1828.] Metropolitan Improvements. 359 
Colonel Trench had to contend with. A Sunday paper set up a claim 
of Mr. Nash, as the originator of the plan of the Thames Quay, and 
very nearly accused the colonel of stealing his ideas from the architect 
in no very handsome manner. This, however, is denied by Mr. Nash, 
in a very polite letter—which still, however, left the matter in doubt as 
to which had to claim the honour of first originating the scheme ; neither 
of them acknowledging, what it is but fair to presume that they must 
very well have known, that the plan had been long ago projected, and. 
even reported upon; and a similar one was likewise suggested by Sir 
Christopher Wren, in his plan for rebuilding the city of London after 
the fire in 1666. 
The advantage of narrowing and deepening the River Thames had 
been very generally admitted ; and the late Mr. Jessop, the engineer, pre- 
sented a plan to the House of Commons, illustrative of the subject, 
which was published in the Report of the Select Committee for improv- 
ing the Port of London, in 1800. The late Mr. Mylne’s opinion had 
also been obtained upon the subject. An act of parliament was likewise 
actually passed (22 Chas. II. c. 2.) to set out a quay from London Bridge 
to the Temple. 
All claims, therefore, to originality must be given up both by Mr. Nash 
and Colonel Trench ; but, although this must be confessed to be the case, 
the colonel has certainly the credit—and no little one it is—of having 
reduced these general plans into detail, of having investigated the 
minutiz of its possible accomplishment, and of having exhibited some 
very tasteful designs as to its architectural execution. 
In any view which we may take of the subject, all commercial or 
private interests must be quite out of the question. We do not look on 
the project with the eye of a speculator, or with our hands in our 
pockets—but as artists; we consider it.only as a work of art—and as 
such, it is impossible not to pronounce the plan as one which would tend 
more to the embellishment of our metropolis than any other that has 
been projected. 
Petersburgh and Paris have their magnificent quays and boulevards— 
nay, even Dublin has graced the shores of its narrow Liffey with quays 
and buildings, of which the metropolis of the greatest country in the 
world might be proud; and the Thames—the magnificent Thames— 
seems alone condemned to roll its waters through coal, timber, and lime- 
wharfs, and to be used for nothing but a filthy sewage pouring into its 
streams, through mud-banks which are really a disgrace to London. 
Setting aside, therefore, all considerations of calculation, we cannot, as 
artists, but pronounce the plan of Colonel Trench as a magnificent 
embellishment to our national river and city, and, as such, regret that 
the rights of the citizens in 1825 should have had the same effect upon 
his plan, as their cupidity had on that of Sir Christopher Wren in 1666. 
Ina commercial country, however, profit must be the principal consider- 
ation ; and, ina free government, the rights of private individuals can 
very seldom be voted away for public benefit. 
Finding that there was so much opposition to the quay and terrace of 
Colonel Trench, other projectors issued a prospectus and plans for a rival 
construction of the same sort, on the Surry side of the river ; but as the 
gallant colonel’s exertions were paralyzed by the energetic opposition of 
the coal-merchants and proprietors, headed by his Grace of Norfolk, 
and the Marquis of Salisbury, so did the plan of the Surry Terrace die 
a natural death for the want of support. Judging from the lithograph 
oe 
