fire and intemperance in smoking disappear.
Smoking is good, but too much of anything is
decidedly bad.

OUR EYE-WITNESS AMONG THE
BUILDINGS.

THE residence of your Eye-witness is at the
end of a certain row of stuccoed houses in the
parish of Marylebone, and in the postal district
N.W. The row is entitled and called Lumbago-
terrace; but the house is not in a line with the
other houses in Lumbago-terrace. It is situated
at the eastern extremity of that stronghold of
miasma, and projects from the other clammy
and exudacious tenements, thus:—Lumbago-
terrace is a fine specimen of the architecture
of Corinth, as adapted to the necessities
of our age and habits. It is well known that
the great glare and blaze of sunlight, to which
in this country we are perpetually subject, and
which dazzles and scorches the inhabitants of our
island during the greater portion of the year, is
the only drawback of our climate, and the only
feature of it which it is necessary to guard against.
The architect of Lumbago-terrace, deeply
initiated in his subject (as is indeed the case with
all his fraternity), and being a profound and
original thinker, only considering what is
sensible and convenient, and. not trammelled by
conventional rules (in which respect, also, he
resembles the other members of his profession)
this gentleman, when he "threw up" the great
Corinthian façade in the centre of Lumbago-
terrace, found that he had only succeeded in
darkening the four centre houses of the row, and
that the others, unless he could think of some
mode of averting so terrible a calamity, stood a
fair chance of having the light of heaven
admitted into their drawing and dining rooms.
This discovery cost the ingenious Mr. Slack
many sleepless nights, and his friends observed
—though they did not know the cause—that a
cloud was upon his sprightly soul.

But one day when Slack had entertained a
numerous circle of acquaintances and friends at
dinner, it happened that towards the conclusion
of the meal—during which he had been
unusually silent—the conversation turned upon a
certain Grecian temple which one of the company,
Sir Benjamin Bigg, a great authority on bells,
had recently visited in his travels, and which
he described as being composed of a central
block, completely shaded from the Grecian sun
by a portico. "Aha," said Mr. Slack, "this is
like Lumbago-terrace."

"Nor," continued Sir Benjamin, "is this all.
This great block of masonry would have been
monotonous had it continued in a straight line,
and a portico—however large it may be—will
only overshadow a certain portion of the building.
Now mark the ingenuity of our great
Grecian architect—what does he do? He takes
back the line of his wings, buries them in a
recess behind the great central mass before spoken
of, and then throws forward a couple of
massive corner buildings at either end of the
pile; themselves kept from the glare by that
main pile itself, and immensely helping in their
turn to overshadow the receding portions of the
wings which I have already described."

When Sir Benjamin leaned back in his chair
after giving this lucid description—which he had
illustrated by a diagram drawn with his thumb-
nail on the tablecloth—it was observed by the
company that a great change came over the
demeanour of Slack. Rising from his chair and
smiling faintly, he asked permission to retire
for a few minutes to his study, from which
place he emerged one hour afterwards, bearing
in his hand the plan of Lumbago-terrace as it
at present stands; a close imitation of the
thumb-nail diagram of Sir Benjamin Bigg. It
was exhibited to the company and applauded to
the echo by all present, except, indeed, one
gentleman, who in the frenzied stupidity of his
soul, or perhaps under the influence of too much
wine, inquired whether a building might not be
very admirably adapted to the hot climate and
perpetual sunlight of Greece, and yet not be
perfectly suited to the peculiar exigencies of
Marylebone? This lunatic was, however, promptly
put to silence, and was snubbed and
discountenanced by the enlightened assembly.

Some such principle must have been acted
upon in the designing of the different terraces
which surround the Regent's Park. The Grecian
taste which succeeded the Roman in this country
was at its height in the time of that dire
Regency, and consequently Grecian pediments,
Corinthian capitals, and statues after the antique
models, are to be found in the Regent's Park.
There is, indeed, one terrace nearly allied to that
of Lumbago, in which the genius of the architect
seems to have come out, in the invention of a
wholly new and original style, such as in the
annals of building has never been known before,
and concerning which there seems reason to
entertain a frisky and joyous hope that it may
never be known again . It was our hint to speak
in the last number in high terms of the cupola,
or dome, which roofs so nobly the cathedral of
St. Paul; also, of a small version of this same
cupola as it appears on the National Gallery, and
on the London University. What words are left
to us in which to treat of such a phenomenon as
a terrace of dwelling-houses ornamented with
little cupolæ or domes, out of the top of each
of which grows that last resource of decorative
ingenuity, a spike? This terrace is an exception
to the Grecian character of the rest of the
Regent's Park, and is hideous enough to make
it surprising that it has not been copied
elsewhere.

That stucco, if it is a necessity, is a very
dreary one! It has a chill and cheap appearance.
It will peel off in bulgy blisters, and will turn
green, and in either of these conditions it
presents a gloomy and ruinous appearance, suggestive
at once of insolvency and rheumatism. The
Regency was a great period of revival in the
history of stucco, and in the park and street named
in commemoration of the reign of George the
Regent, this peculiar kind of compo is in its