Some attempts at architectural display are occasionally made in the way of shop-fronts. But here a certain practical difficulty attends the designer. However elegant the superstructure may be, it has one drawback; it must rest on nothing, or, at least, apparently on nothing, the aim of every modern retail dealer being to expose his goods for sale behind a single sheet of plate glass. In accordance with this object - for which no explanation can ever be given except that it is universal - iron columns are furtively introduced, and as carefully concealed by millinery, upholstery, or sometimes by craftily-contrived mirrors, so that when all is finished the upper portion of the building seems absolutely suspended in the air. Such conditions are not exactly fitted for ordinary treatment of design; yet the shop-front architect delights in ignoring them altogether, and in loading his upper stories with pediments, columns, niches, and cornices, just as if they stood on a basement as solid as that of the Pitti Palace. It seems astonishing that the old practice of turning a sound arch or placing a real lintel over every shop-window should have fallen into such disuse. Yet so seldom is this done, and so much does the objectionable practice of using iron columns and girders in such places prevail, that a block of newly re-built shops at the west-end of Oxford-street is quite conspicuous as an exception - and in this respect a creditable exception - to the general rule.

Of the dwelling-houses in London, those which have any pretension to architectural design are few in number, and lie chiefly in the neighbourhood of the parks or of the oldest west-end squares. But the ordinary residences of fashionable life - the mansions of Belgravia, Tyburnia, and Mayfair - are mere shells of brick and stucco, which present such a dreary appearance outside that one is surprised sometimes to find them palaces of comfort within.

The Frenchman who expressed his opinion that London had ceased to be a town, and was becoming a vast province, uttered no mere hyperbole. Between the years 1800 and 1860 this metropolis not only doubled, but trebled the size which it had assumed at the close of the last century. At the present time, including the suburbs, it occupies a superficial area of at least 130 square miles. On an average, about 1,000 houses are added to it every year; and so rapidly does building go on in every direction, that no one need be surprised to find the meadow-land which he walked on in spring laid out in populous streets by Christmas. There is, however, a great difference between the gradual development of the old city and the additions which we make to our modern capital. When Bloomsbury was still a fashionable district, its inhabitants no doubt regarded it as a permanent enlargement of London, and looked forward to the time when their children's children might own the tenements which they bought or rented. That is a source of prospective pleasure in which the inhabitants of Belgravia and Tyburnia cannot indulge. According to the present system of tenure adopted for house property, the rule is to build residences which are only intended to last a certain number of years. At the end of that term they fall into the possession of the landowner on whose estate they are erected, and thus it is to the interest of his tenant (who, in nine cases out of ten, is a speculating builder) not to spend more money on their construction than is absolutely necessary.

This is an unsatisfactory state of things even in a prima facie view of the matter. To calculate the stability of a house so nicely that at the expiration of, say seventy years, it shall only be fit to be pulled down and sold for old materials, is a method of reckoning which obviously involves some discomfort, not to say danger, to its latest occupant. But, unfortunately, this is not the extent of the evil. In the earnest endeavour to avoid the expense of an unnecessary stability, these economists too frequently err on the side of weakness. To speak plainly, it will be a miracle if half the houses which are now being raised in and about London do not, in the ordinary course of things, tumble down long before their allotted time. Unfortunately, their flimsy construction is not always apparent to an inexperienced eye. The old brick mansions of the early Georgian era, although unpretentious in appearance, were at least as strong as good burnt clay and duly mixed mortar could make them; the walls were of substantial thickness; the timber was dry, sound, and of ample dimensions; the foundations were well laid; the roof was of a convenient pitch and covered with the best of slates; the doors were securely hung, and a true lintel or a real arch, with properly tapering voussoirs, was turned over every window. The woodwork and fittings of these houses, though modelled in a pseudo-classic taste, were excellent in workmanship, and frequently spirited in detail; while the wrought iron introduced to decorate their facades in the shape of gates and area-railings is designed in thorough accordance with the nature and properties of the material employed. The truth is, that in those days, inferior or dishonest work would soon have been detected, for there was nothing to conceal it from public view. Plaster was of course used internally, as it had been during centuries past, for the sake of convenience and cleanliness; but no one had yet conceived the idea of coating the front of a brick house with a composition which should give it the appearance of masonry. In an evil hour stucco was invented; and thenceforth, wherever it was employed, good and bad work were reduced, in the eyes of the general public, to one common level. It mattered little whether brick or rubble, English or Flemish bond were used; whether the courses exceeded their proper height by a dangerous preponderance of mortar; whether the openings were really arched over or only spanned by a fictitious lintel. What signified such considerations as these when the whole front was to be enveloped in a fair and specious mask of cement ?

Area Railings of a House in Great Ormond Street, Bloomsbury.