Since the days when as a child I first knew London the outward aspect of most of the streets may be said to have completely changed. Up to within the last twenty years the alteration was not very marked, being for the most part gradual, but now a veritable architectural revolution seems to be taking place. Everywhere the boxlike Georgian house is passing away, and on all sides towering mansions with elaborate frontages in every possible style (some indeed being little but collections of decorative samples jumbled up together) are making their appearance. Amongst other eccentricities modern architects seem to have an especial love for small windows, which, considering the not over-abundant supply of sunshine and light available in London, seem somewhat out of place. On one estate (I believe that belonging to the Duke of Westminster), a clause in every lease forbids the building of a house with any but windows of very moderate dimensions. In modern street architecture uniformity seems to have little place; it is, I fancy, considered inartistic by English architects, who, careless of the example of Mansard (the designer of the Place de la Concorde) and other men of the past, who were capable of really great architectural conceptions, imagine that decoration, no matter how exotic or inappropriate, produces a more striking effect than that well-proportioned, dignified, and graceful uniformity of construction to which, I fear, they are quite unable to attain. The best modern street in the West End, I think, is Mount Street, which, notwithstanding the diversity of style exhibited in the façades of the houses, is a really fine street, and one, moreover, not entirely unpicturesque. Most of the old streets in the West End are too narrow for the lofty houses now so frequently being erected. How the occupants of these mansions—overshadowed as they must be by other giant constructions facing them, and for the most part only furnished with ridiculous little windows—ever obtain any light, is a mystery which I think their builders would be considerably puzzled to explain. The old Georgian houses were quite devoid of any pretension to especial decorative merit, but some of them were not lacking in a certain dignity of proportion, whilst ample provision for the admission of light was always to be found. The ironwork of the railings was also in some cases extremely artistic, never erring (as almost invariably does modern ironwork) in the direction of over-elaboration and meaningless eccentricity.