154 Metropolitan Improvements. | [Fre 
Street, at White Horse Court. Finding, however, that a professional 
friend had prepared a plan nearly similar, and which was on the point of 
publication, he gave up all idea of publishing his own, and the plan 
alluded to was accordingly published in May 1827. 
It appears that, up to this period, Messrs. Rennie had no idea of 
departing from the old line of Tooley Street, upon which, according to 
the contract plan, the ascent to the new bridge was to be formed ; but 
after the publication in May, of the. plan above-mentioned, they prepared 
and submitted to the New Bridge Committee an entirely nem series of 
plans, in which three different modes of attaining the New Bridge, from 
the city side, were suggested ; but for the approaches from Southwark, 
though the engravings were also three in number, yet the designs were 
one; the plans not only being all alike, but so far as related to the new 
approach from Tooley Street, were precisely the counterpart of the plan 
before alluded to, as being published in the May preceding. 
« This coincidence,” Mr. Allen says, “is too remarkable to be con- 
sidered accidental, as it comprises another very important feature of the 
plan published in May; namely, the suggestion of a new street, to 
extend from London Bridge to the Bricklayer’s Arms; yet, without 
even a hint being given in the Report which accompanies it, of the idea 
having originated with another party.” 
If the new plans of the Messrs. Rennie were actually the result of the 
publication of this plan, it was certainly an ungenerous omission not to 
allude to it—and with this omission the above paragraph certainly 
charges these gentlemen. It is, however, no unusual thing in these days 
of liberality, to see the heads of a profession obtain wealth and fame, by 
carrying the suggestions and plans of uninfluential and obscure artists 
into execution, as their own. It may one day be our task to trace many 
of the late plans up to their original sources, and give the wreath of the 
fame, if we cannot give the wealth which has been their produce, to 
the original projectors. 
The new plans for the approaches designed by Messrs. Rennie, were 
published in the Repertory of Arts, in December 1827, six months sub- 
sequent to the previous publication—and they bear too evident marks — 
of having been at least very materially grounded on the others, to permit — 
a supposition that the coincidence is merely accidental. The three great 
considerations in such plans, are, of course, economy, convenience to 
proprietors, and the easiest accomplishment of the object proposed ; yet, 
in defiance to nearly all these considerations, in their proposed new 
street to the Bricklayer’s Arms, these gentlemen have intended passing 
through the centre of St. Thomas’s and Guy’s Hospitals ; thus entailing 
either the destruction or the removal of two of the most valuable public 
institutions of which the Metropolis and its environs can boast. 
Finding that the new approach to the bridge, from Tooley Street, 
was coldly spoken of in Messrs. Rennie’s Report, as “ productive of 
considerable expense and inconvenience,” although admitted to be an 
‘«jmmense improvement,” Mr. Allen determined to give publicity to his 
ideas on the subject, as, from his local knowledge, he was convinced that 
the result would be directly the reverse of that represented in the 
Report, and that it would effect, “ upon the lowest calculation, a saving 
to the city of a hundred thousand pounds.” 
With much difficulty and delay, Mr. Allen, at length, finding that 
there were objections in the Bridge Committee to receiving them, ob- 
tained leave to lay his plans before the Common Council; and these are, 
=o, 
