121 Metropolitan Improvements. [FEB. 



ever been witnessed. It is the only speculation of the sort where elegance 

 seems to have been considered equally with profit in the disposition of the 

 ground. The buildings are not crowded together with an avaricious de- 

 termination to create as much frontage as possible ; and we cannot bestow 

 too much praise on the liberality with which the projector has given up so 

 much space to the squares, roads, and plantations, by which he has cer- 

 tainly relinquished many sources of profit for the pleasure and convenience 

 of the public. 



It is in the contemplation of these additions and improvements to our 

 metropolis, that we. doubly feel the blessings and effects of that peace 

 which has enabled the government, as well as private individuals, to attempt 

 to make London worthy of the character it bears in the scale of cities; 

 and we are happy now to feel proud of the architectural beauty, as we 

 always have of the commercial influence, of our metropolis. 



Perhaps one of the most extraordinary parts of Napoleon's government 

 was, that amidst all his ambitious pursuits of conquest all his warfare 

 all his hostile expeditions east, west, north, and south, he never for a 

 moment ceased to encourage the arts, or to devote a certain portion of his 

 attention to the improvement of Paris. Thus the remembrance of every 

 victory was perpetuated by a monument, and the memory of the blood that 

 had been shed, and the lives that had been sacrificed in its attainment, was 

 lost in the contemplation of the splendour of the fabric by which it was 

 celebrated. This might arise from his ambition to perpetuate his own 

 name as the munificent patron of the arts of peace, as well as the remem- 

 brance of his victories. It is probable, however, that he also found it 

 necessary to place some visible and tangible evidence of his glory under 

 the eyes of such a fickle and vain people as those he governed, who con- 

 soled themselves under the horrors of the conscription by ideas of the 

 glory of the " grande nation' 1 and by the delight of filling their own 

 galleries and palaces with the chefs d'ceuvres of art ravished from other 

 countries by the right of conquest. 



England was too fully occupied during the war to devote much atten- 

 tion to the arts, and she refrained from erecting monuments to her victories 

 till they were complete, and till their result was peace. From the moment 

 that has been accomplished, a considerable portion of the public money 

 Las beeji devoted to architectural improvements ; the deficiency of 

 churches has been supplied in many parts of the country, as well as in the 

 metropolis, and London has been purged of many of its nuisances, while 

 its healthiness and comforts have been increased by the formation of 

 new openings, and the construction of new sewers and the regulation of 

 old ones. 



Having thus considered the general effect of the late and projected im- 

 provements, and, we think, justly appreciated their general excellence, we 

 will now proceed to an examination of some of the detail of their exe- 

 cution ; and here we cannot help regretting that there is not a competent 

 committee of taste as well as an efficient board of works a committee 

 to whom all elevations of building in public situations, or forming portions of 

 new streets, should be submitted before they are permitted to be executed. 

 We should not then have so many anomalies in architecture as at present dis- 

 grace certain portions of the late great improvements. We should not then 

 have the absurd mixture of the grotesque with the elegant the Chinese with 

 the Greek and the Egyptian with Italian architecture. We should 

 not see columns supporting nothing, or pilasters plastered against walls 



