REVIEWS. 



ed, will be gay with its hundreds of ladies and gentlemen on horseback — the banks of the 

 Serpentine will be crowded with thousands on foot, enjoying the beauty of the " flood and 

 field." At the same moment — especially on the days when the band plays, Kensington 

 Gardens — which joins Hyde Park, will be filled with thousands of pedestrians — for no 

 carriages are allowed there — though there are over three hundred acres of park there. 

 When we state that we have seen over fifty thousand persons in Hyde Park and Kensing- 

 ton gardens, riding, driving, and walking, in a single afternoon, and that at the same mo- 

 ment St. James' Park was as gay with its thousands, it will, we think, be understood that 

 the immense parks of London are no larger breathing zones than the lungs of a great, po- 

 pulous and wealthy city, require. Parks for promenade merely, are delightful features 

 in a city, but much more delightful are carriage parks, which include the privilege of tak- 

 ing exercise in all waj's. Hundreds and thousands of invalids, who are unable to walk, 

 are enabled to enjoy the luxury of the open air, without the annoying rattle of the pave- 

 ment, in the carriage path — while to those who own carriages, the pleasure of driving over 

 a smooth park road, instead of round stones, is almost the whole difference of enjoyment 

 or no enjoyment. What our great cities, therefore, should really aim at now, is, not lit- 

 tle green squares, of no value except for promenades — but spacious carriage parks, large 

 enough for all purposes of recreation and enjoyment in the widest sense. 



As a specimen of the chasteness and beauty of Mr. Ware's style, and the excellence of 

 his architectural criticism, we quote the following passages upon some of the edifices of 

 Florence : 



" There are no palaces for a dark and sombre magnificence, like those of Florence. If 

 one looked no higher than the ground floor, he would think much more of a prison than a 

 palace; but if of a prison, it would be one for the incarceration of nothing less than prin- 

 ces or kings. But lifting the eye upward, and no one can longer doubt that he is examin- 

 ing the residences of some of tlie long descended inheritors of the power and wealth of 

 Tuscany. They have about them, in a remarkable degree, an air of nobility. The forms 

 are extremely simple, even to severity; no ornament which seems to be ornament for its 

 own sake. The architecture, you Avill observe too, will have all the parts which properly 

 belong to it, but beyond that, not a line, not a curve, not a moulding — nothing beyond the 

 strictest demands of the order; and the order chosen you will find for the most part to 

 be the simplest and severest of the fine, that to which the country has given its name, the 

 Tuscan. I do not believe there is a more impressive building in Europe than the Ricardi 

 Palace in Florence, the ancient residence of the Medici, in the days of the first Cosmo and 

 Lorenzo. It preaches like a sermon; it harangues like an oration; it inspires like a poem. 

 I came upon it unexpectedly the first day I was in Florence, and as I stood beneath its 

 black walls of chisselled rock, with its massive overhanging cornice, I felt for the first 

 time the power of architecture. And j-et, palace though it be, it presents but two sheer, 

 unbroken fi'onts, on the corner of two streets— no projection, no recesses, no towers, pedi- 

 ments, columns or piazzas, — two simple fronts with their magnificent cornice, that is all; 

 but so grand are the proportions of all, as if Michael Angelo had written his name all 

 over it, that for true sublimitj^ it far surpasses all other structures there, even the huge 

 Cathedral itself. 



The famous Cathedrr.l — the Duomo, begun in the fourteenth century by Arnolfo, and 

 finished by Brunelschi, in the fiftoentli, is very vast, having a length of four hundred and 

 fifty, and a height of three hundred and eighty-seven feet. And had it been built of one 

 kind of marble, it would not have been without a very grand effect. It is impressive as it 

 is, especially in its intei'ior, with its rich pnintcd windows, rich as if Titian had been the 

 artist — but much is lost to the exterior, owing to its parti-colored material, being made of 

 marble in alternate layers of Mhite and black — a childish taste of the age in which it was 

 built, — which disfigures many otherwise fine buildings, both there and in Pisa, and not- 

 withstanding its great size, gives to the church in question the look of being only an un- 

 commonly hirge toy. Its dome is considered its greatest glory and boast — and with rca 

 there had been nothing like it before. It was in point of time, before St. Peter 

 as its model to Michael Angelo, who was never satisfied with gazing upon i 



