The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-09-19 00:00:00

our of the

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£25,650 was subscribed. To this
the corporation, in the following _
Rathbone, Esq., occupied the Mayor's
of the land, valued at £12,000. The spirit of the commu-
nity once fairly aroused, it was speedily declared that such
a structure, if erected, must be in the strictest sense a
public property, and that the cost of its construction must
be borne by the community. The proposal fairly afloat,
found ready favour in the general esteem; but with the
general approbation of its purpose, came also the further
conviction that the edifice required must be in all respects
such as would reflect no discredit on the high social posi-
tion and recognised intellectual culture of the second
commercial population of the empire. All parties being
agreed now as to the principle on which the project should
be carried out, the details requisite for its accomplishment
were set about in earnest.
COMPETITION OF DESIGNS.

William

r, added a

Plans were advertised for, and a spirited contest was
the result. Numerous artists of great merit, including
several belonging to the town, entered into competition
for the honour of being entrusted with the work, and
many designs of high excellence were submitted to the
committee entrusted with the selection. That the
onerous and responsible duties of those gentlemen were
discharged with judgment and impartiality, as well as
in obedience to the dictates of good taste, is best attested
by the surpassing beauty and excellence of the fabric
which has arisen as the completed result of their judicious
labours and anxious deliberations. That their selection
did not, in the first instance, and at all hands, escape some
degree of unfavourable remark, it would be as idle as it is
now unnecessary to deny; but, in pointing to the noble
edifice which has been carefully though slowly reared, in
its stately and graceful proportions, at the bidding of that
genius whose design they chose, they at once exonerate
themselves from blame, justify the propriety of their selec-
tion, and indicate an example for general emulation in the
progress of edificial art. Though speaking thus warmly
in commendation of the general design, it is not intended
to convey indiscriminate eulogy on all its details ; nor is
it desirable that we should do so. Some particulars are
defective in the full harmony—anomalous combinations
are readily perceptible to the critical eye—and notwith-
standing the prodigality of ornamentation which sur-
rounds and is mixed up with the edifice, there are portions
of the structure which are bald to absolute poverty—con-
spicuous among which conflicts of profusion and seeming
indigence, the contrast between the elaborate ballustrade
surrounding the enclosed area and the tame undecorated
freize which in spiritless monotony pursues its almost
unbroken circuit of the building, must strike every
beholder, and is painfully obtrusive on an eye familiar
with the fully-enriched entablature of the Corinthian
style. Defiant of these drawbacks, which, on the whole,
militate but little against its general majesty and beauty,
St. George's Hall will bear, unscathed, a proud comparison
with the temples of ancient Attica or Corinth. Possessed
of it, along with her noble Exchange, her chaste and capa-
cious Philharmonic-hall, her expansive Docks, and rapidly
progressive commerce, Liverpool rises in stately competi-
tion with the marts of modern Europe, while she outstria
the glowing fancies which poets have fabled of the ancient
Carthage, or chroniclers have noted of the princely Tyre.