Page:Pyrotechnics the history and art of firework making (1922).djvu/95

 The Peace of 1814 was signalised in London by several displays: the 1st of August was chosen for the Peace Celebration, it being the centenary of the accession of the House of Brunswick, and also the anniversary of the Battle of the Nile.

The display in Hyde Park commenced with a naval engagement on the Serpentine between model warships representing the English and the combined French and American Fleets. This item, which lasted three hours, was followed by a display of water fireworks. The display in Green Park commenced at ten o'clock, one of the chief items being the "grand metamorphosis of the Castle into the Temple of Concord." This change, says a writer in "The Times" of the period, "was made with somewhat less celerity than those witnessed in our theatrical pantomimes. It resembled rather the cautious removal of a screen than the sudden leap into a new shape. When fully developed, however, it presented a spectacle which excited general approbation."

The Temple of Concord was an elaborate structure illuminated with coloured lamps, and decorated with gilding, festoons, etc., and transparent paintings. It was designed by Smirke, the paintings being by Stodard, Howard, Hilton, and others, and represented such subjects as "The Golden Age," and "Peace restored to Earth."

Charles Lamb, in a letter to William Wordsworth, dated August 9th, 1814, after describing the havoc wrought in the park by the crowds and booths, remarks that: "After all the fireworks were splendent—the Rockets in clusters, in trees and all shapes, spreading about like young stars in the making floundering about in space (like unbroke horses) till some of Newton's calculations should fix them, but then they went out. Anyone who could see 'em and the still finer showers of gloomy rain fire that fell sulkily and angrily from