We now pass from the genuine antique to its imitations, and reach the curious cluster of modern-old houses to which the new Embankment has furnished ground. Some are bold and effective, and the whole group, which has gradually extended down the Embankment for a long distance, is worth a special visit. They bear quaint names, such as the Old Swan House, the White House, Carlyle House, Shelley House, River View, and the like. Farnely House and its neighbours are good imposing monuments of brick. Shelley House, with its attached theatre, is in an adjoining street. This place of “amusement” brought its owner endless annoyance and expense--a lawsuit finished it, and now it stands unused. The house with the curious white bow windows, set in something that looks like the stern of an old man-of-war, will attract attention; we should note the “Clock House” with its handsome dial projecting; likewise the house at the corner, with its elaborate _grilles_ over most of the windows. But turning down Tite Street--Mr. Tite was an eminent architect of a few years back, now of course almost forgotten--we come to the White House, a curious, quaint structure, stiff as an American’s dress-coat about the shoulders, which is, or was, the dwelling of a well-known American artist, celebrated for his “nocturnes in green” and “symphonies in blue,” which caused jesters such merriment, to say nothing of his Peacock Chamber, one of those two, or nine days’ wonders which furnish society with something to talk of. In the little square or tongue of ground near Cheyne Row will be noticed an elaborate lamp, supported by contorted boys. This was one of the rejected patterns for the series that was to decorate the Embankment. The one chosen consists of contorted dolphins, and is not very effective. At Vauxhall Bridge we come to a curious conceit, that would have “arrided”--Lamb’s word--the heart of Dickens. Here is a large yard devoted to the sale of ship timber, for which old vessels of course are bought and broken up. But there remain always the old figure-heads--strange, curious, gigantic efforts, that make one wonder what manner of man the designer was. Nor are they without merit or spirit. They rise towering with a strange stark air, and look over the wall with much of the dazed astonishment the animals showed in Charles Lamb’s copy of Stackhouse’s Bible. Here are Dukes of York with a fatuous expression, the Janet Simpson, or Lady Smith, and Iron Dukes--all, it must be said, wrought rather vigorously, and looking with eternal solemnity over the wall, each some six or eight feet high, to the surprise of the stranger. The natives are familiar with them.