munici pality, consisting of a mayor, seven aldermen, and sixteen chief burgesses, was incorporated by a charter granted by King John in 1202. During Saxon times Wells was one of the most important towns of Wessex, and in 905 it was made the seat of a bishopric by King Edward the Elder. About the year 1091-92 Bishop John de Villula removed the see to Bath ; and for some years Wells ceased to be an episcopal city. After many struggles between the secular clergy of Wells and the regulars of Bath, it was finally arranged in 1139 that the bishop should take the title of &quot;bishop of Bath and Wells,&quot; and should for the future be elected by delegates appointed partly by the monks of Bath and partly by the canons of Wells. The foundation attached to the cathedral church of Wells consisted of a college of secular canons of St Augustine, governed by a dean, sub-dean, chancellor, and other officials. The existing cathedral, one of the most magnificent of all the secular churches of England, was begun by Bishop Joceline soon after his election to the episcopate in 1220; and the greater part of the building was completed before his death in 1244. According to the usual mediaeval practice, the eastern part of the church was begun first, and the choir was consecrated for use long before the completion of the nave, the western part of which, with the mag nificent series of statues on the facade, was carried out during the second half of the 13th century, and probably finished about the year 1300. The upper half of the two western towers has never been built. The very noble and well-designed central tower, 160 feet high, was built early in the 14th century; the beautiful octagonal chapter-house on the north side, and the lady chapel at the extreme east, were the next important additions in the same century. The whole church is a building of very exceptional splendour and beauty ; it is covered throughout with stone groining of various dates, from the Early English of the choir to the fan vaulting of the central tower. Its plan consists of a nave and aisles, with two short transepts, each with a western aisle and two eastern chapels. The choir and its aisles are of unusual length, and behind the high altar are two smaller transepts, beyond which is the very rich Decorated lady chapel, -with an eastern semi- octagonnl apse. The main tower is at the crossing. On the north of the choir is the octagonal chapter-house, the vaulting of which springs from a slender central shaft ; as the church belonged to secular clergy, it was not necessary to place it in its &quot;usual position by the cloister. The cloister, 160 by 150 feet, extends along the whole southern wall of the nave. The extreme length of the church from east to west is 371 feet. The oak stalls and bishop s throne in the choir are magnificent examples of 15th-century woodwork, still well preserved. The great glory of the church, and that which makes it unique among the many splendid buildings of inedireval England, is the wonderful series of sculptured figures which decorate the exterior of the west front, the work of English sculptors of the latter part of the 13th century, a series which shows that at that time Eng land was, as far as the plastic art is concerned, in no degree inferior to Germany and France, or even Italy, if we except the work dono