from which it could have looked down upon, instead of being looked down upon by, the contiguous bridge and neighbouring chimney-pots. It was still more painfully clear that, with an extraordinary misapprehension of the spirit of the style of architecture chosen, the means which lay immediately at hand for diminishing this miserable defect of altitude had not been taken. Had the front of the stone quay been panneled with arcades rising from the water, an effect of indefinite depth would have been the inexpensive and thoroughly appropriate architectural result. A plain basement, or, indeed, any expressed basement at all, is as contrary to the spirit of pointed architecture as it is essential to that of the Greek styles. A Gothic edifice should spring, like a tree, from the earth itself; and, if a basement of considerable height is necessary, as in the present instance, it should be so managed and decorated as to be indistinguishable from the building itself. The advantage that would have accrued to the river-front, had the useless quay been omitted, and the entire edifice risen straight from the water, needs not to be insisted upon in order to be apparent to any one with a commonly good appreciation of the beauties of the Pointed style. At the time, however, of which we are speaking, when the building was nearly completed as far as respected its purposes as a House of Assembly, most of the criticisms which appeared regarding its principal external effects were necessarily premature. It was not fair to consider the river-front, as it then stood, alone. So considered, it was obvious that the essential spirit of middle-age architecture had been violated in the grossest manner by that dull symmetry of parts-correspondence of corner-tower to corner-tower, of projection to projection, of recess to recess, &c.-which is the proper characteristic of those ancient styles which are in every particular, not only different from, but opposed to Gothic. The river-front, in its principles of composition, in no way differs from a pagan terrace in the Regent's Park, or from Sir Charles Barry's own performance, in the same style, the public offices at Whitehall. There is no reason whatever, in the nature of the thing, why, when the Gothic filagree is washed off, as it soon will be, the river front should not be "restored with Renaissance decorations. Indeed, there is very strong reason, in the nature of the thing, that it should be so restored; for these insipidly symmetrical masses are Renaissance, and are not Gothic. A little exercise, however, of the "prophetic eye of taste" would have prevented much of the criticism that was put forward upon this part of the edifice as an independent work. It was known from the beginning that the number and dimensions of the towers and louvres would be such as to

constitute them the main features of the edifice; and it is only within the last year or so that these features have sufficiently approached completion to justify the hope, which we entertained from the beginning, that the river-front, with its mean Renaissance uniformity, would act, in some degree, as a profitable foil to the preponderating glories of the other parts of the work, when seen from that principal "stand-point," the neighbouring bridge. The time is now come when judgments can be fairly formed by the unprofessional eye-to which architectural "elevations" and "projections" are hopeless mysteries -upon the total and final effects of the New Houses of Parliament from certain points of view; and it may be well to point out to a public proverbially indifferent to the excellence of what is their own, the fact, that their metropolis now affords an architectural coup-d'œil such as, for magnificence, it is no exaggeration to say the world cannot match. The three principal towers, respectively of the enormous heights of 340, 320, and 300 feet, as seen, for example, from Westminster Bridge, constitute, in combination with the various minor elevations of the louvres, or smoke-shafts, and the raised roofs of the extremities of the edifice, a spectacle which we imagine that few persons can have looked upon for the first time without a powerful emotion of wonder and delight. From this point of view, the vastness of the masses, the eye-exciting altitudes to which they soar, and the strong but harmonised contrasts in which they stand to each other, are elements of effect that are scarcely at all diminished by the frippery of the ornamentation; which is, in fact, entirely overwhelmed by these noble and forcible features. Let us candidly confess, that this one view is of a magnificence not wholly disproportionate to the prodigious cost of money at which we have purchased it; and let us not refuse to enjoy the sight of it, for reasons which, if allowed to influence us in other cases, would deprive us of the power of deriving pleasure from some of the greatest efforts of ancient architectural art. In the coup-d'œil to which we are now referring, and which is of course the principal view of the building, the lowness of the body of the edifice is scarcely a greater imperfection than the shortness of the nave of Cologne Cathedral in proportion to its height; and yet this cathedral is commonly regarded as the nearest approximation to ideal perfection which has been attained in Gothic architecture. This very want of elevation in the body of the New Palace is a fault which it possesses in common with the most perfect of our native cathedrals, that of Salisbury, where the fault is more serious, as interfering with the solemnity and ecclesiastical effect of the architecture; and we could name a long list

of justly famous works of ancient art, in every one of which there is some defect which would be equally complained of in the work of a modern architect. Let us not, then, close our eyes to the actual beauty of this building, because its beauty might have been indefinitely increased by expending, in greater altitude and mass, the hundreds of thousands which have been worse than thrown away in ornament that will have ceased to exist long before the time has arrived at which such an edifice ought to be in its best perfection-in the bloom that centuries alone can confer upon an architectural work.

While speaking of the destruction by time of the superficial decorations, let us pause to point out two curious facts which we have not seen noticed. First, the decay is generally deepest under copings and mouldings, where the rain has least access; secondly, the carved stones generally decay more rapidly than the others. For the first fact we are at a loss to account; for the last, there is sufficient explanation in the circumstance that the masons-we cannot, unfortunately, call them sculptors-have been allowed to select the material for their work; and they have not unnaturally chosen the softest stones. The public, who are not admitted without orders to a close inspection of the courts and river-front, are not generally aware to what an ominous extent decay has already proceeded. In some places, on the river-front, the surface of the wall has decayed away to the depth of an inch; and some of the heaviest carvings, as in the star-chamber court, are already almost obliterated.

Besides the view from the bridge, there is at present no sight to be had of the building as a whole; and the two considerable partial views, namely, those from Palace Yard and the pavement by Henry VII.'s Chapel, are greatly inferior in character to that from the bridge. The shaft of the clock-tower, which is the chief feature in the Palace-Yard view, has no more artistic organisation than a stalk of celery; and the lowness of the body of the building makes architectural proportion. between it and a tower of any considerable altitude out of the question. In the view of the other end of the building, from Henry VII.'s Chapel, the same disproportion is greatly increased. We know of nothing more unpleasant in architecture than the huge mass of the Victoria tower rising from the frail and pigmy fabric at its base.

When once, however, we cease to regard the building as a whole, and look upon it as being, what indeed it is, a great connected group of buildings, we come upon a series of effects as lovely as any thing in ancient or modern art. But, from these effects, the public are unfortunately, and, as it seems

to us, unnecessarily excluded. The building contains twelve courts, each of which presents one or more points of view of great beauty. As Greek architecture is nothing if not seen as a total, so Gothic is never so beautiful as when its limits are indefinite. This beautiful and exciting indefiniteness prevails in all the twenty or thirty points of view presented by the interior courts; and with this character is combined another of equal importance, which is entirely wanting in all the external views of the edifice; we mean, the contrast of large spaces of plain wall-surface with highlydecorated members. Without this beautiful repose for the eye, all surface-decoration is worse than lost. The river-front would have been as much more beautiful as it would have been less costly, had nine-tenths of the carvings and mouldings been simply omitted, and the remaining tenth concentrated upon a few significant points, having great blank spaces intervening. Now Sir Charles Barry, not having millions enough at his disposal to enable him to fritter away the walls of the interior courts, has left them, for the most part, blank, or only moderately and artistically decorated; and the effect of the glimpses caught, from these quiet and simple squares, of the gorgeously decorated towers, louvres, and high-pitched roofs, is perfectly admirable; and we are astonished that no artist or photographer has ever thought of "editing" a series of architectural effects far surpassing any thing of its kind in England, and yet almost unknown to the English people whose metropolis it adorns. As examples of these beautiful and almost unknown aspects of our greatest national edifice, we beg to direct the notice of our readers more particularly to the view of the northern towers of the river-front from the Commons Inner Court, to that of the Clock Tower from the Speaker's Court, and to the truly magnificent view of the more salient portions of the building, to be had from the different angles of the StarChamber Court. The truth is, that although the New Houses of Parliament are totally defective in grand architectural unity, -although, even at their best, as seen from Westminster Bridge, they are no more than a glorious group of Gothic masses, having that sort of fortuitous harmony which necessarily arises from the juxtaposition of many architectural features in one and the same style, this group nevertheless includes enough of splendid architecture to illustrate a great city. The genius involved in the discovery and perfection of the Pointed style was so vast, and its results so beautiful, that no tolerably accurate reproduction of those results upon so great a scale as in the present instance could well be otherwise than glorious to behold. In our praises of the New Palace, it is not Sir Charles

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The Brusa i sem s nest is ment a restoration of Srees arritmire is me Fartamenty Palace is of Gothic. There is Ng M M HILL 3 La dis respect. in modern Bumre. The pe bivarer of pure Freek architecture is so stme and male dat moes las ng ago said pretty pany ill das was a be sad in the subject. There are only two peizs of importance 3: de nennet in connection with this building is the more i ze sple of architecture; seeeally, the mission, permans bermilie in this and in all other restorations of the Fres stie of remain delicate details of execution which seem is hare afered upon ancient werks much of the vitality via s vang in all our imitations of them. Our remarks in these two peins will equally apply to In Iwood's restoration of the Erechtheben in Euston Square, the Gezer 78-72, and it (ther modern restorations of the Grees Temple. The fliviar description of the nature of Greek architecture is fem a ratemperary journal: "The Greek Temple consisted of a 2-a small apartment enclosing the statue of the rd and seed in purpose to give the effect of mystery to the proceedings of the priests who were its only ocenyans-ad za are external and covered colonnade, about and beneath which the people assembled at the celebration of religious rites. The relicnade, and the entablature supported by it were the caly features of architectural interest in the building because these alone were intended to be generally seen and used Greek temple-architecture made no prevision whatever for internal convenience er deceration Greek house-architecture, concerning which we have little information was so to speak, the temple archisecture turned inside out. The colonnade was entheed by the bare walls which in the temple were enclosed by the colonnade; an open court was thus formed having a garden or fountain in ghe middle, and scope for small apartments in its sides. In hese apartments torches and lamps seem to have been employed in the daytime; so little was it in keeping with the spirit and constructive obligations of Greek architecture to have the walls pierced with apertures of magnitude and number suffidiens even for home purposes in a climate tool where the dayLas has three times the intensity of curs. The walls of these apartments were adorned with frescoes and gilded and painted reas and "arabesques" fitted to show brilliantly by lamplight.