1827.] Metropolitan Improvements. J25 



in opposition to all architectural propriety, and to the destruction of ar- 

 chitectural proportion. We should not then see attic piled on attic, and 

 pediment surmounting pediment, until the words of the old song force them- 

 selves on our recollection as an apt illustration : 



" On the top of his head was his wig, 

 On the top of his wig was his hat." 



In this criticism we are far from blaming the architect who projects the 

 genera] improvement. We know the difficulties he has to contend with; 

 we feel for his anxiety to realize the expectations of his employers, by 

 letting the ground at the rent he has placed upon it, and we know the 

 obstacle which an arbitrary determination, as to the style of the building, 

 might throw in the way of its disposal, where the speculation was 

 uncertain. 



These observations are, however, only applicable to the commencing 

 works of the improvement. Now that the success of one great street has 

 ascertained that great public thoroughfares have only to be formed to 

 attract inhabitants, and that in lieu of the projector's entertaining fears 

 that his ground may not let, he is inundated with applications long before 

 the old build ings are removed, he may safely insist on defining the ele- 

 vations to be erected, or in having them submitted for his approbation. 

 Under these circumstances, we should not have carpenters and bricklayers 

 turning architects, and spoiling, by their wretched productions, the general 

 effect of a vast improvement. 



While we are on this subject, we cannot help stating our wish, that 

 those noblemen and gentlemen who possess property in conspicuous parts 

 of the metropolis would adopt the same system, and not leave the designs 

 for their elevations to be made by the builder, who takes the ground upon 

 speculation, and who knows nothing of architecture but its mechanism; 

 instead of submitting them to the taste and judgment of some professor. 

 By this means we often find an architect building a house for an individual 

 who has taken an urider-lease, compelled to adopt a front designed by some 

 ignorant builder, and mask the beauties of his interior by an elevation 

 totally devoid of beauty, and replete with architectural defects. 



These men know that there are pilasters, and cornices, and columns, 

 and there are books sufficiently elaborate to furnish them with models 

 to work from ; but ignorant of the propriety of their application, and 

 having no ideas of proportion, in which, after all, the great beauty of ar- 

 chitecture consists, they place a column here, and a pilaster there, without 

 rhyme or reason, and thus many fine opportunities for architectural display 

 are lost. 



One miserable instance of an excellent situation being sacrificed, is 

 exemplified in Richmond Terrace, Parliament-street, which might have 

 been made one of the most beautiful features of the architecture of the 

 metropolis, instead of a mere lump of stone and brickwork, devoid of 

 every elegance and out of all proportion. Yet in this building are con- 

 tained all the component parts of good architecture. There are columns, 

 cornices, and pediments, but put together without any regard to pro~ 

 portion. 



The sacrifice of such a situation as this is a public loss to the metropolis, 

 and its deformity is rendered more conspicuous by its immediate contrast 

 with the Board of Trade, which is erecting, from the designs of Mr. Soanc, 

 at the corucr of Downing-street, and which will ultimately form a 



