The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-28 00:00:00

and pedimented top, that occupies the head of the
great recessed arch. Above this window, in the
crown of each arch, is a keystone, forming a handsome
cartouche-shield, charged with the arms of one of the
states with which we have commercial intercourse.
This is surmounted by the entablature of the order,
the cornice of which is of unusually bold projection
and detail ; and from this rises the attic, which, with
its broken outline of piers and open panelling of play-
ful design, terminates the composition. This descrip-
tion embraces one vertical compartment of the general
design; to complete the circuit, it must be understood
that on each side of the length of the court there are
seven of these compartments with two small ones, and
at each end of the court three such compartments with
two small ones. These smaller compartments, being
two at each corner of the quadrangle, have each a
rusticated double arch below, and, variously, a window
or niche above, surmounted, successively, with a
carved festoon and a panel containing a wreath of oak
and laurel. An ornamented group of chimneys ter-
minates the attic over each of these corners.
We consider the composition of this court emi-
nently successful. It is more imaginative than any
of the external design ; the combination of forms is
grateful even to the uninitiated eye, while the subdi-
vision and character of detail are calculated to en-

havce its apparent magnitude. We are only uncer-
tain whether we should not have prolapsed a greater
width of proportion—whether that of three to five,
for instance, would not have been preferable to the
present of one or two.
But, we must complete our description of the sur-
rounding ambulatory, by observing that its ceiling is
formed on a principle somewhat analogous to that
developed in the wooden ceilings to some of our
churches of the later Gothic period. Every pier of
the arcade has a band or beam crossing over to its
neighbour against the opposite wall, which beam is
curved down to its springing at each end, and carried
by a corbel or console. In the opposite, or longitu-
dinal direction, these beams are intersected by two
others, so as to form in each division of the ambula-
tory one large panel between two narrow ones. Pen-
dants of varied are foliage applied at all points where
these beams or bands intersect each other. A similar
arrangement is recognised in the pavement, which re-
peats in party-coloured stone the architectural lines
of the ceiling.
It is on the ceiling and walls of this ambulatory that
the extent of the so-called encaustic painting, of which
we have heard, has been executed by, and under the
direction of, M. Sang, the artist of Munich. Some
notices of the day have proved a verbal description to
be of so little use in elucidating mere matters of
colour and pictorial device, that we shall abstain from
anything more than a very general notice of M. Sang's
performance. His object has been to obtain colour by
the Raffaellesque style of decorative design, and in
this he has admirably succeeded, displaying a most
inventive fancy, great elegance of outline, large re-
sources for the enrichment of purely architectural
members, a perfect knowledge of the harmony and
balance f colours, and extreme beauty of execution.
Under the advice of the architect, he has maintained
the expression of the edifice by the various national
heraldic subjects introduced into the leading com-
partments of the ceiling, while the somewhat minute
character of his detail increases the expansiveness of
the general architectural effect. Notwithstanding its
frequently-questioned appropriateness, we are glad to
see this class of decoration finding its way into the
mart of merchandise; even there the loiterer may
now become impregnated with some of that zeal for
art, which shall ultimately vindicate us from the
alleged tastelessness of the mere nation boutiquibv.
Not that we speak of this mode of embellishment,
for a moment, in the same tone that we should adopt
towards the highest school of pictorial composition ;
but it is still a department well calculated not only
to please but to improve the common taste, and
quicken the perception of beauty in general. It is,
moreover, a department to which English skill has
been very little directed : while on the Continent, and
especially under the auspices of the King of Bavaria,
it has for years been cultivated with great assiduity
and success. Hence the difficulty in the present in-
stance, where expedition seems to have been a pri-
mary object, of decorating such a large extent of
surface without some assistance from those accus-
tomed to the same work abroad. Had the Gresham
Committee been prepared to authorise the execution
of a series of paintings of a far higher order, in the
historical and descriptive departments, so far as these
might have been applicable, it is matter of evidence
that English talent would have been more than ade-
quate to every exigency ; it is from the novelty and
peculiarity of the work alone that any necessity arises
for extraneous assistance.

We have hitherto omitted to state, that the north
and south approaches to the quadrangle, as well as the
entrance under the tower, have also had their cielings
painted by M. Sang, in fresco ; the eastern entrance
is particularly successful. We must also mention,
before leaving the ambulatory and its decorations,
that its north-east and south-east extremities contain
niches, which are tenanted respectively by the statue
of Queen Elizabeth, by Mr. Watson, and of Charles
11., by Gibbons ; the latter being the identical
occupant of the central place in the former Exchange.
These statues, of course, refer to the buildings for the
same purpose erected in the reigns of the Sovereigns
they represent.
In closing our account of the quadrangle, we have
only to observe that its open area is floored with
tessellated pavement, under the care of Mr. Singer.
Its design consists, generally, of a large fret and ac-
companiments, forming a broad external border, after
which the elongated form within is subdivided by
other bands of ornament into a square between two
oblongs ; each of these figures has then a lozenge
inscribed within it, entwined with a circle at each of
the angles. The space left in the centre of the larger
figure is intended to afford the site for Mr. Lough's
statue of her Majesty; the centres of the smaller
lozenge are occupied by a semi-arabesque flower.
The general design is by no means characterised
by the exuberant fancy of some of the Roman
remains ; but its effect of colour is rich and good,
harmonising well with the tout ensemble of M. Sang's
adjacent performance. We have only to hope that
the dust of traffic may not totally obscure, nor expo-
sure to the elements quickly destroy, Mr. Singer's
production ; as the experiment which he has here
made is one which we would willingly see repeated,
and with success, wherever a favourable opportunity
may present itself.
We are sorry that, after going the round of the
building, we find that we must be very brief in the
consideration of the remaining accessory, that of
sculpture. Mr. Westmacott's production, which
occupies the tympanum of the pediment, seems to us
a display of individual figures, civic, commercial, and
foreign, rather than a composition, those figures being
well executed, but minute withal. The whole is
meagre as to descriptive interest ; and the isolated as
well as emblematical character of the presiding figure
of Commerce, amidst sixteen occupied realities, leaves
it open to the charge of that want of significancy
urged by the author of a jeu d'esprit which appeared
in the Times about a month since. The general
effect, however, is rich, the relief powerful, and the
principal lines in harmony with and subordinate to
those of the architecture. We object to the motto
from Scripture, as being a mere sculptural
subterfuge, and especially out of keeping with the
Latin inscription beneath.
Toe department of architectural sculpture, such as
that of devices, draperies, flower-carving, and the like,
has, we are given to understand, been committed to
Mr. Westmacott. The golden days of Grinling
Gibbons are gone, without leaving to us his worthy
representative. Greatly is it to be lamented that our
present architects are not more solicitous to revive the
ancient school of carving, and reject the trumpery and
meretricious finery of plaster and composition, which
affords to every pretender a means of display as equi-
vocal in taste as it is cheap in execution. The mis-
chief of all this is, that it substitutes the mecoanical
for the imaginative, the perpetual repetition of one
idea for the renewed creations of individual genius.
As ordinary spectators we never walk round the in-
side or outside of St. Paul's without wishing that all
the members of the architectural profession could be
made to feel this fact as deeply as we do. In the
Exchange, however, there appear many steps taken in
the right direction ; and we hope to see the same
track followed with increasing success by all future
practitioners who value their art for anything more
than its commission.
Before closing our remarks, we must notice
Lloyd's rooms, which are the only apartments of any
public interest. They occupy, as before stated, the
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' biting little effort at display. From this we enter
the archway leading to what is, specifically, the lobby,
a lofty apartment, equal to a square of about 35 feet,
but of irregular form on the north side. From the
irregular portion, however, a symmetrical space is
cut off by the intervention of a columned arcade of
three openings. This lobby communicates to the
west with the commercial-room, to the south with
the subscribers or underwriters'-room and its suite,
and to the east with the captains'-room. The com-
mercial-room is affected in plan by the general
obliquity of the site, but is treated in such a way as
almost entirely to disguise that fact. Its extreme
length is about 92 feet; its average width 40, and
height 30. It is divided into five compartments in
length by means of broad enriched piers on each side ;
these compartments answering to the same number of
windows, which derive light from the upper part of the
merchants' court. Each corner of the room is a qua-
drant, in the centre of which stands an lonic column,
elevated on a pedestal, and giving support to an ad-
vancing angle of the entablature, which is continued
round the room considerably enriched. From this
springs a cove to meet the plafond of the ceiling,
across which all the prevailing lines of the vertical '
architecture are continued, and from which, by the