upper floor. The order is placed on a stylobate 5. 6' high, which depth of surface, being without windows, contributes in no small degree to the classical air of the ensemble. It must, however, be allowed it is not attended with so good effect in the entrance front, it being there unavoidably interrupted and broken through at the portico, where it forms an insulated pedestal beneath each column, a defect that might have been got over by leaving only the centre intercolumn open below for the entrance, even had it been necessary to make it somewhat wider than at present. The height of the columns is 25 feet, that of the entablature 6, which added to the stylobate give 36. 6' from the ground to the top of the cornice. Notwithstanding that he was much cramped by the limited space, the architect has arranged his interior very judiciously and likewise with a careful regard to effect. In the portico are two entrances, one, through a vestibule, into the news-room; the other to the staircase, which gives access to the library, forming the upper part of that room. This apartment is 60 × 34, and 30 high to the ceiling, or to that of the lantern (which is 23 × 13) 41 feet. The lower part of the room is lighted on its south side by the five centre windows towards Belvoir-street, beneath the library gallery on that side, which is at the height of 13 feet from the floor. This gallery is supported by twelve Corinthian columns, in imitation of scagliola; and the walls above it will be decorated with bold pilasters, between which will be the shelving or book-cases. Above the architrave of this upper order will be an enriched cove and ceiling. From the centre of the lantern there will be an ornamental bronze chandelier, with fifteen gas-light burners; and the room will be warmed and ventilated by Price and Manby's apparatus. Besides this there is a reading-room for periodicals on the ground-floor at one end of the building, and at the other the librarian's apartments, &c. The whole, it is expected, will be completed by the end of the present year (1837).

Among other public buildings recently erected in Leicester arethe Collegiate Proprietary School attached to the Church, and the Leicester and Leicestershire Proprietary School founded by the dissenting interest. Both institutions are designed to educate three hundred boys, and have spacious houses for the masters attached to them. The former of these buildings is in the Tudor style; the other has a bold but ill-placed Tuscan portico. The new Theatre erected last year after the designs of Mr. S. Beazley, the architect of the St. James's Theatre, London, is a light and cheerful structure, but in an impure style of design. The County Lunatic Asylum was also erected last year. A new church is now building at the sole expense of F.Turner, Esq., from the designs of Mr. Sydney Smirke, but will be quite a plain edifice, and a new subscription church is about to be commenced in the parish of St. Margaret. In the environs of the town several handsome villas have been erected, showing that there is no lack of enterprise and taste on the part of the inhabitants of Leicester.

The Medical Institution, Liverpool.-This new edifice, which is situated at the angle between Hope-street and Mount-street, in

the south-east part of the town, is from the designs of Mr. C. Rampling, and has something very unusual in its plan, which may be described as a triangle, one of whose sides or base is a curve struck with a radius of about 70 feet. This curve or arc, whose chord is 100 feet, consequently forms a trifle more than one-fourth of the circumference of a circle 140 feet in diameter. This is divided into three portions, the centre one being an hexastyle in antis, constituting, in appearance at least, a loggia, whose depth is one intercolumn; we say in appearance, because except at the entrance there is an area between the columns and the wall. The side divisions of the elevations, where a slight break takes place in the entablature, have pilasters or antæ only with three windows between them. The order is a plain Grecian Ionic, and columns and entablature together, 30 feet high. The surface of the wall is rusticated or channeled with horizontal joints, which in this instance serve to relieve the upright lines of the pilasters against its surface, and of the columns before it, as well as to excuse the omission of dressings to the windows. Although there is not otherwise any very great novelty in the elevation, yet owing to its being curved it has something peculiar and not unpleasing in its character. Within, so far from inconvenience being occasioned by the wedge-shaped form of the plan, such form is rather favourable than not, as it adapts itself admirably to that suitable for the Lecture-Room, which is placed almost at the very further extre

mity of the building, and expands nearly in the figure of a fan, the lecturer's stage being at the narrower part, with the benches in concentric curves facing it. The dimensions are 40 feet (the chord of the curved wall) by 31; and 25 feet for the wall against which the lecturer's stage is placed. The two other chief rooms on this floor are the Committee-room and Library; the former of which is to the right on entering, and measures 24 by 21; the other is to the left, and is 21 by 40 in depth from the windows; a division therefore is made in this room by the further part being separated by two columns and lighted from above through a circular lantern. Over this apartment, the vestibule and Committeeroom, are three Museum-rooms, all lighted from above, 24 by 25; 40 by 18, and 24 by 21, respectively, the first agreeing in its dimensions with the larger division of the Library below. Two plans and an elevation of this building may be seen in the Architectural Magazine for last August.

At Islington a small proprietary school has been built at the corner of Duncan Street, with a tetrastyle Grecian-Doric portico; and near Cross Street is the new Literary Institution, which is also in the Grecian style, with lofty ante at the angles, comprising two lesser orders; the upper one of which consists of two insulated square pillars, forming a loggia before the windows on that floor. Of the London Benefit Society's Almshouses at Ball's Pond, the centre range of building is now erected. It is in the Tudor style, and although of no great architectural pretensions, not without merit as to its general effect.

The Free Grammar School of Dilhorne, Lane End, Staffordshire, after being a mere sinecure for upwards of a century, is about to be rendered an efficient seminary for classical and mathematical learning. A very spacious school with a residence for the master has been erected in the Elizabethan style, by the Marquis of Hastings, the patron, at Blythemarsh, on the turnpike road from Uttoxeter to Newcastle, and will be opened at Christmas for the reception of boarders.

3.-MISCELLANEOUS IMPROVEMENTS.

General Street Improvements.-Along the whole of that extensive line reaching from London Bridge to Finsbury the city has now assumed an entirely different appearance from what it had a few years ago; for the improvements in this quarter vie with those of a similar description previously made at the west end of the town. The contrast between these new streets and the older ones is striking enough, and that not only as regards the width of the streets themselves and the architectural embellishments of the houses, but the greatly improved style of building,well proportioned windows and wide piers between them, which gives them a certain nobleness of aspect, independent of ornament; whereas in the older streets the generality of the houses have not only a mean, but very squeezed-up appearance. This improved taste manifests itself more especially in the range of building on the west side of Princes' Street, and in the new street

in continuation of it from Lothbury to Finsbury. This latter, in some respects, deserves the preference over Regent Street: the street itself is not so inconveniently and dangerously wide in its carriage way, for foot passengers to cross, while it is sufficiently, wide for architectural effect. Nay, the buildings here show to even greater advantage than in the street just mentioned, since the width between the houses does not exceed their height; consequently, the latter appear loftier than they would do, were the width greater, as is the case in Regent Street. Another circumstance that conduces not a little towards the same effect is, that the houses are of the same height throughout it, and crowned by a bold general cornice, with only a balustrade above it, whereby due finish and expression are given to the elevation. This mode is greatly preferable to that of treating the uppermost story as an additional one or attic, with the principal cornice below it,-the almost unavoidable result of introducing columns or pilasters, where three stories are required, as more than two of them cannot very well be comprised in the order itself. Here there is certainly neither the variety, nor the showiness which catches the eye in Regent Street; but the character of the architecture is more satisfactory and more consistently kept up, without such harsh discrepancies as mere "hole in-the-wall" windows stuck in between fluted Corinthian pilasters, and similar incongruities, besides exces sive insipidity of detail. In the immediate vicinity of this street, viz., opposite the entrance into the Lothbury Court of the Bank of England, an extensive edifice has been begun for the London and Westminster Bank, of which Mr. Cockerell and Mr. Tite are said to be jointly the architects. Of this we hope to be able to speak fully next year, should the building itself deserve particular notice; which, from the little that now shows itself, may fairly be anticipated. In Cornhill, facing the Royal Exchange, is the new Marine Insurance Office, by J. Davies, a more showy than effective piece of architecture, marked by some of the least commendable characteristics of the Italian style, such as abortive Ionic capitals, panelled pedestals, and a number of petty columns-those, namely, attached to the triple window on each floor, and forming three consecutive orders one above the other. Another unpleasing circumstance in the design is, that the summit has no other cornice than that of the uppermost window, or open loggia, neither is this extended beyond the width of the loggia itself. In fact, the architecture is, here, quite subordinate to the sculpture, which makes a very unusual degree of display; for not only are the figures considerably larger than life, but are introduced into the lower part of the front so as to be very conspicuous, and distinctly seen from the opposite side of the street. They consist of two semi-recumbent females, in relief, one representing Navigation, the other Hope, which fill up the spandrils of the arch forming the upper part of the ground-floor window. This arch has also a magnificent console key-stone, with a figure of Britannia, between three and four feet in height, and in alto relievo. Taken by itself, this horizontal division of the front, which has been so strikingly embellished by the chisel of

Mr. Nixon, has an air of dignity, that makes all the rest, more particularly the part just below it, appear quite trivial and insignificant. Almost close by, at the point where Cornhill and Lombard Street branch off, is the new Globe Insurance Office, of which Mr. P. Hardwick is the architect. This building has risen from the ground with astonishing celerity; yet, although the exterior is so far advanced that the general features of the design can be clearly made out, all the details and furnishings are still to be added. Such being the case, we can only say that it promises to become a handsome architectural object, and cannot escape being a very conspicuous one. The principal front, viz., that fronting the Cheapside and the Poultry, has a curved or bowed centre, in which are three windows on a floor. In Cheapside itself, that part of the vestibule of Mercer's Hall, which adjoins the street, has been decorated with a Doric order in pilasters. Nearly opposite the end of Chancery Lane in Fleet Street has been erected a stonefronted building for the Legal and General Life Assurance Office, a narrow façade, three windows in width, and consisting of two floors above the lower or ground one. This latter is a distyle in antis, or more properly between two half columns, of an exceedingly plain Doric or Tuscan order. Immediately above this are three circular-headed windows recessed within arches, having im post caps and moulded archivolts; while those of the upper range are square-headed. In regard to these, the architect (Mr Hopper, if our information be correct) cannot be said to have been too sparing, since in addition to the architrave mouldings around them, they have pilasters with their full entablature, and likewise pediments, the middle one of which is carved. The elevation is terminated by a plain cornice and balustrade above it. The taste here displayed is of a heavy kind; and owing to all the details being plain, there is more of multiplicity of members than of positive richness. Besides which, the whole looks too much like a mere portion of a larger edifice,-nor is such appearance at all lessened by only the half of a column being seen in front at each end on the ground floor, as if the other half was cut off by the adjoining house. In the same neighbourhood a rather extensive alteration is now in progress, one which will greatly improve that part of Chancery Lane, so long disfigured and obstructed by the shabby old buildings of Serjeant's Inn, whose upper part projected and overhung the street. These have now been cleared away, although some of those in the court behind it have not yet been taken down. What is already done, however, leaves no doubt as to the style of the whole. This makes no great pretensions as to design, as it has merely a basement floor with horizontal rustic lines, and two series of windows above it, whose dressings constitute nearly all the architectural embellishment. The street front will range with the other houses, and as its elevation towards the street will resemble that of the part described, it will at least be handsome and solid in its appearance, though without any thing to be particularly admired.

New Houses of Parliament.-In regard to this undertaking