Certainly the attempt does not lack boldness. Here we have in one building the superimposed bases and interpenetrating mouldings of the latest French Gothic and the fish-bladder tracery of the Renaissance, and in the dormers the stride from the ogee canopies of Rouen to the prim pilasters and pediment of Orleans. Mr. Hunt’s skill has not sufficed to introduce together these features, the outcomes of different modes of thought as well as of different systems of construction, without a visible incongruity; nor are they in all cases successful, taken singly. The large and elaborate dormer over the entrance, especially, instead of being a visible reconciliation of the two styles, is a visible demonstration that they cannot be reconciled. A complete construction of post and lintel, of pilaster and entablature, is supplemented by another construction of flying buttresses which are clearly superfluous and irrelevant, and which, instead of resisting the thrust of an arch, have the appearance of ineffectually “shoring up” a structure which, though complete, is unstable. One is inclined to ascribe the lack of unity and repose which the disturbed sky-line of the building entails upon it, and which somewhat impairs the dignity of an otherwise dignified and always animated design, to the angle turret of which the architect was evidently enamoured. We may share his liking for it, and admit it to be an extremely pretty thing, without admitting that it belongs to this building. The leading motive of the composition is evidently the “pyramidization,” to borrow Mr. Thomas Hope’s uncouth word, of the whole building towards the apex of the main mass at the angle, from the point of view from which the illustration is taken. It is clearly to assist and emphasize the ascent and convergence of all the lines of the building to this apex, and to enhance the apparent dimensions, that this mass is raised a story, and the extremities of the building allowed to fall away, and it is in order to account for the emphasizing of this mass by a separate roof that the somewhat awkward expedient has been adopted of dropping the cornice on the street side below the eaves. New York readers who are familiar with the aspect of the Dry Dock Savings-Bank in the Bowery will know what is meant by this “pyramidization,” and will remember how it is there attained. Now it happens that it is precisely this intention which in the present instance is obscured and partly defeated by the tormenting of the sky-line, which in turn may be traced to the insistence of the architect upon his extremely pretty but irrelevant [Illustration: HOUSE OF CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. George B. Post, Architect.]