with the continual cry, "Give us
something new. Invent a style of your own,
and supply us some fresh forms with
which to comfort our jaded eyesight." It
is easy for him to abuse our streets and
public buildings, to laugh at Regent-street,
and turn Trafalgar-square into ridicule, to
pile mountains of abuse on the architectural
monstrosities of our great towns, and
entirely to ignore all the more hopeful
indications which are to be met with here in
London, and in many other quarters.

That such hopeful indications are by no
means wanting, it will not be difficult for
the Doer of our day to prove. How many
are the improvements in the general aspect
of our streets and public places! How many
the really fine modern buildings in London
and elsewhere to which he may point! To
begin with, there are the Houses of
Parliament at Westminster. Whatever may
be the defects of these — and they are no
more unassailable by criticism than other
works of art of other times — it must surely
be admitted that in the raising up by the
banks of the Thames of a mass of building
of such dimensions, which is yet harmonious
in its general outline, and which
fulfils the purpose for which it is intended,
a very great thing, indeed, has been
achieved. Seen from a distance sufficiently
great to make it possible for the spectator
to consider it as a whole, the effect of the
Westminster Palace is very noble and
imposing. From the opposite side of the river,
from the bridges, from the high ground in
Piccadilly (looking across the Green Park
from its north-westerly extremity), the
towers of this fine building look always, and
under all circumstances, grand and impressive.
That the structure has its defects it
would be, of course, impossible to deny.
The river front is too monotonous and
unbroken, with its flat surface, and its rows
of windows, and it wants those great broad
shadows which might have been got by
breaking it up into masses, some standing
forward into the light, and others falling
back into shade. Yet this is not much.
It is but a small matter in which to fail,
when success has been attained in so many
great matters.

Oh! my dear talking friends, do, I entreat
you, consider for a moment what difficulties
the Doer who raised this great building
had to encounter, and the obstacles which
he had to surmount. Consider the number
of fine things which, if you or I had had
this work to do — as it is just as well,
perhaps, that we had not — we should have
talked of introducing into the composition,
and should then have been obliged to
abandon on practical considerations. Let
us think of these things, and let us speak
with more respect of these Westminster
buildings, and of their architect.

Not far off from this fine specimen of
what a modern Doer has been able to
achieve, there is another building, the new
government office in St. James's Park,
which, though not on quite so imposing a
scale as the Houses of Parliament, nor
beset in its execution with so many
difficulties, is yet an achievement involving
the expenditure of considerable intellectual
labour, and the exercise of all sorts of
rare and valuable gifts. This new
government building is in every way a most
admirable piece of work. The effect of
the whole mass as seen across St. James's
Park is very fine. The shapes of the
different parts, as well as the aggregate
outline of the whole, is perfectly agreeable,
and the light and shade obtained by
that throwing forward of some parts of the
structure and keeping back of others, which
was spoken of just now as wanting in the
Parliament Houses, is very noble and
imposing. Some of the details, too, of this
building are particularly good. The polished
granite columns introduced here and there
have a very agreeable effect, and a singularly
good result has been obtained by a
kind of upward tapering of the square
structures on each side of the central mass,
each of the stories, as they rise in stages
one above another, receding ever so little
within the limits of that immediately below
it; all being so subtly contrived that,
although the eye is pleased with the tapering
effect imparted to each of these almost
tower-like pieces of masonry, it is not without
close scrutiny of the edges of the building
that one can see how the result has
been obtained. Another rare and admirable
quality about this edifice is, that it is
in all respects perfectly rational and
unaffected; no consideration of convenience
having been sacrificed to what may be
called architectural crotchets. The dignity
which is secured by this adherence to what
is useful and reasonable is very remarkable,
and strikes the spectator at the first glance.
Altogether this is an entirely successful
production, and the Doer whose work it is
may safely defy all the Talkers in London
to pick a hole in such a combination of
taste and common sense.

Another recent and particularly good
specimen of architectural "Doing," is the