360 Architecture of the Metropolis. 



The architectural spirit which has arisen in London since 

 the late peace, and ramified from thence to every city and 

 town of the empire, will present an era in our domestic history. 

 The new erections in Regent-street and its appendages, in 

 Pall-Mall, the Hay-market, and, above all, in the Regent's 

 Park, discover the dawning of a new and better taste, which, 

 though very far from the perfection to which we have a right 

 to aspire, is yet, in comparison with that which preceded it, a 

 just subject of national exultation. Regent's Park, and its 

 circumjacent buildings, promise, in a few years, to afford some- 

 thing like an equipoise to the boasted Palace-groupe of Paris. 

 If the plan already acted upon is steadily pursued, it will pre- 

 sent an union of rural and architectural bea\ity on a scale of 

 greater magnificence than can be found in any other place. 

 The variety is here in the detached groups, and not as formerly 

 in the individual dwellings, by which all unity and grandeur of 

 effect was, of course, annihilated. These groups, undoubtedly, 

 will not always bear the eye of a severe critic, but altogether 

 they exhibit, perhaps, as much beauty as can easily be intro- 

 duced into a collection of dwelling-houses of moderate size. 

 Great care has been taken to give something of a classical air 

 to every composition ; and with this object, the deformity of 

 door-cases has been in most cases excluded, and the entrances 

 made from behind. The Doric and Ionic orders have been 

 chiefly employed ; but the Corinthian, and even the Tuscan, 

 are occasionally introduced. One of these groups is finished 

 with domes ; but this is an attempt at magnificence which, on 

 so small a scale, is not deserving of imitation. 



The four parks of London ought not be omitted in any 

 enumeration of its superior advantages. They form an unique 

 and splendid appendage to the metropolis, such as no other 

 city can boast ; and, though not equal to the gardens of the 

 Luxembourg and the Tuileries in minute beauty, and in con- 

 venience of access, are far beyond them in all the great requi- 

 sites of a place of public recreation. The four new gateways 

 to Hyde-Park, just completed, will form a beautiful improve- 

 ment. Those who wish to be convinced of the fine effect 

 which Doric architecture is capable of producing, even on a 

 small scale, have only to inspect these edifices, where the finest 



