We are not yet quite right about the first panorama, but perhaps the
following will close the discussion.
I have lately been sitting with Mr. Barker (ætat 78), and he tells me
that, when quite a boy, he sketched for his father the view of Edinburgh
from the observatory on the Calton Hill: in the foreground was Holyrood
House; that _that_ was a half circle, and was exhibited in Edinburgh.
So much was thought of the discovery of its being _possible_ to take a
view beyond the old rule of sixty degrees, that they went to London, and
then he took the view from the top of the Albion Mills, as was stated in
Vol. iv., p. 54.
That was three quarters of a circle, and was exhibited in Castle Street,
Leicester Square. Afterwards the whole circle was attempted. The idea of
painting a view more than sixty degrees, was suggested by his mother.
His father did not work at them, he being a portrait painter; but _he_
did, young as he was. Mr. Robert Barker and his wife were both Irish;
but Henry Aston the son was born in Glasgow.