The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-23 00:00:00

remedy I would suggest is at once to replace the decayed
blocks by sound stone from the same quarries.
2. Had a plan like my father's been originally adopted
the Houses would have been so naturally and conveniently
disposed as to admit either of enlargement or alteration
with comparative ease. But the very convenience of juxta-
position, the long line in which the various buildings
stand, and the immediate proximity of the entourage create
serious difficulties. It is, however, unfair—nay, it is un-
just—to make the angry feelings of members (who, not
being sixteenth century cherubs, require seats) a ground
of complaint against the architect, who had no control over
the question of dimensions. A new House for the Com-
mons is, I assume, beyond all probability ; but I see no
difficulty in increasing the present House by a third of its
length. This could be accomplished without inconveni-
ence by somewhat curtailing the Speaker's Room at oue
end and projecting it into the Commons' Court at the
other, at the same time clearing away all that is now con-
tained between the wall of the House and the private lobby
beyond. The present rooms, staircases, and any further
accommodation could easily be constructed in the Speaker's
Court. The House of Commons' lobbies could without
any difficulty be made half as large again by projecting

them on arches into the Star Chamber and Commons'
Courts. In order to relieve the pressure in the corridors,
I would suggest that galleries be projected all round one
or more of the courts ; these, especially in the Royal
Court, could be so planned as not to interfere with any
existing arrangements, and would more than double the
present accommodation. I would also mention that, being
almost always excluded from the sun, they could be suc-
cessfully treated in iron and glass. The centre of the
court would beleft open as at present.
3. With regard to the difficulty in being heard, I would
remark that a room is governed very much by the same
laws as a musical instrument. If you remove the back
from a violin, the sound obtained from it would degene-
rate into a mild squeak. The House of Commons has no
floor, which remarkable peculiarity at 'once solves the
acoustic problem. The perforated gangways covered with
drugget or kamptulicon simply destroy vibration and re-
duce the sound of the human voice to what it would be if
proceeding from a head speaking into a sack. The loudest
and most forcible words fall into the depth below and are
absorbed. On a newly-laid floor of yet unshrunken tim-
bers, the panel of the floor will increase the volume of
sound tenfold. If, then, a parquet floor of good solid oak,
slightly arched so as always to remain taut, were laid
down in place' of the present perforations, the House
would, I am certain, from being one of the worst, become
One of the best chambers of debate in Europe. The very
projections, which are now imagined to cause the defect,
would increase the sound and make an exertion of lungs
less necessary.

From the practical I pass on to the architectural defects
of the Houses about which I will say a few brief words.
I have before alluded to the present wretched termina-

tion of the Victoria Tower. The design prepared by my
father, but a few weeks before his illness, contemplated
a grand erection in stone growing from and mounting
some 40 ft. above the present angle pinnacles, and termi-
nating, as the Victoria Tower should do, in a Royal crown ;
thus supplying what all now feel is wanting—viz., ele-
gance of proportion and pleasurable outline. From the
centre of the crown was to rise the flagstaff, supported by
the arcs of the crown itself. Here was reason, purpose,
and beauty combined. What have we now in its place ?
A poverty-stricken structure which forcibly reminds one
of the poop deck of an old three-decker, on which an im-
provised flag pole has been set up and strutted. Its gilded
coat fails to hide its paltry and make-shift appearance. It
is in fact the greatest as well as the highest architectural
anomaly of the day.
2. I need scarcely say how impossible it is to believe
that the same handwhich designed the gas standards in
Westminster-hall had anything to do with those on the
bridge. The former are of the true design and con-
struction for metal work ; the latter, mere deformities,
made more hideous by size, and, together with the balus-
trades, are essentially designs for stone, worked in iron.

8. It is less invidious to criticize the work of the de-
parted than of the living ; but in a letter professing to
point out and remedy, as far as may be, the defects of the
Houses it becomes impossible to omit all reference to the
works now in progress, which, I regret to say, are a
reproduction of old blunders on an embodiment of new
ones.

Of all their faults, not one grieved my father so much
as the sinking of the Houses to their present level.
To have been really imposing the building should have
been raised on a bold, massive basement, so that its eleva-
tions might have stood up high above the bridge, instead
of being dwarfed beside it.
We must, as you intimate, make the best of a bad job.
This, however, is not likely to be accomplished by the
works now in progress. If we cannot imitate the Chicago
operation of raising the building 10ft., at all events there
can be no possible reason for practically reducing its
height by the same number of feet. I allude to the cloister
and iron fence now being set up in Palace Yard. The
railing, although beautiful in itself, effectually destroys
all proportion, and cannot possibly proceed from the same
hand which designed the ugly stone piers supporting it.

f there could be an inappropriate treatment of this par-

ticular spot it is that now being carried into execution.
Sections of ironwork between lofty masses of masonry
are precisely what ought to have been avoided. A strong
and comparatively simple railing, no higher than the ab-
solute exigencies of the position required, should have been
adopted, which would have neither screened nor dwarfed
the already too low buildings within the enclosure.
Precisely the same fault, although vastly exaggerated,
appears in the cloister leading from the underground rail-
way to the main building. In the first place, it literally
destroys the lower portion of the librarian's and clerk's
residences no less than the whole of the northern facade.
If this cloister was absolutely necessary above ground,
why on earth was it not made, in the language of Sir
Charles Barry himself, of a " simple and massive cha-
racter," so as to form a judicious contrast, and act as a
kind of base to the building above it ? But the present
structure is neither an appropriate adjunct to the main
building nor consistent in itself. A plinth about Bft high,
which would be a due proportion of base for a building
some 60 ft. high, can scarcely be the right application for
a cloister only 15 ft. in height. Yet almost the whole of
this new addition is absolutely nothing but plinth, and
that plinth breaking round large buttresses capped with
gables, destroying all repose and simplicity of outline.
The true spirit of what a work such as this should have
been is indeed so little manifested that even the details are
multiplied and crowded in without reason or meaning.
Crowns crowning nothing, angles which take neither an
architectural nor artistic line, niches, finials, even useless
gargoyles, are all confusedly grouped together. All this
might have been avoided and the original building im-
mensely improved, had the cloister been continued at its
low level to the main building, its windows opening into
a sunk foss crossed by a bridge for carriages passing into
the courts. To surround a building, the greatest defect
of which is that it is 12 ft. too low, with a barrier 12 ft.
too high, is manifestly absurd.
Since reading your article I have visited Lord earner-
von's seat at High Clere, and I can only say that if the
nation has been saved by my father from possessing
anything bearing the slightest resemblance to that edifice
it has, indeed, cause to be grateful. Occupying one of the
most lovely and elevated positions in England, the ugliness
of its style can only be equalled by the utter absence of
any principle whatever. Had it been built of timber, held
together by metal clips and bolts, and then petrified, it
would have been a natural curiosity. As it stands it is
simply an architectural monstrosity. However, even were
High Clere the fac-simile of Westminster, it can scarcely
be its type, as it was erected in 1842, seven years after the
designs for the Houses of Parliament had been accepted.
It would be an utter waste of time to reply again to Mr.
Edward M. Barry, for he has adduced nothing new since
he replied in the Pall Mall Gazette. One word, however,

is due to Mr. Charles Barry in reply to his recent letter.
He complains of my carrying on the question of my father's
°Telma in several journals at the same time. I admit the
crime, but it will be found that the various roads all con-
verge to a common centre. Ido not, however, admit the
" folly " of referring to any of the gentlemen he names
as "able to corroborate my statements." To Mr. Wright
I alluded as a person who refused to give my solicitor any
evidence at all, either for or against me. This fact throws
suspicion on what he did say. Of Mr. Talbot Bury I
remarked that he " can," not that he will, support me ;
to Mr. Ferrey I made no reference whatever.
Mr. Richardson's letter in your impression of to-day
deserves just thisinotice—that he knows nothing about the
matter, and fires beside the mark. He, however, fully
confirms what Mr Mares stated in his communication of
the 16th inst.
If Messrs. Charles and E. M. Barry, instead of throwing
discredit on my statements respecting my father's diaries
and the existence of the witnesses I have still too surely
in reserve, to be called at my discretion, would have the
manliness to come forward and specify what they consider
to have been the actual services of my father, instead of
generalizing and reducing him below the level of the wit-
nesses who have depreciated him, it would conduce mate-
rially to a settlement of the question. If his services were
of the insignificant character they insinuate, they were
literally beneath their own. But it was not one of these

men who was ever named as associated with Sir Charles
Barry in the great work. It was not the name of Mr.
Wolfe, who boasts of being "consulted on every stage of
the work ;" it was not Mr. Banks, "for fifteen years the
chief assistant of Sir Charles Barry ;" it was not Mr.
Wright, "the superior clerk," who seems to bo alluded
to by Sir Charles in a letter of his (vide Ferrey's Life) as
"a youngster as dull and destitute of feeling as the board
upon which he draws ;" it is not Mr. Talbot Bury,
who volunteers information about transactions of
which he evidently knows nothing, and letters of the
existence of which he was ignorant—it was none of these
names, but it was the name of the "occasional assistant,"
with a salary a little more than Mr. Wright's, which was
all along associated with that of Sir Charles Barry in the
great work. This was the tradition established, and it
passed from mouth to mouth, from senator down to
artisan, till pit grew to such magnitude as to endanger the
reputation of Sir Charles, which appears to have been
saved only by the noble devotion of my father himself.
And Who will maintain that this tradition had grown up