The unfortunate architect was beside himself with rage at the suggestion. He protested, but he protested in vain. The complaisant committee had quite fallen in with Wyatt's idea. But it was not so the Government, the Royal Academy, and the Press. They heaped ridicule upon both the project and the sculptor. They roundly declared that it would ruin the unity and symmetry of his building. Then began an acrimonious discussion between the friends of Wyatt and the objectors to his proposed statue. All London divided itself into factions. The common topic of drawing room and dinner conversation was, "Are you for or against putting a gigantic Iron Duke on the top of the arch?" "Brazen impudence!" wrote Thackeray, himself an artist. Meanwhile, in the studio in the Harrow Road, opposite the Dudley Arms Tavern, the lucky sculptor had been proceeding with his task. He prepared several models and designs, and the sub-committee availed themselves of a model of the Hyde Park Corner arch to consider, which they did with the greatest attention, the position and relative size of the statue to be placed on the summit. Wyatt then prepared a drawing of the arch with the equestrian statue, of which the sub-committee approved. But at this point the Lords of the Treasury stepped in with an injunction. As the modelling and casting went on the battle raged. Macaulay wrote from India that the sculptor and his friends "ought to be in Bedlam"; his antagonist, Croker, inquired blandly "what a Whig Dissenter knew of high art." "High" art then became a joke. To the query, "What is the very _highest_ form of art?" the jocular answer was, "Wyatt's Duke." The newspapers between 1840 and 1846 contain innumerable references to and descriptions of the statue, and the progress it was making towards completion. We are told that the plaster of Paris used in the stupendous work considerably exceeded one hundred tons; it was formed upon a turn-plate, or revolving platform, upwards of twenty feet across, travelling upon forty rollers and weighing in itself several tons. The vastness of the model required certain precautions to ensure its integrity. To give strength to the body of the horse, a beam passed through it longitudinally, like a backbone from which spring traverse timbers, like the ribs of a ship. From the body of the horse was a line of iron bolts, beneath which, in the early stage of the modelling, were placed props for security in shifting the figure by means of the platform, so as to obtain the most desirable position for light, etc. To reach the different parts of the statue a travelling stage with a shifting floor was constructed, so that it might be adjusted to any height.