Till 



to friendly societies. A large professional practice followed naturally 

 on this publication. He died December 14, 1881, at the advanced age 

 of 87. 



Decimus Burton, born September 30, 1800, was, as his name 

 implies, the tenth son of James Burton, one of the most enterprising 

 and successful builders of his day. He was practically educated as 

 an architect in the office of his father, who at that time was exten- 

 sively engaged under Mr. Nash's superintendence in designing and 

 erecting the terraces which surround the Regent's Park, and also the 

 Regent Street improvements. In consequence of this employment, he 

 has been credited with the design of several of those terraces, but there 

 seems no foundation for the report, and none of them show that 

 careful study of design and detail, which marked all his subsequent 

 works. After leaving his father's office, Mr. Burton completed his pro- 

 fessional education in the office of Mr. Greorge Maddox, at that time an 

 architect in considerable practice. He then, without any interval 

 devoted to foreign travel or other preparation, entered at the early age 

 of twenty-one on the active duties of his profession, and owing 

 apparently to the excellent introduction afforded by his father's con- 

 nexion, he commenced with an amount of employment which seems 

 never to have failed him during the fifty years that he continued the 

 practice of an architect. One of his earliest works was the villa 

 which he built for Mr. Greenough in the Regent's Park, which as 

 originally erected was one of the most elegant and successful adapta- 

 tions of the Grecian style to purposes of modern domestic architecture 

 to be found in this or any other country. 



In 1823 he erected, on the east side of the Park, the Colosseum to 

 contain the Panorama of London, drawn by Mr. Horner. This, how- 

 ever, can hardly be said to have been a r " ,o cessful design, though it 

 was only another exemplification of tht, difficulty of combining the 

 rectilineal lines of a classical portico to the circular form of a domical 

 structure. The Roman architects, even with their more flexible style, 

 failed in producing a happy result in the Pantheon, and it is therefore 

 not to be wondered at that we saw the work of a modern architect 

 who attempted the same thing disappear without an expression of 

 regret. He was far more successful in the arches which, in 1825, he 

 was commissioned to erect on Hyde Park Corner.* The arch leading to 

 Buckingham Palace, though somewhat lacking in originality of design, 

 is a singularly elegant adaptation to a perfectly legitimate purpose, 



* One of the minor sorrows of Mr. Burton's life was the disfigurement of this 

 arch by its being used as a pedestal for the Duke of "Wellington's statue, a purpose 

 for which it was singularly ill-suited. He felt this most keenly, but had he liTed 

 a year longer, he probably migbt have been consoled by its removal. 



