Every one knows the “Adam” work--the long pilasters and medallions on a brick background, each enriched with arabesques and garlands of a delicate character. They sought, too, the beauties of proportion and space, regulated by principle and calculation. In many an old house we recognize their ceilings; a great circle in the centre, filled in with tracery in very low relief. Their designs have been published, and display fancy and variety. Portland Place and its stately mansions, with their broad surfaces of brick, have a certain dignity; but the houses have been sadly disfigured by additions. The pleasing old-fashioned-looking Fitzroy Square seems like a bit of Bath. The brothers are said to have been the first, in London at least, who attacked the difficult problem of imparting to a number of detached mansions the air of being portions of one whole, which in architecture is a deception most intolerable and not to be endured. For there is a perpetual struggle of assertion between the two principles going on--the separate houses making protest, as it were, by their individuality against being considered one great expression--while the long façade in its turn contradicts and overpowers the individuality. There are also some Adam houses in York Place, easily recognizable. Finsbury Square is their work, though Finsbury Circus staggers one. There is a terrible monotony in the place, though the line of the circus is graceful. It was probably a “job” akin to a painter’s “potboiler,” and to be done cheaply. It is to be suspected that Gwydir House, in Whitehall, which has been defaced by alterations, was their work. Plaster and delicate stucco-work--the patterns apparently taken from arabesque work--light garlands and vases wrought in very slight relief, these were all combined with yellow brickwork. Ceilings, chimney-pieces, furniture, carriages, garde-vins, plate-boxes, were also designed by the brothers on these principles.