difficult to persuade the wealthy people of the West End of London to do something for the ornamentation of this very central spot.

The improvement has practically been carried out without any direct cost to the State. The cost of removing the arch and making the new roads was 25,000l. Of this 5,000l. was contributed by the Duke of Westminster, and the remainder was provided by the Metropolitan Board of Works. The Government contributed 5,000l. towards a new statue of the Duke of Wellington.

4. The National Gallery Extension.-This was another of the public works initiated at the time I refer to. The plan for the new Galleries was made by Mr. John Taylor of the Office of Works. Last year they were completed and thrown open to the public. The new rooms, with their vestibule and grand staircase, ornamented with the finest collection of marbles in London, and especially by columns of deep red Algerian marble,' have made the Gallery one of the best in Europe, and for the first time worthy of the splendid collection of pictures. The old rooms look ill-proportioned and tawdry compared to those which have been added. No legitimate expenditure was spared to carry out the work in the most complete manner and to make the decorations as handsome as was consistent with the rooms being the frames of the pictures.

Space has been found for these new rooms by the sacrifice of a portion of the barrack-yard in the rear of the building. The new Galleries have been so laid out as to form the centre, to which an addition on the left can be made at some future time, exactly balancing the older Galleries on the right. It will probably, however, be some years before another extension will be found necessary, but whenever this is the case, it will be necessary to expropriate the whole of the site now occupied by barracks.

The total cost of the new Galleries was under 50,000l. This considerable addition makes it certain that there will be no demolition of the whole building, with the object of erecting a finer building on what has been regarded as one of the noblest sites in Europe.

For my own part, I am not inclined wholly to condemn the façade of the National Gallery. From some points of view it groups remarkably well with other buildings; especially so when looked at from Pall Mall East, where the long line of its frontage is foreshortened, and with the beautiful church of St. Martin's beyond. The weak part of the building is its great length, in proportion to its height, and the poverty and meanness of the pepper-box erections at either end and of the dome in the centre. It has often seemed to me that it would

My attention had been accidentally called to a report of Consul Playfair on the quarries in Algeria and Tunis, whence the Romans brought so much of the marble with which ancient Rome was decorated. Before leaving the Department I gave instructions that marbles should be obtained from these quarries for the decoration of the new Galleries.

be well worth while to effect an improvement by enlarging these structures, and making them in better proportion to the building. The height of the building was determined by the columns of the portico, which were taken from Carlton House, or rather intended to be taken, for it turned out that they could not be used for the purpose. This attempted economy, therefore, led to a sacrifice in the design of a fatal character.

It is apparently the fate of our great public buildings that divided counsel, changes of purpose, the fashion of the day brought to bear upon their architects, or a niggardly economy, result in their having the gravest possible defects, either internally or externally, if not both. Sir Charles Barry was certainly the ablest classic architect this country has produced since Wren, but the prevailing taste of the period compelled him to produce a Gothic design for the new Houses of Parliament. All the main features of the beautiful building which he erected at Westminster are classic; but its details are Gothic, and as a result the building is full of internal defects of the most serious kind, and immense sums have been expended on internal and external decorations.

The next great building to be erected was that for the public offices in Downing Street and Whitehall—the Home Office and Foreign Office. In the competition for this building Sir Gilbert Scott was successful with a Gothic design, a style for which no one of the day was more competent. Lord Palmerston refused his consent to a Gothic building, but, leaving the task in the hands of Sir Gilbert Scott, insisted upon his producing a classic design, for which he was very little competent. As a result we have the huge building, of which the frontage to the Park and to the Horse Guards Parade is dreary and monotonous and without a spark of genius, while that to Parliament Street is undoubtedly handsome, but at the expense of the interior. It would be difficult to conceive a building with so many internal defects. The rooms are generally too lofty and very ill adapted for their purposes, and the whole of the upper story in Whitehall has been sacrificed to the external design, the windows being on a level with the floor; the passages and staircases are badly lighted.

When the new Law Courts were erected there was again a reversion of public opinion to Gothic architecture, and Mr. Street was allowed to give us an example of a severe thirteenth century Gothic building, in accommodating which to modern necessities the restrictions and ill-advised economies of the then Government, together with his own tendency to medievalism, imposed upon him insuperable difficulties. The result is a building which, with many beauties, is full of defects. To the same spirit of ill-timed economy must be credited the grave defect of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, that it has been erected in a gravel pit several feet below the level of the surrounding streets. The saving of a com

paratively small sum, required to fill up this pit, has placed this beautiful building under a permanent disadvantage, from which there is no escape in the future.

Economies of the kind, which have been so fatal both to this building and the Law Courts, are specially to be deprecated, as the defects which they engender cannot afterwards be remedied. It would be far better to delay the erection of public buildings, or parts of them, if the state of the finances of the country render it impossible to incur the expenditure which is necessary to avoid such errors. We have no right to encumber the earth with defective buildings, and to prejudice future generations, because we cannot afford at the moment a few thousands.

5. Westminster Abbey.-In the article I have already referred to, I pointed out the urgent necessity for doing something within a reasonable time for relieving the pressure which has arisen from the overcrowding of the Abbey with monuments. I showed that from the earliest times in our national history there have been placed in the Abbey monuments of nearly all who have been illustrious in any branch of English life. As a result we have in the Abbey the history of the country writ in the epitaphs of its great men, and illustrated by monuments, to an extent which is quite without parallel in any other church or building in the world. Looked at from another point of view-that of a gallery of monumental sculpture, showing the gradual changes of art during six centuries-it is also of the greatest value and interest. Almost all our English sculptors during this time, and not a few distinguished foreign sculptors, are represented there, many of them by several works; and if among them are some which, from their profusion of allegorical figures, are quite out of sympathy with the taste of the present day, yet there are very numerous works there of the greatest beauty. Where, indeed, are to be found finer specimens of monumental sculpture than those of Aylmer de Valence and Croutchback, of Queen Eleanor, of the tombs of Henry VII. and of his mother Lady Margaret Tudor by Torregiano; of Sir Henry Norris and his six sons kneeling beside him; of De Vere; of the bust of Dryden; and the statue of Lord Canning by Foley, and countless others I could name? It would indeed be a grave national misfortune, and also a reflection of a most serious character on the present generation, if we were to allow a break to occur in this splendid roll of historic monuments, with their traditions, so greatly valued by thousands of people who visit the Abbey from every quarter of the world. Yet it is absolutely certain that the Abbey is full to overflowing, is already inconveniently crowded, and that no more monuments can be placed there without serious detriment to those already there and to the building itself.

Even during the six years since I wrote on this subject no fewer

than eighteen statues, busts, or monuments have been added, showing how rapidly this story in stones is built up, and what need there is for expansion of the building if the same record is to be maintained. Among them there have been added full-length statues of Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe (which makes a noble trio of Cannings), and of Lord Shaftesbury.2 Recumbent effigies on tombs have been placed there of Dean Stanley and Lord John Thynne, long a Canon of Westminster, and busts and memorials have been added in memory of Archbishop Tait, Mr. Darwin, Lord Lawrence, Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Fawcett, of Longfellow, Burns, and Coleridge.

During the last twenty years it has been found by experience that the claims for burial in the Abbey, which have been recognised or demanded by public opinion, have averaged about one in each year, while in every year there have been placed there about three monuments, whether consisting of statues, or tombs, or some more simple record, such as a bust or tablet.

For many years past those interested in the Abbey have recognised the urgent necessity for making some addition to the building for the purpose I have indicated. More than twenty-five years ago Sir Gilbert Scott proposed a scheme for clearing away all the houses in Old Palace Yard and Abingdon Street down to Great College Street, and of erecting a long cloister from the Chapter House to Great College Street. This scheme, however great a public improvement it would effect in widening the approach to the Victoria Tower from the west, and in throwing open to view the whole of the west front of the Abbey, would involve a very large outlay in the acquisition of house property, and the design of a long cloister has not met with much favour, on the ground that it would be somewhat monotonous.

3

More lately a less ambitious scheme in respect of the clearance of houses has found favour. It has been proposed to clear away the houses on the north side of Old Palace Yard, fronting the House of Lords, and those in Poets' Corner, and on the site thus cleared to erect a monumental chapel, communicating with the Abbey by a cloister under the buttresses of the Chapter House. There would be space on the site thus cleared for a building 200 feet in length by 80 to 90 feet in width; its end would abut on the Chapter garden. It would not interfere with St. Catherine's Hall or with the Jewel Tower, and it can be so arranged as to preserve what still remains of the few columns on the site of St. Catherine's Chapel. The building would be in relation to the Abbey very much as Henry the Seventh's chapel is; it might be called the Victoria Chapel; and it might

2 It is worthy of question whether Mr. Boehm, who executed these three statues and many others, is not being allowed too great a monopoly of work in the Abbey in this generation.

This proposal was first suggested about six years ago by the late Mr. James Ferguson.

VOL. XXIV.-No. 141.

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be furnished with side chapels similar to those in the chancel of the Abbey, which are so well adapted for smaller monuments. One great merit of this scheme would consist in opening up a view of the Chapter House, and of the south front of the Abbey, now so completely hidden by the houses in Palace Yard.

It remains to consider the financial possibilities of such a scheme. It has been estimated that the compulsory purchase of the houses in Palace Yard and Poets' Corner would involve an outlay of about 80,000l., and a building worthy of such a site might be erected for a further sum of 50,000l. to 60,000l. It is suggested that an appeal might be successfully made to the public of London, and indeed of the whole country, for subscriptions to erect the building. It is worth noting that no money has ever been subscribed by the English public for any work in connection with the Abbey.

The only exception to this has been in the case of a wealthy American gentleman, Mr. Childs, who gave money for a painted glass window as a memorial to George Herbert. There are very few of our provincial cathedrals where very large amounts have not been raised of late years by private subscription and expended either in restorations or improvements. In the cathedral of St. Paul no less a sum than 24,000l. was raised and expended in the erection of a reredos, resulting in a fine work of art, but one not essential to the building, and which many people think ill-placed in St. Paul's. Only this year the public of London subscribed no less than 50,000l. towards the acquisition of Parliament Hill as an addition to Hampstead Heath. With these examples before us, there ought to be no difficulty in raising a very considerable sum towards such a scheme as has been suggested.

It might, perhaps, be expected that the Government would be induced to propose a vote of Parliament on the amount required for the site; but in the economic tendencies of the present House of Commons it is hardly to be expected that the present Government would be so bold as to do so.

An opportunity, however, offers itself at the present time, of an exceptional kind, for laying hands for such a purpose on a quasi-public fund of money, which will come into existence in the course of next year, and for which no destination has yet been fixed, but which, it would seem, might be appropriately devoted to some public works in London. The fund has its origin in this way: It appears that when the London Coal Duties were extended in the year 1868 for a renewed term of twenty years, for certain specific improvements in London, it was originally intended that they should wholly cease on July 1, 1888. Opposition, however, arose to the extension on the part of persons who, living within the area where the coal duties are levied, were yet beyond the area of the Metropolitan Board, and who had no benefit from the expenditure of the money derived from them. To