But the use of each apartment in a house should be indicated for its own sake. The ancients dedicated each chamber to the divinity that presided over the use to which it was applied, and decorated it accordingly. A room decorated, for instance, to mirth and enjoyment was so treated that the ornaments and every object had a tendency to excite pleasing and cheerful thoughts, and promote hilarity. Sleep has its emblems, by which to characterise an apartment devoted to that use. The same may be said of festivity, study, literature, art - all have their emblems or associations by which we may indicate dining-rooms, studies, libraries, galleries of art, etc. For many of these there would be no impropriety in drawing upon the mythology, the Apollo, Morpheus, the Muses, and other beautiful conceptions which might yield us considerable aid in this matter. We do not attach sufficient importance to the embellishment of the interiors of our apartments. Michael Angelo, Raphaelle, and other great artists, it should be remembered, were wall and ceiling painters to their contemporaries. Attention to this subject would secure us more diversity in the interior of our houses - a desirable object.

The natural love of variety requires a different form and character of decoration and finish for each apartment, and as much as possible a different view or scene from the windows; a great relief to a confined invalid. This could be done without having Turkish and Indian libraries and boudoirs in an Anglo-classic or Italian house. Chinese drawing-rooms may please children or unthinking persons, but no man of taste could take pleasure in such puerilities. Here it may be observed that, as in the exterior, the appropriate expression and needful variety would be in a great measure gained interiorly, by having the shape and proportion, size and disposition of windows, doors, and other features exactly adapted to the destined purpose of the apartment. This would easily distinguish rooms for pleasure from those for domestic service, as in the latter uniformity has given way to utility, and comfort has been secured, though it may be at the sacrifice of uniformity and other conditions of beauty.

There is a difficulty, I admit, in the characterising of some buildings exteriorly. Obstacles are too often flung in the way of truthful design. Sometimes two different, and almost contrasting, institutions have to be provided for under one roof, rendering suitable expression on the outside of course impossible; as in the case of the Assize Courts and St. George's Hall, Liverpool. Some buildings of single purpose, too, it is difficult to characterise: for a railway station, for instance, it would be hard to define the appropriate style of expression. Yet even here a complete adaptation to its purpose will go far to express its character. A railway being for the transmission of goods and passengers with the greatest possible facility and speed, large sheds are required, large doors both for ingress and egress, gateways for carriages and vehicles of every description. - separate sides for departure and arrival; and these mast, in a great measure, distinguish the terminus. And though we could scarcely say what general style of decoration for such a building should be chosen, or what general form and proportions it should hare, beyond what utility would demand, yet in the sculptural embellishments a good deal might be done towards indicating its purpose by means of symbols.

Rapid flight, speedy change of place, the annihilation of space and time, the unity and amity of distant places, and other associated ideas, might thus find expression. But the difficulty I have admitted to exist is of less frequent occurrence than is supposed: few buildings are similarly circumstanced to the one I have referred to. An ingenious writer, in a recent work on the principles of architecture, has complained, that to distinguish a clubhouse from a mansion is beyond the power of architecture; a truth we must admit, but without the slightest disparagement to the art. He has overlooked the fact that a clubhouse is a mansion only for a larger family, and that architecture is not called upon to make a difference where no difference exists. A clubhouse is not a public, but a private building. - for a private society; where a gentleman can have the comfort and accommodation of a private house, just as a cottage, a villa, or a mansion is for the use of a family; and it is as far as the public are concerned a private house, or mansion; and the passing stranger need not know that it is anything else: the expression of "mansion," therefore, is not only what the clubhouse will naturally assume. - it is really the expression it should have.

But almost every building that has a distinct purpose, may have its distinct and corresponding expression. - is susceptible of receiving allegorical or other illustrations of its purpose, so as to indicate that purpose; if, in the first place, it be truthfully adapted, and if the architect has the requisite mastery over the resources of the art. If a Gothic church in its perfection is a petrifaction of religion, a truly designed college will be a similar embodiment of literature; a palace, of royalty; an exchange, of commerce. Beauty, however, is not incompatible with any, even with the needful character of a prison, which may suggest ideas of durance and gloom, yet display general tonus and proportions on which aesthetic feeling has been exercised. Guided by analogy. - a natural association of ideas. - we may find abundant means of giving at least a general tone to every edifice, in harmony with its use; among which may be enumerated the arrangement, size, and character, as simple or decorated, of doors and windows: public buildings, not much divided internally. - consisting chiefly of one great apartment for a large assembly of people, such as churches, chapels, public schools, theatres, concert halls, should have large and expansive doors of entrance, which would not only be convenient, but would assist in characterising them, as such doors would be suggestive of the idea of extensive ingress and egress of people.