1825.] 
tofere so frequently been bewildered— 
thridding the intricacies of narrow lanes 
and dingy courts, where dirt and wretch- 
edness distinguished the squalid inhabi- 
tants of crazy tenements, in which every 
floor, nay every room, was crowded 
with its separate family. 
But into what region would he who 
had left the metropolis in his youth, 
and returned to it in his old age, think he 
had got, ifhe found himself, on a sudden, 
in the midst of the Regent’s Park? 
We will not, at present, extend our 
observations to the opposite extremity 
of the line; or expatiate on what has 
already been done in the neighbour- 
hood of the Haymarket, Suffolk Street 
and Place, Pall-Mall East, &c., or make, 
on this occasion, any further critical or 
political observation, than simply to 
avow an opinion, that such improve- 
ments are, in themselves, gratifying and 
commendable; that the expenditure 
they occasion is a profitable circulation, 
not a squandering consumption, of na- 
tional capital—a creation, not a waste, 
of public property ;—and that, if the 
taste of the architect, in the detail, had 
kept pace with the comprehension of 
the design and the profusion of the 
means, these improvements would, in 
every point of view, have been honour- 
able to the spirit of the age, and to the 
national character. 
But, whatever be the improvements 
that have hitherto taken place they 
are nothing, in point of splendour and 
magnificence, in comparison with those 
that are in contemplation. On the 
Grand Street that is to be continued 
from Blackfriars Bridge to Clerken- 
well, sweeping down, for that pur- 
pose, that nuisance (in its present situa- 
tion) Fleet-Market, and those still 
greater nuisances, Field Lane, and its 
pestilent suburbs and ramifications— 
opening thus a spacious and commo- 
dious architectural avenue across the 
Metropolis, from the great Southern to 
the great Northern road—or on the adat- 
toirs that are to be erected on the out- 
skirts, to remove the nuisance of slaugh- 
ter-houses from the centre of the town, 
and the still greater nuisance of driving 
overworried cattle through the thronged 
streets to the shambles,—we shall not 
enlarge. They are, however, we under- 
stand, now actually determined upon. 
We confine ourselves, for the pre- 
sent, to those splendid improvements 
which have been planned, it is under- 
stood, not only under the immediate 
auspices, but on the express suggestion of 
Improvements in the Neighbourhood of Charing-Cross. 
435 
his Majesty himself, and which are now 
upon the eve of being carried into exe- 
cution : those we mean in the neigh- 
bourhood of Charing-Cross ; and for 
which, the groundis, at this time, clearing. 
Of the plan of these superb improye- 
ments we have not been able to procure 
an actual inspection; but we have had 
such information upon the subject, from 
sources which we have reason to believe 
authentic, as will enable us to convey 
to our readers a general idea of the ex- 
tent and grandeur of the project. 
The whole of the ground, from Char- 
ing-Crossand Northumberland-house on 
the north, to the extremity of the 
buildings connected with and adjacent 
to the Royal Mews on the south, and 
from the new buildings of Pall-Mall 
East, and the fine united front of the 
Union Hotel, and new College of 
Physicians, to St. Martin’s-lane, is to 
be entirely cleared ; and the eques- 
trian statue of Charles I. is to be the 
central point of view, from which the 
open space, with its splendid array of 
architectural embellishments, is to be 
contemplated, in all its grandeur and 
proportions. The front of the fine 
church of St. Martin’s is already thrown 
almost entirely open to Pall-Mall; and 
the side of the same noble edifice is 
also to be laid open (at the expense of 
the parish) to the Strand, by the re- | 
moval of the buildings by which it is at 
present obstructed. The western front 
of the church is itself to form one side, 
or rather to be the central object of one 
side of the meditated square; of which 
the Hotel and College already men- 
tioned, with the buildings of equal 
splendour that are to be continued from 
the other side of Pall-Mall East, are to 
form the other. A noble colonnade, of the 
Corinthian order, and a magnificent 
range of buildings, already planned, are 
to form the northern line of this great 
square. In the centre of this extensive 
space, thus superbly bounded, facing 
the equestrian statue, is to be erect« 
ed, for the use of the Royal Aca 
demy and its exhibitions, which are to 
be removed from their present inades 
quate and inconvenient rooms at Somers 
set-house, an exact copy or renovation 
of the Parthenon, corresponding in its 
dimensions and proportions, style of ar- 
chitecture, and all particulars, even to 
the ornamental frieze, and all other seulp- 
tural embellishments, with that most 
celebrated of Athenian edifices. These 
sculptural additions will give it-a de» 
cided pre-eminence over that which 
3K 2 was 
