356 Architecture of the Metropolk» 



all criticism. An educated foreigner is quite astonished when 

 shown the residences of our higher nobiUty and gentry in the 

 British capital. Knowing them to be the wealthiest body in 

 Europe, and knowing also that England is a country which 

 pretends to superior refinement and civilization, he naturally 

 expects to see the city filled with such palaces as the Pitti, 

 Borghese, Colonna, Barberini, and the other celebrated man- 

 sions of Genoa, Florence, Naples, and Rome ; or at least such 

 as the principal hotels, or town residences of Paris, Petersburgh, 

 or Turin. He has heard speak of some great nobleman, with a 

 revenue equal to that of a principality. He feels a curiosity to 

 look at his palace^ and he is shown a plain, common brick house 

 of forty or fifty feet in extent ! Is it wonderful that he turns 

 with contempt from such tasteless poverty of spirit, and feels 

 inclined, like Buonaparte, to pronounce us a nation of shop- 

 keepers ? 



In the capital article of churches, London will probably be 

 admitted, after Rome, to take the first rank amongst the cities 

 of Europe. Some few places, as Milan, Strasburgh, York, &c., 

 may boast a finer Gothic cathedral than Westminster ; and St. 

 Paul's must yield the palm to St. Peter's as a Grecian temple; 

 but no single city can boast two several specimens which rank 

 so high in their respective departments. In churches of the 

 secondary order London is also richer than any other city. 

 Many of these are undoubtedly very handsome ; but the design 

 for which they are built, that of containing as large a congre- 

 gation as possible, has created an uniformity of structure very 

 wearisome to the eye. They consist mostly of a plain, oblong 

 building, with a tall and slender steeple at one end, surmount- 

 ed by a spire, and supported by a bold and handsome Corin- 

 thian or Ionic portico or peristyle ; but the remainder of the 

 church being generally destitute of all architectural ornament, 

 a striking appearance of incongruity obtrudes itself on the 

 spectator. This is greatly relieved when, as in the fine church 

 of St. Martin' s-in-the-fields, the body of the church is sustained 

 by semi-columns or pilasters, and their proper entablature ; but 

 this is seldom attempted. The new church in Langham-place 

 has a beautiful portico in the form of a hexastyle; and, though 

 that structure is liable to much censure, yet the attempt at variety 



