In entering this room we pass from the portion of the palace built in 1690 by Sir Christopher Wren for William and Mary, to that constructed by William Kent about 1723 for George I. The visitor has thus a good opportunity of comparing the styles and tastes of the two architects and of gauging their relative powers. Wren had been driven from his office, in 1718, by a shameful backstair intrigue; and two years afterwards, Kent, doubtless by the influence of his patron, the Earl of Burlington, was commissioned to build a set of new state rooms. How very mediocre were his talents, the exterior of his addition to Wren's work will, as we have already said, ever remain a palpable proof; and though for internal construction he shows less incapacity, still this room exhibits all his false ideas of pseudo-classicism--developed, as we shall see, to a most extravagant extent in the adjoining "Cube or Cupola Room." Examining the decoration in detail, we perceive everywhere evidences of his awkward, graceless style. The doorways, for instance, are unnecessarily lofty and gaunt, and with their heavy cumbrous architraves, flat moulded, with little light and shade, greatly impair the proportions of the room. In the tall semi-circular headed central window also, surmounted by a purposeless oak bracket--even in such details as the mouldings of the panelling and of the framing of the doors, and the flatness of the raised panels and their relative sizes to the width of the rails and "stiles,"--we detect his marked inferiority to Wren in the designing of such fittings. The =chimney-piece=, which is one of Kent's plainer and less ponderous ones, is of a choice marble, veined black and gold. The dimensions of this room are: 32 feet 9-1/2 inches long, 24 feet 2 inches wide, and 19 feet 2 inches high to the top of the cornice, 24 feet to the ceiling. Painted Ceiling of Queen Caroline's Drawing Room. But it is by the ceiling especially, with its great heavy oval frame of plasterwork, and its appearance of overhanging crushing weight, that we can most accurately appreciate Kent. The central recessed panel, containing an allegorical representation of Minerva, attended by History and the Arts, gives us a measure of his powers as a pictorial artist. The decorative painting of the cove of the ceiling, above the oaken cornice, is more satisfactory. In the four angles, and in the middle of each side, are classical pediments with volutes. Besides, the workmanship of the wainscoting being very good, and the original rawness of the ceiling somewhat faded, this room, with its new oak floor, its gorgeous paper, its Georgian furniture, probably designed by Kent, and the magnificent frames of some of the pictures on its walls, presents a fine and stately appearance. Contemporary French and German Portraits. 60 Madame de Pompadour (_986_) . . . . . DROUAIS.