43 6 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



the musical celebrities of the city are to be met with towards the close of the afternoon. 

 Another favourite place of resort is the spacious book-shop and circulating library of 

 the Melbourne " Mudie," Mr. S. Mullen, frequented alike by the insatiable clevourers of 

 light literature, and by bibliophilists belonging to all classes and professions. Here, too, 

 and further on in the direction of Queen Street, are most of the leading jewellers' 

 shops, some of the principal silk -mercers' establishments, four or five photographic 

 studios of high repute, and a popular cafd or two. And while the latest fashions in 

 feminine apparel and adornment are illustrated and proclaimed behind huge panes of 

 plate-glass in many of the shop windows, they are also exemplified in the walking 

 costumes of the ladies, of whom it may be said, as Friar Lawrence said of Juliet, "so 

 light a foot will ne'er wear out the everlasting " granite on which it treads. Four 

 o'clock in the afternoon brings with it a considerable accession to the crowd in the 

 shape of young men released from the banks and public offices ; two hours afterwards 

 the street is well-nigh deserted, and nothing is heard but the metallic rattle of iron 

 shutters closing in upon the darkened windows. Thenceforward the thoroughfare is as 

 silent as a village highway after dark. 



From an architectural point of view this portion of Collins Street is one of the 

 handsomest avenues in the city. The south side, which is almost monopolized by banking 

 institutions, and the offices of building societies and financial companies, presents some 

 striking elevations. That of the Premier Building Society is the first to claim attention. 

 It is a five-storey edifice, the architect of which has adopted the style of the French 

 Renaissance, as exemplified by the colony of Italians who settled at Amboise in the middle 

 of the sixteenth century, and left their impress on many of the chateaux in the valley of the 

 Loire. A somewhat narrow front consisting of three divisions, the centre one recessed, 

 so as to admit of the introduction of an effective bay, enriched with polished columns 

 and pilasters of red granite is ornate with carvings in freestone, embracing caryatides, 

 foliated ornaments on panels, and a certain elegance of detail such as the architects of 

 the period substituted for the grander forms and more massive features of the Gothic 

 and Classic styles which the Renaissance had superseded. The leading characteristic of 

 the building before us is what would be described, if feminine beauty were being spoken 

 of, as "a distracting prettiness," which is heightened by contrast with the severely simple 

 design of the neighbouring structure, the printing and publishing office of the Age, the 

 Leader and the Illustrated Australian News. 



A little farther on is the handsome front of the Bank of Victoria, which is almost 

 a fac-simile of the Palazzo Pcsaro, erected by Longhena in 1679, on the Grand Canal in 

 Venice. But the rusticated basement and mezzanine storey contain only one arched 

 entrance instead of two, and there is no third storey as in the original ; while a frieze 

 pierced for attic lights has been interposed between the entablature above the columns 

 and the parapet. As the frontage of the bank is from one-fourth to one-fifth less than 

 that of the palace from which it has been copied, it does not suffer materially by the 

 omission of the upper storey, and to the Melbourne building may be applied the 

 words which Fergusson has used when speaking of the Venetian structure : " From the 

 water-line to the cornice it is a rich, varied, and appropriate design, so beautiful as a 

 whole that we can well afford to overlook any slight irregularities in detail." Two 



