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Arcades of the Exchange and. Covent Garden. We have always admired the profound skill with which the architect of St. Paul's applied the knowledge of a consummate mathematician in the con struction of the great works which sprung from his hand. But in addition to this eminent merit, he had an eye finely directed to picturesque effect, and he showed this in all the contours of his buildings, in comparison with which the works of some of our ablest modern architects are remarkably tame and jejune. Important works are now carrying on at Whitehall under the authority of the Treasury, which will greatly distinguish that quarter of the town, already rich in public buildings. A difficulty has occurred in the line of Downing-street, which we doubt not the architect will find means to overcome. This gentleman's skill and ingenuity are equalled by his uncontrollable love of singularity, of which he has here given a new proof, by a whimsical double balustrade, contrived, we suppose, to carry the chimnies, à concetto which discredits much other merit in his façade; and which might yet, we think, be got rid of. We wish he had condescended to take a hint from Inigo Jones, and placed the whole edifice, like the opposite Banqueting House, on a higher basement.

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The ample grants of Parliament, preceded by the liberal contributions of the Society for erecting churches by private subscription, have not elicited as yet much architectural talent. Few of the churches which have been built will bear criticisin, and even these betray some striking incongruities which impair the credit of the design. After every allowance for the sordid ecoof parish vestries and the troublesome taste of amateur patrons, much is still chargeable on the architect; who being, like most artists, extremely sensitive to criticism, impatiently opposes all cavils by quoting authority for every apocryphal ornament he employs, and endeavours to silence the man of research by references to Athens, or at least to Rome. To such a defence there will be still this reply:- Authority, possibly, may be produced for every separate member, but that is no authority for the combination.' It is by disproportionate and unclassical associations that an eye familiarized with the works of antiquity is offended in the examination of our modern edifices. The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates which crowns the chapel in Regent Street, and the Caryatides stationed to guard the Church of St. Pancras, may be adduced as proofs of such misapplication :—and we should have made the same objection, had a parody of the - Parthenon been seriously adopted for the design of the Royal Academy.

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In surveying the important improvements already effected in

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the western quarter of the metropolis our gratitude must be influenced by the consideration not merely of what we have gained, but of what we have lost. Who does not desire to see the purlieus of the Seven Dials and St. Giles's intersected by a rival to Regentstreet? In recommending the purification of such quarters of the town, we have no intention of sacrificing the humbler classes, but to improve their comforts along with their morals. They will migrate to better abodes which this hourly-increasing city is providing for the accommodation of all classes. There is no fear of ample accommodation being provided for the poor as well as the rich. Builders know well that small tenements bring in larger rents than first-rate houses, and much of the ground in the rear of our new streets will be covered with dwellings suited to the circumstances, and contiguous to the occupations, of the humblést of our fellow citizens.

We are not of the number of those who lament the spread of London. We regard it as the most satisfactory assurance of the increasing cleanliness, comfort and health of the inhabitants. He that was once immured in a cellar or a garret now occupies a floor, whose tenant in like manner has been promoted to an entire house. The density of population in the heart of the city is already diminished by being scattered over a larger surface. The shopkeeper has discovered it to be most profitable in every sense to remove his family out of town; he places his stock in trade in the apartments they occupied, and employs the warehouse reut thus saved in hiring a pretty tenement' at Islington, Knightsbridge, or Newington, where his children thrive in a purer air, and welcome his return from the city after the traffic of the day. With all our reverence for Sir Andrew Freeport, we think our merchants and bankers do wisely in visiting, not living at, the Exchange. Ominous warnings, indeed, are still sometimes muttered against this supposed abandonment of the sober and prudent habits of the old London merchant,' but notwithstanding all the desperate speculations and civic dandyism of our times, we believe. the present race of our citizens to be quite as honourable in their dealings, and at least as enlightened as their square-toed, velvetcapped, penny-wise forefathers. Time was when all the first nobility in England had their town-houses in Aldersgate-street, and other (then) fashionable quarters of the old city.* In those days the actual citizens were huddled together in contact with their goods and their customers, and, intent only on amassing wealth, neglected all the tasteful conveniences which their successors now enjoy. The daughters who inherited their vast fortunes were Some of the very highest quality, indeed, had grand mansions out of town, on the Strand.

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eagerly courted by the needy heirs of a coronet, and became the mothers of many noble families; while a portion of the riches thus gained, being transferred to patrician hands, was devoted to the erection of most of the splendid mansions which afterwards adorned the western side of the metropolis. Of the great commercial profits of our modern merchants, much doubtless will also be laid out in giving increased splendour to our city.

We see with pleasure the increasing interest with which all ranks, who even pretend to taste, are discussing and projecting improvements. The formation of the great square at Charing Cross-the buildings to be erected on the site of Carlton House, and perhaps at no distant time along the whole line of St. James's-the laying open the areas of our two cathedrals—the tasteful disposition of the Royal Parks-the erection of a Triumphal Monumenta Royal Academy-National Galleries-and a hundred other. interesting projects, are debated in every company. It is unreasonable, however, to look to the legislature to supply the funds necessary for all the improvements of the capital. Their attention must be limited to certain specific objects more or less connected with the State: but the combination of great public bodies, and. associations of individuals, may accomplish every thing which the most sanguine would require. So large a portion of the districts in which improved accesses are wanting is the property of the Church, the Corporation, the City companies, the Hospitals, and other public foundations, that if their trustees and managers would call for the advice of judicious surveyors, we have no doubt they would find their interest in undertaking these great works, as a source of profit to themselves. Large plots of ground now given up to wretched lanes and alleys, tenanted by a squalid and licentious population, might be covered with handsome streets; the property of which would contribute a much larger rental, while the dissolution of so many wretched communities of filth and ignorance, and vice, would greatly tend to promote what after all is the truly patriot object--the moral improvement of London,

opulent, enlarged, and still

Increasing London-Babylon of old

Not more the glory of the earth, than she,
A more accomplished world's chief glory now.

ART. X. 1.-Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, Esquire, including a History of the Stage from the time of Garrick to the present period. By James Boaden, Esquire.

2 vols. London. 1825.

2. Remi

2. Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, of the King's Theatre, and Theatre Royal Drury Lane, including a Period of nearly half a Century; with Original Anecdotes of many distinguished Personages, Political, Literary, and Musical. 2d Edition.

London. 1826. 2 vols.

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are severe moralists who have judged the amusements of the stage inimical to virtue-there are many who conceive its exhibitions to be inconsistent with religious principle: to those this article can give no interest unless perhaps a painful one, and we must even say with old Dan Chaucer,

Turn o'er the leaf and chuse another tale;

For you shall find enough both great and small,
Of storial thing that toucheth gentillesse,

And eke morality and holiness.

Where the scruples of such dissidents from public opinion are real, we owe them all possible respect; when they are assumed for a disguise in the sight of man, they will not deceive the eye which judgeth both Publican and Pharisee.

For ourselves we will readily allow, that the theatre may be too much frequented, and attention to more serious concerns drowned amidst its fascinations. We also frankly confess that we may be better employed than in witnessing the best and most moral play that ever was acted; but the same may be justly said of every action in our lives, except those of devotion towards God and benevolence towards man. And yet, as six days have been permitted us to think our own thoughts and work our own works, much that is strictly and exclusively secular is rendered indispensable by our wants, and much made venial and sometimes praiseworthy by our tastes and the conformation of our intellect.

If there be one pleasure, exclusive of the objects of actual sensual indulgence, which is more general than another among the human race, it is the relish for personification, which at last is methodized into the dramatic art. The love of the chase may perhaps be as natural to the masculine sex, but when the taste of the females is taken into consideration, the weight of numbers leans to the love of mimic representation in an overwhelming ratio. The very first amusement of children is to get up a scene, to represent to the best of their skill papa and mamma, the coachman and his horses; and even He, formidable with the birchen sceptre, is mimicked in the exercise-ground by the urchins of whom he is the terror in the school-room. We do not know if the witty gentleman, to whom we are indebted for a history of monkeys, ever thought of tracing the connection betwixt us and our cousin the ouran-outan in our mutual love of imitation.

At a more advanced period of life we have mimicry of tone

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and dialect, and masques, and disguises: then little scenes are preconcerted, which at first prescribe only the business of a plot, leaving the actors to fill up the language extempore from their mother wit: then some one of more fancy is employed to write the dialogue-a stage with scenery is added, and the drama has reached its complete form.

The same taste, which induced us when children to become kings and heroes ourselves on an infantine scale, renders us, when somewhat matured in intellect, passionate admirers of the art in its more refined state. There are few things which those gifted with any degree of imagination recollect with a sense of more anxious and mysterious delight than the first dramatic representation which they have witnessed. Iffland has somewhere described it, and it is painted in stronger colours by the immortal Goethe in Wilhelm Meister-yet we cannot refrain from touching on the subject. The unusual form of the house, filled with such groups of crowded spectators, themselves forming an extraordinary spectacle to the eye which has never witnessed it before, yet all intent upon that wide and mystic curtain whose dusky undulations permit us now and then to discern the momentary glitter of some gawdy form or the spangles of some sandaled foot which trips lightly within; then the light, brilliant as that of day!—then the music, which, in itself a treat sufficient in every other situation, our inexperience mistakes for the very play we came to witnessthen the slow rise of the shadowy curtain, disclosing, as if by actual magic, a new land, with woods and mountains and lakes, lighted, it seems to us, by another sun, and inhabited by a race of beings different from ourselves, whose language is poetry, whose dress, demeanour and sentiments seem something supernatural, and whose whole actions and discourse are calculated not for the ordinary tone of every-day life, but to excite the stronger and more powerful faculties to melt with sorrow-overpower with terror astonish with the marvellous-or convulse with irresistible laughter-all these wonders stamp indelible impressions on the memory, Those mixed feelings, also, which perplex us between a sense that the scene is but a plaything, and an interest which ever and anon surprizes us into a transient belief that that which so strongly affects us cannot be fictitious-those mixed and puzzling feelings, also, are exciting in the highest degree, Then there are the bursts of applause, like distant thunder, and the permission afforded to clap our little hands and add our own scream of delight to a sound so commanding. All this and much-much more is fresh in our memory, although when we felt these sensations we looked on the stage which Garrick had not yet left. It is now a long while since-yet we have not passed nany hours of such unmixed delight, and we still remember the

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