=Anglo-Classical.=--The Anglo-Classical is frankly a style of ostentation and magnificent pretension. So far as one man could be responsible for what was in effect an expression of the temper of an age that was amassing great wealth in the Indian and Chinese trade, the man was Sir John Vanbrugh. But it is significant that he first became famous as a writer of witty and spicy comedies. Then he “turned his attention to” architecture and wrote to his friend Tonson, the publisher, for a “Palladio.” With the aid of this he qualified himself as an architectural designer and having already gained the favour of society by his talents as a wit was readily accepted as an architect, enjoying particularly the patronage of Queen Anne, who sent him abroad on a special mission. His first important mansion was =Castle Howard= (1714), followed a year later by =Blenheim Palace=. In both of these he achieved what may be described as a scenic impressiveness on a prodigious scale, but without much reference to architectural logic or to internal convenience. The two plans have a general similarity, consisting of a main block with an extensive garden front, connected at the rear by two corridors with the kitchen block and the stable block. These flank a great court, which at Blenheim is closed by a screen wall and gateway in the manner of a French château. The kitchen at Blenheim was some 400 feet distant from the dining room! Windows in both designs were disposed for exterior effect and not for proper lighting of the interior. In numberless particulars internal convenience was sacrificed to palatial planning and display. As Voltaire said, if the rooms had been as wide as the walls were thick the palace would have been passably convenient. Amongst the new features, introduced by Vanbrugh, was the converting of the ground story into a kind of mimic cellar, with inconveniently small staircases to the floor above, the main approach to which was on the outside of the building, by a grand flight of steps leading up to a superb portico. Notwithstanding the magnificence of scale, these designs have a chill formality that makes their dignity rather dull.