8 
bines so chastely and harmoniously the vastness of space, architec- 
tural splendour, and bibliothecal fitness of the upper Library Hall. 
It would be out of place for me to notice here all Playfair’s 
public works ; which have been principally erected in Edinburgh ? 
constitute a large proportion of the most conspicuous architectural 
decorations of the city, and bid fair to immortalize him, so long as 
the capital of Scotland shall continue to attract, as it does now, 
visitors of taste from all quarters of Europe and America. Among 
critics in architecture it may be wished that some of them were better. 
But was it the architect’s fault that they are not so ? In every one 
of his works, except Donaldson’s Hospital, he had to encounter great 
difficulties of site, or neighbourhood, or both together, — difficulties, 
indeed, sometimes unconquerable by any skill. And yet even in 
these, when he is said to have failed, the critics who think so appear 
to me to proceed for the most part upon the assumption, that he had 
within his choice plans of far greater magnitude than his limits, and 
a command of means far beyond his actual treasury. Who, for in- 
stance, can say what might not have been the felicity of an architect, 
so pure in his style, and so fruitful in his resources, had he been told 
when he designed the columned temple in a portion of which our 
Society is now accommodated, that he was afterwards to cover the 
Mound, from the bottom to the crown of its slope, with public 
edifices ? — and that he was at liberty to do so at a cost of twice, thrice, 
or four times the L. 100,000 which have been actually expended on 
them ? — for that seems conditional to the criticisms to which one 
often hears Playfair subjected, on account of his designs for the 
Boyal Institution’s Building, the National Gallery, and the Free 
Church College. 
Of all his works none has called forth such unqualified applause 
as Donaldson’s Hospital; and his success there was all the more 
remarkable, because the style was altogether new to him. This has 
been described by one of his most successful ephemeral biographers, 
— plainly a zealous, yet impartial, and able admirer, — as a type of 
Gothic style ; for which the author is obliged to admit, with evident 
compunction, the unhappy cognomen of “ Debased Gothic.” But 
let us call this work of Playfair’s hands more fitly the “ Inhabitable 
Gothic ; ” and no one has been more perfectly successful in making 
the Gothic habitable than our deceased fellow-member. No pleasure 
however is without alloy. There are few who will not regret that 
