224 SKETCHES BY A PRACTISING ARCHITECT. 



individual favour, that his designs will be, on the 

 whole, approved, and the building forthwith com- 

 menced. With these very extravagant ideas, he 

 waits upon the committee a second time. 



God bless the poor man ! While he has been 

 covering sheet after sheet with plans, elevations, 

 sections and perspective effects, Mr. Alderman Stil- 

 ton, the cheesemonger, has been busy on a sheet of 

 cartridge paper, and has sketched out a design far 

 more to the purpose than his ! As to the architect, 

 he has certainly made a set of very fine drawings 

 " and all that f but Stilton's is the idea ; and " if 



Mr. will but make out a set of working drawings 



on Mr. Stilton's plan, he will stand some chance of 

 being attended to." The mortified artist vainly at- 

 tempts an explanation of his own plans, which, 

 during the hour of discussion have been thumbed 

 and creased, and torn and blotted, like a "last 

 Sunday's paper" in a pot-house. Rarely, indeed, 

 does the labour of making drawings, and, still less, 

 the mental application necessary to design, enter the 

 thoughts of the committee. The most elaborate 

 sections are flounced about as if they had been 

 printed by steam on whitey-brown paper, ten thou- 

 sand in an hour. The cheesemonger has no notion 

 of regarding time as stock in trade. Taste and in- 

 vention are not sold by the pound, and Alderman 

 Pennyweight has not the most distant idea of pay- 

 ing for "moonshine." When, therefore, our archi- 

 tect refuses to eat cheese alone, and asks for the 

 fairly earned means of purchasing a crust, the com- 

 mittee stare at him as if he had demanded a " world 

 of one entire and perfect chrysolite !" He is not in 

 a condition to wage law with the body corporate, 

 and none of its members are individually responsible. 

 They merely " consulted" him under the probability 

 of his subsequent employment, and have been no 

 further wrong than in spelling " ?wsult" with a con. 



An anecdote, illustrative of the foregoing, is to be 

 found in the records of an important borough in the 



