494 Al r STRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



most varied and extensive prospect, embracing the city and its suburbs, the Bay and a 

 horizontal circle girdled for the most part by mountain ranges. In its erection motives 

 of economy dictated the employment of brick and stucco instead of stone a serious 

 disadvantage for a building of a palatial character. It is in the Italian style, with a 

 lofty campanile rising at the point of junction between the mass of the pile and its 

 handsome ball-room. 



Seen from a distance, Government House preserrts an unattractive appearance, 

 because the unadorned upper storeys only are visible ; but a nearer view corrects the 

 first unfavourable impression, for the handsome loggia in the east facade, another on the 

 west, serving as a conservatory on the ground-floor, an arcade running along the side 

 of the balUroom, a terraced garden in front of the latter, and three effectively treated 

 porticoes, agreeably break the formality of the leading architectural lines, and lend 

 picturesqueness of detail to an otherwise bald elevation. Internally, the building is both 

 spacious and commodious, the various apartments lofty and well-proportioned, and the 

 architectural features of the entrance-hall, the chief corridor and the principal rooms are 

 elegant and harmonious. 



As it was thought necessary and found convenient to separate the private portions 

 of the House from the public reception-rooms, which are planned on a scale of greater 

 magnitude than the former, the design is more spread out than is strictly consistent 

 with the canons of good taste. The edifice is three storeys high, without reckoning the 

 basement. The reception-rooms are placed on the ground-floor, and comprise a ball- 

 room and a music gallery, one hundred and forty feet by fifty-five ; with a contiguous 

 supper-room, one hundred and five feet by twenty-one feet ; a state dining-room, sixty-nine 

 feet by thirty-five ; and a state drawing-room, sixty-six feet by thirty, which opens into a 

 conservatory. This suite of apartments is approached by a grand entrance gallery or 

 corridor, eighty-eight feet by twenty ; with a roomy vestibule and a large enclosed porch. 



The entrance to the ball-room is at the western extremity of the building, under a 

 lofty portc coc/icrc. Adjoining the state apartments are an audience-room and rooms for 

 the Governor's private secretary and aides-de-camp. The private house, which is entered 

 by a separate portico, contains on the ground-floor a clining-room, thirty-four feet by 

 twenty-one ; a drawing-room and a boudoir, fifty-three feet by twenty ; a library, twenty-four 

 feet by twenty ; billiard and smoking rooms, thirty-five feet by twenty-seven ; together with 

 the usual subordinate apartments and offices. The upper floors contain suites of rooms 

 for guests and the sleeping apartments of the household. The stables and outhouses 

 have been designed on a scale of magnitude commensurate with that of the establish- 

 ment to which they belong. 



Government House, ever since its occupation by Sir Henry Brougham and Lady 

 Loch, and subsequently by the Earl of Hopetoun, has been the centre of the social life 

 of the metropolis of Victoria, and has been the scene of a succession of hospitable 

 entertainments, planned with a liberality and presided over with a grace and courtesy 

 which have heightened their charm and enhanced their value as a means of fusing 

 together the somewhat heterogeneous elements of society in a new country. No move- 

 ment calculated to prove of advantage to the religious, moral, intellectual or economic 

 progress of the colony has ever failed to elicit his Lordship's cordial co-operation and 





