358 Metropolitan Improvements. [Ocr. 
Mr. Rennie’s favourable report was read—tasteful designs of Messrs. 
B. and P. Wyatt were produced—the late Duchess of Rutland, of unques- 
tionable architectural taste, had given these designs the sanction of her 
approbation—and the late Duke of York presided at the meeting. But, 
alas! thus supported by noble and royal patronage—thus surrounded by 
peers, and legislators, and the rulers of the country—Colonel Trench 
forgot one thing—he forgot the coal-merchants!! The occupiers of the 
wharfs—the persons principally interested—even more so, perhaps, than 
the proprietors, since their trade depended upon their premises—were 
never consulted until the whole plan had been digested by directors, 
architects, and engineers, who, with all the beauty of their designs and 
science of their constructions, could not convince these obstinate wharf- 
ingers that the approach to their present open premises through arches 
built by Messrs. Wyatt and Rennie, would be an improvement. This 
formidable body, supported in their opposition by the Marquis of Salis- 
bury, a great proprietor—and the late Dr. Kitchiner, a little proprietor 
—overturned the project. 
What an abominable country this must be, in which the interests of a 
few obscure wharfingers, and timber and coal-merchants, can weigh 
down the interests and wishes of half the nobility of the country! Yet 
so it was ; and the project ended in the display of Colonel Trench’s elo- 
quence, and the exhibition of the really elegant designs of Mr. Philip 
Wyatt—for to the taste of this gentleman we attribute the seductive 
drawings (we can call them nothing else) that induced so many to 
patronize Colonel Trench’s plan. 
This project at the time made a great, and perhaps more stir, than 
many which were actually carried into execution. The “ gentlemen of 
the press” took up the subject. Argument after argument was bandied 
about in the newspapers and periodicals ; and it is really curious to look 
back at the different opinions and views which different writers took of 
the same subject. _ One called it a “brilliant proposal held out of embel- 
lishing in so magnificent a manner this part of the metropolis”—that the 
designs “ marked a judgment and good taste, which afforded the greatest 
promise for the accomplishment of this national object ;” while another 
pronounced it to be a plan “ good for nothing, but to put money into 
the pockets of the projector and his architects, and to empty those of the 
subscribers ; threatening great physical injury ; worthless as to all pur- 
poses of public pleasure or advantage, as it is hazardous to mary import- 
ant public and private interests.” 
Another writer calls it “a plan, than which one more pregnant with 
mischief, and more replete with absurdity, I will venture to say was 
never submitted to public consideration ;” the projector “ appears to be 
more qualified to draw beautiful plans than accurate conclusions.” 
Some asserted that it would stop the passage of the river ; others, that 
it would shut out all air from the Strand and its adjacent streets. San- 
guine people pronounced that it was beautiful, and that it promised the 
good citizens of London and Westminster a magnificent promenade, with 
distant views of the Surry Hills; while those of a saturnine tempera- 
ment declared that it would only be a space in which the smoke of the 
city and the fogs of the river might congregate with greater facility. In 
short, praise and abuse, reason and absurdity, defences and accusations, 
were bandied about on all sides; and the projectors were ridiculed or 
applauded, according to the temper or the interests of those by whom 
the question was discussed. i 
But this abuse and this opposition was not the only circumstance 
