architecture are to be met with. In this
"architectural exhibition" there is a design
for some new premises to be erected at the
corner of Oxford-street and old Cavendish-
street, which will be very ornamental;
another of some new houses in Grafton-street,
in which the mixture of white and coloured
bricks is tried with satisfactory results;
and another of the new restaurant attached
to the Gaiety Theatre. That building has
no doubt struck many a wayfarer along the
Strand, by its bright and picturesque look.
Let the wayfarer in question (provided he
be a dispassionate and unprejudiced
wayfarer) compare this building with any
tavern of the old school, and say whether
we are not improving very fast indeed in
the matter of street architecture.

And in domestic country-house architecture,
is not the same improvement visible?
Were it not for an unhappy bias towards
the ecclesiastical which appears here and
there, the prospect in this direction also
would be entirely hopeful. This mediæval
tendency in domestic architecture, as in
most other things, is altogether objectionable.
The shapeliness and convenience of
your rooms within the building are sacrificed
for the sake of the fantastic gables
and turrets which "the style" demands
shall appear without, while the beauty of
the view outside, and the lightness of the
rooms within, are left unconsidered, in order
that "the style" again may be developed
in the smallness of the windows and the
massiveness of the orthodox mullions. The
extent to which this mediævalism is carried
is, in some cases indeed, irritating in the
extreme, as when you sometimes find a
modern castle erected in the midst of the
most beautiful scenery, in which the
windows, that they may be in keeping with the
round towers, which are the principal
features of the front, are reduced to the merest
slits.

Allowing for this reprehensible tendency
in our builders of country-houses to indulge
in turrets and mullions, the architectural
prospect in that direction is not unpromising.
Among the specimens of architecture
on paper which we have been glancing at
there are some in this particular department
which seem to be very satisfactory. The
"Bird's-eye View of Leyes Wood, Sussex,"
by R. N. Shaw, in the Architectural Room
at the Royal Academy, with its picturesque
court, entered through the gateway beneath
the tower, is very charming; so also is the
drawing of a "Mansion now in course of erection
from designs and under the superintendence
of R. W. Edis," which is to be found
in the Architectural Exhibition in Conduit-
street. Nor should a certain design for a
Spanish villa, exhibited in the same collection
by M. Boeswillwold, be passed by without
notice. The house in question, with its
two square side towers, its lower central
tower, ornamented with an open gallery,
its Moorish arches, and its broad-eaved
roof, is perfectly good, and in admirable
keeping with the locality. This same M.
Boeswillwold has other works in the
exhibition, which, as well as the photographs
from the cathedral and château restorations
of Eugène Millet, show that the foreign
art schools are as well supplied with architects
as they are with painters.

And now, surely, a pretty good case
has been made out for the architectural
Doer, and his defence against the
architectural Talker would seem to be very
well established. We have seen that this
Doer is working busily both in bricks and
mortar, and on paper. We have seen,
from what he has recently produced in
both ways, that almost every fresh work
which he undertakes is an improvement on
the last, and we feel secure that, in engaging
in any new enterprise which may call the
abilities of our architects into play, we
shall be safe against the occurrence of any
of those gross failures in which so many of
the undertakings of their immediate
predecessors have resulted. We shall have
no more Buckingham Palaces or National
Galleries in conspicuous sites, no more
Gower-street Colleges or Great Marylebone
Churches. Henceforth there seems
good reason to hope that when an
opportunity offers of raising an ornamental
structure we shall not fail to use it.

A LITERARY GLUTTON.

"OF making many books there is no
end, and much study is a weariness of the
flesh." Thus spoke Solomon the Wise
more than twenty-eight centuries ago,
when books were comparatively rare, and
learning confined to a narrow class. What
would he have said had he lived in
Florence during the seventeenth century,
when literature was plentiful, and when
Magliabechi, that eccentric bookworm,
flourished, of whom we read lately (though
where we cannot call to mind), "Magliabechi,
that most rational of bibliomanes, for he read
everything he bought?" When we are
informed that this man's library consisted of