originality of All Soul's Church. Stay! our station here, if the carriages of the noble ambassadors do not rout us from our post, is one of the best. The portico and wing of that house, with the hatchment over it, bring an agreeable contrast to the church, and with the superb coach manufactory of Messrs. Marks, in the distance, form an architectural picture of no small beauty. See the print of All Soul's Church, Langham Place.

The circular perystyle of the whimsical Ionic portico, the capitals of which are composed of winged cherubim, whose heads peer between the volutes with which their wings are intermingling, like owls displayed on the posts of a Dutch barn, have a very good and very original effect from the situation where we now stand. The circular tower within it, that pierces the soffit of the portico, is solid and effective, and where it rises above the balustrade that crowns the cornice, into a circular stylobate to the Corinthian Peripteral temple that forms the bell-tower, it is really productive of beauty, in form and proportion. Nor am I disposed, now my eye has become somewhat used to the daring novelty, to object to the gothic innovation of the impaling spire, with its sharpened iron apex, placed as a finial to the Dædalian beauty of the campanile, as some have done, who with more of wit than love for originality, have compared it to a flat candlestick surmounted by a thick candle, and a little non-fit extinguisher upon its top.

Elegancies, like the steeples of Bow and of St. Bride's, would cloy, if stuck over every church and chapel in the metropolis, and to omit all the credit due to Mr. Nash for his bold originality in this singular tower and spire, would be unfair, for it really possesses much intrinsic beauty of form, and is no mean ornament to the neighbourhood.

The manufactory of Messrs. Marks and Son beyond it, would have been admired, even for a mansion, in the plain times of the Portman Square architects, but is now lost among the architectural beauties of the new metropolis in the nineteenth century.

The architectural façade to the fronts of the row of stableoffices fronting the coach-maker's is a skilful contrivance to conceal an obvious defect, and is highly creditable to the skill of the architect, as well as an architectural embellishment to

the neighbourhood. The little continuous portico of the Doric order, appended to the front of the dead wall, is a happy thought, and produces one of these pretty accidental effects that an original design often wants.

There is also much novelty and picturesque effect, in the otherwise clumsy piers and sepulchral arches of the east entrance story to the houses between this part and Margaret Street; and the depth of their recesses afford a solid base for the superstructure of the elevation.

Here we approach the commercial portions of the street; and in no part of Mr. Nash's style is he more happy than in the adaptation of his means to his end. The style of architecture now assumes a different appearance. The portion we have just left, as forming the isthmus between wealth and commerce, is composed of smaller houses, which can be let at smaller rents than either those of the continent of fashion that we are leaving, or those of the great peninsula of commerce that we are approaching. They are also of that dual character that partakes both of the shop and the private house, and can be used for either as circumstances require.

Now, there is nothing doubtful in style; wide handsome fronts, calculated for broad showy shop-windows, wherein goods and manufactured articles of the most splendid description, such as the neighbouring world of wealth and fashion are in daily want of, may be displayed to the greatest advantage; and wide private doors for entrance to the handsome upper apartments, for letting as furnished lodgings to the temporary visiters of the metropolis, are the prevailing characters.

These spots were let to the original builders at heavy groundrents and consequently the rents of the houses are proportionably high, and nothing but the costliness of the articles, and the great quantity of them which are sold, could enable the shop-keepers and tradesmen to pay them and procure a living profit. The rivalry of many persons of the same occupations prevent extortion, and keep the goods sold in this splendid mart of retail trade at moderate prices.

The architecture of the shops is various, and sufficiently whimsical in places to please the demon of fashion; but it can be changed as the fashion of the day, or the character of the goods to be displayed within them require: the fronts being supported on slender iron columus within them.