282 Suggestions for a Society for the Improvement of 



dingy brick houses to be found, without the slightest variation 

 of feature, neither differing in height nor in breadth of front, 

 nor in the number, disposition, or size of the doors and windows ? 

 Compare the long streets of first-rate houses in the west end of 

 London with houses of the same class in Paris, Berlin, Munich, 

 or Petersburgh. By what other nation in the world would such 

 immense sums be spent in erecting public buildings which are 

 often, soon after their completion, found to be so unfit for the 

 purposes for which they were intended as to render it necessary 

 for them to be pulled down ? In the short space of twenty 

 years we have seen three royal palaces razed to the ground, all 

 commenced during the lifetime of the present generation; and 

 the present palace at Pimlico, we strongly suspect, will soon 

 share the same fate. Is there any other country in Europe 

 where a space situated like the Regent's Park, and of equal 

 extent and natural beauty, would have been planted with so 

 few sorts of trees, and these few so tastelessly disposed ? And 

 what shall we say to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, 

 which, as far as the kinds of trees and shrubs are concerned, 

 might as well be under the care of a common woodman? Little 

 more can be advanced in favour of the shrubberies in the gardens 

 of the Pimlico Palace, which are filled, for the most part, with 

 the common stuffing of the nurseries. How is it that we can 

 spend a million on a piece of architecture that all men of taste, 

 foreign and domestic, agree to be most wretched, and which is, 

 at the same time, placed in a damp and unwholesome situation, 

 and yet cannot spare a few thousands for planting in a superior 

 manner our public parks and gardens ? The answer is easy. 

 The public hitherto have not had a voice in this kind of ex- 

 penditure. They have not been allowed a voice in any matter 

 of taste, because they were, in a great measure, without taste to 

 gratify. Let this taste, which at present lies dormant in the 

 mass of society, be called into existence by cultivation, and we 

 shall soon see a change in all our public buildings, gardens, and 

 walks. Again, we say that the idea of promoting this object by 

 an association is a most happy one ; and we earnestly entreat 

 our correspondents to lose no time in endeavouring to carry it 

 into execution. In this age of cooperation, there can be no 

 difficulty in establishing such a society. It would, in all pro- 

 bability, soon be joined by numbers. Architects would become 

 members of it for the sake of the professional hints which they 

 would receive from the discussions carried on, as well as to keep 

 up their taste to a par with that of the society. Landscape 

 painters and artists generally would also join it for the same 

 purpose. Builders, and all owners of property in and about 

 large towns, and especially the metropolis, would belong to such 

 a society, because what tended to ornament their property would 



