The new buildings in the City, to which allusion
has been made, go far to prove this. The
London Restaurant at the corner of
Chancery-lane is a good specimen of them, and is in
every way a fine and handsome edifice. The
silver plate warehouse on Cornhill, too, is in itself
a really handsome building. The National
Discount Company's Office in the same street,
the New Central Telegraph Station opposite
the Exchange, the new offices and houses in
Mincing-lane, and some in Fenchurch-street—all
these, and many more, give unmistakable signs
of a move in the right direction even when there
is something left to be desired in the matter of
taste. But perhaps the most successful of all
these City efforts at improved architecture is to
be found in Bridge-street, Blackfriars, at the
Crown Life Office. Allowing for the mediæval
treatment which has been adopted, and which
prevents it from being a perfect example of the
manner of our own day, this house may be
considered an almost perfect specimen of its kind.

Nor is the movement which has taken place
in the City, and which makes it bid fair to
become a city of palaces in due time, altogether
unrepresented at the West-end also. Besides
the splendour of some of the new buildings
about New Kensington, and Palace Gardens;
besides our more recent clubs, some of which
and the Carlton especially, are very good—
the Carlton would be nearly faultless, but for
the incongruity between the polished marble
columns and the rough stone-work at the door
which looks as if it were placed there to tear
the coat-tails of the members as they go in
and out—besides such mansions as that
recently completed for Mr. Holford in Park-
lane, and which, with all its splendour, by-
the-by, does not give one half the pleasure
which the neighbouring house belonging to
Lord Ward affords to the passer-by—besides all
these, there are other and still more recent
evidences of an awakening of improved taste in our
London builders. Before the late revivals in
taste, such a house as that situated at No. 114,
Piccadilly, could never have been built. Its
richness of ornament, its Gothic windows, and
the striking effect of the black marble
introduced about them, are remarkable and beautiful,
and but for the want of anything suggestive of
our own day, would be perfectly satisfactory.

The improvement needed, however, is on a
larger scale; and certain attempts at a decorative
style conducted at a less costly rate of expenditure,
are publicly of greater value and importance.
At the corner of Duke-street and Buckingham-
street, Adelphi, there is a house which,
made of cheap materials arranged in a fashion
which is picturesque and agreeable, is in every
way an interesting and important essay. There
are other such buildings in Southampton-street,
Strand, and in Endell-street. In these houses,
coloured and decorated tiles have been introduced
with admirable effect, lighting up the whole structure,
and setting smoke and dirt at defiance by
reason of their glazed surface, from which every
speck is washed away by the first shower of rain.
The defect of these houses seems to be a certain
hot and foxy colour, which is attributable to
the combination of occasional red bricks with
the yellowish brown ones. There is a white or
stone-coloured brick now in use—used in the
new buildings in the City, and in some of the
recent West-end improvements, as in the houses
just completed in South Audley-street—which
has a much more agreeable colour than the
ordinary West Drayton brick, and which, with the
addition of stone copings, or even of such tiles as
those used in the Adelphi house, would be very
pleasant and cheerful in its effect. These stone-
coloured bricks require something to break their
monotony. The effect of a red-brick house
pointed with stone-coloured mortar is, as we
all know, very good; why not reverse this, and
try a house of stone-coloured bricks with mortar
stained of a red tint? Supposing this to be
impossible, the introduction of some red bricks
among the grey, or, as has been said just now,
of real stone copings, or decorated tiles, is very
agreeable. The superiority of the light-coloured
bricks to stucco is in every way great: as they
are, to begin with, of a pleasanter tint, and are a
real thing, while the other is a counterfeit.

Would it be impossible to use a kind of glazed
tiles, or bricks, with their external side-glazed,
for the main surfaces of a house? The advantage
gained in a town like London would be
enormous. Dirt would be slow to lodge on such
a surface, and, supposing it had lodged there, a
shower of rain would cleanse the whole house.
Surely such an experiment would be worth trying.

It is impossible to deny that the appearance
of the outsides of the houses which you
pass in the course of your walk, has a
considerable effect on the animal spirits, and that
he who really takes pains with the external part
of his place of abode to make it look cheerful
and pretty, is conferring a benefit on society at
large. Much may be done in this way by a
judicious breaking up of the house front with
verandahs, jalousies, and Venetian blinds; nay,
the pattern of your muslin curtains as they show
through the plate-glass, the flowers
philanthropically placed in the windows, the broad
plate of brass on which the half-blinds of your
bedrooms run, all these things contribute to
make the house look delightful, and to convey a
good impression of you— its unknown proprietor
—to the passer-by. There is a certain house in
Berkeley-street, the thoroughfare which leads
from Piccadilly to Berkeley-square, which surely
few of us ever pass without a sensation of
pleasure. It is the last house next to the stables
which occupy the larger portion of the street in
question, and having no architectural pretensions,
is a triumph of what may be done with almost any
habitation, by means of balconies, plate-glass,
bright paint, and here and there a touch of gilding.

Let us hope that we shall lose no more
opportunities of improving London. We have already
missed some grand chances. What a chance
was lost when the thoroughfare which used to
go by the name of the New-road was allowed
to fall into the hands of unrestricted builders,