made strong enough to walk upon. It was
through this gallery-roof Doctor Kitto
supposes the descent to have been made.

Do not suppose, good reader, that the house-
top is below (or above) the notice of the
architect. Some palace-builders attach very
much importance to this feature in the general
façade. Allan Cunningham, in speaking of
Vanbrugh, who combined architecture with
dramatising in a very unusual degree, and
who rendered himself famous by building
Blenheim palace, says that, in working out
the details of that structure, he " grouped his
cupolas, pediments, pavilions, clustered chimneys
and statues, in a way at once original
and harmonious, and which gratifies all
admirers of picturesque magnificence. . . . .
It has been justly remarked by Dallaway,
that he had the art of grouping his chimneys
until they resembled pinnacles, or of
connecting them into an arcade, by which the
massiveness of the building was much relieved.
He was, indeed, a great master of perspective,
and nothing can be finer than the summits
of his houses; he always raises a central
point of attraction, and groups pinnacles,
peaks, pillars, towers, and domes around it,
uniting them into a splendid whole, regarding
little the rules of classic art, but obeying those
of poetic composition." The house-top thus
brought in a little stock of praise to one whose
heavy masses had given birth to a satirical
epitaph:

"Lie heavy on him, Earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee."

Certainly, it is difficult to look at Blenheim
itself, or at a picture of it, without being
struck with the extraordinary house-top
diversity. Not much terrace roof, here, at
any rate.

Our London house-tops tell us very little
concerning the lofty roofs which have dormer
windows, and which were so prevalent in
French and Scotch houses two or three
centuries ago. Very singular summits there
were, to the old mansions. In the real old
French château there were turrets and towers
almost without number, strangely connected,
and sometimes as strangely disconnected,
leaving the beholder a little bewildered to
determine whether they belonged to a
defensive castle or to a domestic house.
And then the roomy old house was covered
by an immense roof, which told plainly that
it was not disposed to be thrown out of sight,
or levelled to a few feet, or be poked behind
a parapet; not only was it a roof, but a roof
so formidable as to occupy in many cases one-
third of the whole height of the house. And
then what windows! It was no mere garret,
for there were several distinct floors or stories
or flats or étages in the roof. Some of the
windows were greniers—they lighted granaries;
some were dormers or dormiers—these
lighted bed-rooms; and hence we have come
to appropriate the name of dormer, not to a
bed-room window par excellence, but to garret
windows which struggle into sight in front of
our roofs. But our English roofs are pigmies;
the great French and Flemish roofs which so
often meet the eye of a traveller, they are
roofs—something to look at there—something
like a house-top. The Hôtel de Ville, at
Brussels, is an instance in which four tiers of
dormer windows appear in the roof.

The house-tops of Bethnal Green: what a
picture, what a page in social history are
they! No common house-tops these, nor do
the houses shelter men and women and
children exactly like those met with in other
crowded parts of London. The inhabitants
of these house-tops are silk-weavers and
pigeons, and pigeons and silk-weavers, ac-
cording as we reckon from below upwards or
from above downwards. Spitalfields weavers
the men are called, and Spitalfields weavers
their forefathers were; for Spitalfields, in
years gone by, was the home both of the men
who executed the work, and of the masters
who gave out the work to be executed. But
the workers have emigrated further east, to
that wide prairie of small streets of small
houses which goes by the name of Bethnal
Green. Bethnal has a Green, still; and there
may be a Blind Beggar and a beautiful
daughter on or near that Green, for aught we
can tell; but the Bethnal Green of the house-
tops and the chimney-pots, of the dove-cotes
and the weavers' rooms, has very little green
about it. If you want to see nature's Bethnal
Green, trudge it on foot; but if man's Bethnal
Green be the object of your search, take a
run on the Eastern Counties' Railway, and
look right and left at the wondrous dingy
medley that presents itself. Who shall
number the little streets which the first
mile points out to us, and who shall remember
their names? No " genteei" houses; no large
schools; no plate-glass windows (except to
the gin-palaces); no squares with grass and
trees, and "genteel" little children with
hoops and skipping ropes; no picture-galleries
or museums; no omnibuses, and very few
cabs; few umbrellas in wet weather, and few
parasols in fine; few carts for retail trade,
and few waggons for wholesale; no smart
people, and no high-born whether smart or
no— but hard-working, very very hard-
working, are the sights which meet the eye
during the first mile and a half of this railway
ride. That is, the street-sights would be
such, if we could see down to the pavements;
but, bating that, we study the house-tops.
Here we see that most of the houses in most
of the streets have very wide windows; silk-
weavers live in those rooms, and, as a means
of obtaining as much light as they can, prefer
windows which stretch sometimes the whole
width of the house. And not only is this so
among the old streets; there have lately been
formed whole streets of new houses, with
windows in this form, built by speculators
who—knowing that the Spitalfields weavers