1828.) [ 253 J 
METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS. 
As our palaces and public buildings, and all the various improvements 
of the metropolis are so rapidly approaching to completion, it is time for 
every lover of the arts to look about him, and to see and judge of the 
manner in which so much public money is expended ; for although those 
who pay for all this mass of masonry that is rising around us, have no 
control over it, yet they are not debarred the comfort of criticising. 
The liberty of praise and blame is left to the public ;_and the journalists, 
as well as our contemporary periodicals, have certainly not been sparing 
of their criticisms. So generally, indeed, has the public opinion been 
expressed upon the merits—or rather the demerits of one building, which 
proves the principal feature of these improvements, that, for a wonder, 
it attracted the notice of a high personage, who either out of deference 
to the public, or actuated by his own good taste, gave immediate direc- 
tions that the defect complained of should be remedied by an additional 
expenditure of 25,000/. on each of the wings of the palace: for such 
is the amount which this alteration is to cost according to Mr. Nash’s 
evidence before a select committee of the House of Commons. The 
palace is by this means rendered a much more sightly building, but still 
it wants to be relieved of the square towers and preposterously small 
dome—which Mr. Nash himself acknowledges he did not think would 
be so conspicuous from the park. In criticising any building, erected as 
this is, under the immediate control of a personage whom nobody may 
contradict, we can find much apology for an architect which he may not, 
and does not make for himself. In every-day life how many of the con- 
structions of the architect are spoiled by the ignorant interference of his 
employer, who dictates a room here, or a portico there, which the judg- 
ment of the architect knows to be misplaced, but to which dictation he is 
obliged to bow-—There are, however, a great many beauties in this 
palace, and while the public have so generally condemned the front 
towards the park, the really elegant western, or garden facade, seems 
has been entirely overlooked and unmentioned. Had the palace, how- 
ever, been an assemblage of beauties, we should still have reiterated our 
former opinion of its being misplaced. ' 
Either of the spots pointed out by Mr. Soane, or by Colonel Trench, 
would have been far superior in any point of view. 
Mr. Soane’s plan was to have placed it at the top of Constitution-hill, 
with an entrance from a triumphal arch at the Piccadilly end ; and to have 
formed a road through the park and Downing-street to the House of 
Lords ; so that the King, in his progress to open or prorogue Parliament, 
should pass through one continued line of public buildings, consisting of 
Buckingham-house, St. James’s-palace, the Horse-guards, triumphal 
arches to the memories of the Battle of Trafalgar and Waterloo, all the 
seman offices, and finally, Westminster-hall and the courts of 
w. 
This was a grand conception, and was, we believe, once so well thought 
of in high quarters, that a portion of the general design was commenced ; 
but change of men or of measures—a sudden and unusual fit of eeonomy— 
the fear of Mr. Hume, or some other paralyser of the progress of art, 
prevented its accomplishment. 
Colonel Trench, in the improvements recommended by him, proposed 
two situations for thepalace ; one in the centre of Hyde Park, by which 
