have been the same. But this purpose served, and the designs beginning to be canvassed in other quarters, we did expect that all blunders and blemishes of an obvious kind would be removed. Our surprise was therefore great when the Surveyors' Journal' displayed these works (obviously from the first hand) with all their imperfections on their head. We think it high time, and fair play, to set these forth in some detail.

An indispensable condition of the programme was that, consistently with order and beauty of architecture, every possible advantage was to be taken of the site for rental. It is obvious that the expenditure of the committee was governed by the interest to be produced in rental, or ground rents; the magnificence of the building must therefore depend greatly on the economy used by the architect in the distribution and arrangement of his plan, so that every advantage might be derived for the necessities of the trust by reserving as much ground for letting as could be.

The dimensions required by the programme were exceedingly embarrassing, both by their contents and their number. The form of the site was most irregular. To what extent might this irregularity consist with architectural rules? Every inch of this precious ground was to be turned to account, realising the old lines,

"Gold and silver is the sheen

Of London town; no molde is seen."

The problem was one requiring consummate skill; a great deal was bestowed upon it; and every solution of which it was capable was not only given in the thirty-eight designs in classes, but in each class were varieties of readings, so that every view in which the matter might be considered was canvassed. The city might have derived the greatest benefit to the work in hand from these gratuitous labours, had they been acknowledged or understood; but they were either not appreciated, or, being so, were Burked-as we have already seen.

In comparing the two plans (Mr Tite's and Mr Cockerell's) we shall find a space, between A B, in the west front of Mr Tite's, sacrificed to the portico, and in the two sides two portions of the site, CD, EF (occupied in Mr Cockerell's by an advanced or projecting portion), making a difference of no less than 3,500 feet in the two plans, a space precisely equivalent to that occupied by that important establishment the Sun Fireoffice, affording a rental of more than 1,000l. per annum. The consequence of this liberal abandonment of space is apparent on all the shops north and south westward of the lateral entrances. These These vary from four feet deep to about ten feet; the

disproportion of the gaping arched lights to so shallow a shop, is amusing. If we travel eastward, this shallowness is compensated by an extraordinary profundity of 38 to 48 feet. The backs of these shops are lighted either by windows under the interior colonnade, by reflection, or from a so called area, 12 by 10—a well of 60 to 70 feet deep (see O), somewhat in the manner of a railroad soupirail. The shops here may possibly obtain a freize light over the other shops in the open court (NN), shaded by a tower 170 feet high, by which some of the darker arts of this neighbourhood may be practised; but no light of day can be hoped for. In the east end is an arcade of shops from the new street into the Exchange; but this will be rendered a cul de sac, by the regulation which closes the Exchange at four o'clock, a regulation which cannot well be dispensed with to avoid the nuisances which would result from making the Exchange a thoroughfare at all hours. This arcade is lighted by the open court, an area, limited indeed, but communicating light and ventilation to the whole of the interior of this eastern portion of the building. It was the peculiarity of Mr Cockerell's plan amongst the thirty-eight designs offered in the first competition; and the solution of the problem of arrangement, which he alone had accomplished. The plagiarism is evident, and the hand of John Ballhorn in it equally so.

The captains' room of Lloyd's, at the north-east corner, 66 by 35, is lighted from Freeman's court at one end by two windows; at the other, under the merchants' colonnade, by reflection; and two lateral lights peep over the roofs of the shops to the south in the open court. The cockpit, or the hold, might afford the captain as good a light as he can here obtain.

The staircases, which may always be left dependent on skylights where light is precious for offices, are here placed in the most luminous situations, next the streets; the darker parts only are reserved for the shops. The Lloyd's staircase is so placed, and is very original in its plan, forming a semi-circle of 23 feet radius. A flight in the centre turns right and left, and crossing a bridge over the first flight, arrives in zig-zag to the principal floor, in which is the Lloyd's subscription-room L, distributed longitudinally into two aisles and a nave; the six columns of the left aisle in false bearing, as shown in the plan; (what would the umpires have said here!!)-those in the right vainly attempting to conceal the original sin of the ground, which necessarily imparts to every apartment in the flanks the wedge-like vice of the site itself. The ingenuity of this collocation is of a piece with the rest of the contrivance.