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After some farther remarks of the same nature, he pro- 

 ceeded : — " If I am correct in what I have stated, I shall not 

 be deemed hasty in my condemnation of the invariable use of 

 the straight line in streets at the present day. What, I would 

 ask, constitutes the chief beauty of a river, or stream ? Do 

 those splendid phenomena, the magnificent characteristics of 

 mountain scenery, owe their beauty to the straight line ? The 

 rocky pass, the verdant valley, the interesting combination of 

 glade and thicket, woods, groves, hills and lakes, — have these 

 no voice for the architect ? — no lesson for the student ? 

 Nature seems to abhor a straight bne, as she is said to do, a 

 vacuum. Yet while every leaf, every blade of grass, every part 

 of the human body, presents us with some beautiful curve, for 

 our imitation in works of art, both streets and houses might 

 be pointed out, from which curves of every species have been 

 sedulously excluded. 



" If I wanted an example of a street in which every precept 

 of nature has been unheeded, I could not do better than in- 

 stance a well known one of this town — Shaw Street, — than 

 which, perhaps, nothing more monotonous, within the range 

 of architecture, could be found. Formed on level ground, or 

 nearly so, of one staight line, and what is the most strange, 

 though the houses are not enlisted under one design, in the 

 shape of a terrace, with the usual arrangement of centre and 

 wings, yet the houses, as if cast in one mould, are from end to 

 end fac similes of each other. I appeal to any gentleman who 

 has made the observation, whether he ever experienced in 

 that street any of those sensations of pleasure which a fine 

 street is calculated to awaken in every c\dtivated mind. With 

 the exception of a couple of Ionic columns as a door-case to 

 each house, it is one dead, merely perforated wall, or series of 

 walls, from end to end ; devoid of all provision for light and 

 shade ; innocent of every thing that can relieve the wearied 

 eye, or awaken a spark of interest in the mind. I mention this 

 street because it is one of those in the design of which, if we 

 are to have beauty in street architecture, from the cost and 



