design of Mr. Cockerell, the Bank architect. It is of the Grecian Doric order. The entrance front is in Castle-street; the side of the building in Cork-street.

The erection of several new buildings in Scotland for banks has been made the opportunity of there introducing examples of a far more ornate and liberal style than the frigid simplicity to which its architects had previously accustomed themselves. Among other buildings of the kind, we spoke last year of the Western Bank at Edinburgh, also of the Bank at Perth.* We have now to describe what is well deserving of special notice, viz. the Glasgow and Edinburgh National Bank at Glasgow, of which Mr. J. Gibson of London, who built the new Imperial Office in Threadneedle-street, is the sole architect. This edifice, which stands on the east side of Queen-street, is unusually favourably situated, it being made the focus of a group of regularly disposed buildings (all by the same architect), so planned as to surround it on three sides, yet leave it quite insulated. Those on the north and south sides are uniform ranges of shops and warehouses, while the third is occupied by the new Stock Exchange, immediately facing the east front of the Bank, and the entrance into it on that side. To speak of the Bank itself first, the design is of an unusually rich character, which is all the more remarkable because it is not confined to a single architectural front towards the street, but is kept up throughout without even any abatement of decoration for the other sides, and the whole of the exterior is of stone. Instead of the ground-floor being astylar, and treated as a basement to the order over it, there are two orders, an Ionic and Corinthian, the latter of which has a deep and highly enriched entablature, the frieze being sculptured with festooned foliage; the keystones of the arched windows of the ground-floor are also sculptured with masks; and as further enrichment, the general surface of the walls is made to show jointed masonry, or, what is more usually than correctly termed, rustication. The area is enclosed by a handsome balustrade, on whose pedestals are placed a range of bronze candelabra bearing lamps. The street elevation, which is crowned by the royal arms between two figures, representing Commerce and Plenty (executed by Mr. J. Thomas of London), is five windows or intercolumns in breadth; but on the north and south sides the Corinthian order is continued only for the distance of three, there being no upper floor over the rest of the plan, that being entirely occupied by the Telling-room, which is | principally lighted through its roof. Therefore, although the several elevations agree as to character and style, they differ somewhat as to actual design. From the entrance in Queen-street, a corridor leads straight forward into the Telling-room or Banking-office. This approach is exceedingly well managed, simply but tastefully decorated, in due subordination to what succeeds; and it acquires considerable character from a small skylight dome in the further one of the three compartments of its arched ceiling. The door at that end opens into the loggia on the west side of the Telling-room,

We have to correct a mistake in stating the architect of the Perth Bank to have been Mr. Bryce instead of Mr. D. Rhind of Edinburgh,

facing a corresponding recessed compartment of the plan on the opposite one, within which is a similar door forming the other entrance facing the Stock Exchange. These loggias are divided from the rest of the room by two Corinthian columns in antis, after the Jupiter Stator example, which order is continued upon the walls in pilasters, dividing them into compartments filled in with arcades, in some of which are windows. The bases and capitals of both columns and pilasters are of white marble, and their shafts in wellexecuted imitation of porphyry; while the walls are in imitation of Sienna marble, and finished below by a socle or skirting of black marble, which combination of colours produces an unusually rich, yet at the same time sober effect. Nor does decoration as to colour stop there, it being extended to the frieze, to the imposts, archivolts, and keystones of the arches, to the spandrel panels, and to the cove and plafond of the ceiling. Colour again exhibits itself upon the pavement, which is formed of various marbles disposed in a beautiful pattern; and, lastly, the dome completes with admirable climax the scheme of polychromic decoration; and shows how coloured glass, when properly introduced, and treated in conformity with the style which adopts it, may be made to enhance the beauties of classic architecture. We may also here learn, how what was at first a mere utilitarian expedient, may be refined and expanded into a feature of positive beauty; how the ordinary and vulgar sky-light may be transformed, at the bidding of taste, into an emblazoned transparent dome. Passing over various other particulars and details, we will only add, that all the fittings-up are in keeping with the finished character of the architecture; the counters are of Spanish mahogany, and their fronts ornamented with carving, and the candelabra, or stands for gas-burners, of bronze relieved by gilding. This apartment, we will take upon ourselves to affirm, is not rivalled by any one of its particular class in the kingdom, in finished completeness of decoration. There is nothing of that mixture of the shabby and the showy, the penurious and the prodigal, brought into juxtaposition with each other, as too frequently happens, which is so disgusting to sound taste.-The Stock Exchange, facing the east side or front of the Bank, is of more simple, but not less pleasing design. In one respect, at least, it is certainly of more unusual character, the ground-floor forming a series of seven decorated arcades, with niches instead of windows (except the one in which the door is placed), and with ornamental circular panels in the spandrel spaces between the arches. The next division of the elevation has as many circular-headed windows enclosed within square-headed dressings, finished by segmental pediments, which windows are those of the Exchange-room, that apartment occupying the height of two floors, and being lighted from the upper part of its sides. Above them is another series of windows; and the elevation is finished by a cornicione: the ensemble is at once simple and piquant, and possesses character in a more than ordinary degree. The new Coal Exchange of London, in Lower Thames Street, which has been recently opened with such eclat by Prince Albert, is, with some slight defects of taste, a really handsome architectural

mass. The building, designed by Mr. Bunning, presents externally two principal fronts of Portland stone, in the Italian style of architecture: one being in Lower Thames-street, and the other, of similar elevation, in St. Mary-at-Hill-the principal entrance being at the corner by a semi-circular portico of considerable height, with columns and entablature of the Roman Doric order. Above the portico, on a plain circular pedestal, is a lofty tower, also of Portland stone; the lower story having Ionic columns and entablature, supporting a stone pedestal with ornamental scrolls, on which the upper story is erected, with ornamental pilasters and entablature, and covered with a conical roof, surmounted by a gilded ball. Within the tower is the principal staircase, leading to the various rooms and offices in the several stories of the building, and lighted with large plate glass windows. The public hall, or area for the merchants, is a rotunda 60 feet in diameter, covered in by a glazed dome, the apex of which is 74 feet from the floor. This circular hall has three tiers of projecting galleries running around it. In the 24 compartments or panels immediately beneath the dome, and above the third tier of galleries, are paintings in encaustic by Mr. Sang, representing various plants and fossil remains found in coal strata. The floor of the merchants' area is laid in the form of the mariner's compass, having the City shield, anchor, and other ornamental devices in the centre, and consisting altogether of upwards of 4,000 distinct pieces of wood of various kinds and qualities. The whole of these pieces were only a few months since either in the tree in the growing state, or cut from wet logs, and prepared for use in the course of a few days, by a new method of seasoning, known as the desiccating process. In the basement on the east side of the building are the remains of a Roman bath in excellent preservation, discovered in excavating for the foundations of the new building. These remains have been carefully preserved by Mr. Bunning's directions, and a convenient access formed, giving the opportunity of inspecting, under most favourable circumstances, these interesting remains of Roman London. The cost of the erection of the edifice has been about 40,000l.

The large building for Hullah's Music Schools, by Long Acre, is at length finished, externally at least. There is some character about it, though neither very refined, nor very expressive of the particular purpose of the structure. The style, which has been called Elizabethan, although it does not exactly answer to such designation, makes no pretensions to elegance, hardly even to handsomeness; and the materials are homely enough, merely different coloured brick, without so much as any intermixture of stone; nevertheless there is about it something good that we frequently miss, even where all appliances, without stint as to cost, have been resorted to.

The front of the Law Institution, Chancery Lane has been extended by an addition to it on the north side of the portico, consisting of a lower and upper floor, with three windows in each, the centre one of which, above, is distinguished by a low pediment. At present, the appearance is rather awkward, that of merely one

half of a composition, or little more; but when a corresponding wing shall have been added on the other side (where there are now some excessively mean and shabby houses), as we presume is intended to be done some time or other, there will then be a façade of some importance as to extent; and pleasing and handsome, if of no particular architectural merit.

5. CLUB-HOUSES AND PRIVATE MANSIONS.

The exterior of the Army and Navy Club-house may now be considered completed; all that remains to be done to it being the insertion of the window sashes. That it forms a rich and imposing architectural mass, and exhibits a decided advance beyond the equally feeble and penurious style of some of the earlier club-houses, those of the Union and United Service Clubs for instance, is not to be denied. Still it leaves much to be desired; there is a good deal of both inequality and coarseness of taste betrayed in it; and what is expressly copied from Sansovino's Palazzo Cornaro, namely, the ground-floor or basement to the order, while it has no particular architectural merit in itself, is very unsuitable. We now find that the small windows, which in the original structure serve to light a mezzanine floor, and which we at first understood were introduced for the same purpose here, form within the Morning-room and Coffee-room an upper series of apertures. This can hardly produce a good effect internally, while externally it tends to give an air of littleness to the lower part of the building. And if not a positive defect, the making the upper floor windows square-headed, although apparently arched, is at least a singularity, and will be hardly less than a defect, if those arched heads are to be glazed in continuation of the real apertures beneath them. The interior is still only in carcase.

Since last year, Bridgewater House has undergone some change of plan, which requires to be here pointed out, as it no longer answers to the description then given of it. We then remarked, that "there was nothing of that inordinate display made on first entering, which frequently causes all that follows to seem a falling off;" for according to the first plan, there was only a moderatesized inner hall beyond the entrance vestibule, with the lower part, or first flight of the staircase extending from it northwards, so as to divide what would else have been a single central court into two lesser ones. That has now been reformed by removing the staircase to the east side of the building, and converting the space before occupied by that and the two side courts into a spacious, we might say, vast central hall or covered cortile. Something undoubtedly is gained by this alteration, namely, a north corridor or gallery in the space which was at first given up to the second flights of the staircase, to the right and left. It can no longer be averred of the central hall, that it does not make an inordinate display. On the contrary, its magnitude is such as must detract very much from that of the principal rooms. One alteration which ought to be mentioned, is the erection of an additional staircase at the northeast angle of the house, by means of which strangers can have