“London,” as a writer in _The Builder_ says, “is still, in spite of all pullings down, and removals of the so-called worn-out and out of date buildings, full every here and there of quaint spots, and bits of architecture, and even of poetic remembrances in dreary nooks and corners. Many of the antique streets are yet in existence, as far as the _plans_ of them go; and the irregularity of house pulling down and improvement necessitates differences in the size and height of the houses, which make up the crooked street, and leave the idea of it, as it was, almost intact.” It is fashionable to abuse the old city, to be ashamed of it, when comparing it with foreign towns. Dr. Waagen, who was in London in 1838, took away a not very favourable impression of London architecture. “The outside of the brick houses,” he says, “in London is very plain, and has nothing agreeable in the architecture, unless it be the neat and well-defined joints of the brick-work. On the other hand, many of the great palace-like buildings are furnished with architectural decorations of all kinds, with pillars and pilasters. There are two reasons why most of them have a rather disagreeable effect. They are destitute of continuous simple main lines, which are indispensable in architecture to produce a grand effect, and the decorative members are introduced in a manner _entirely arbitrary_, without any regard to their original meaning. This absurdity is carried to the greatest excess in the case of columns, ranged here, as wholly unprofitable servants, directly before a wall. This censure applies in an especial manner to most of the works of the deceased architect, Nash. In truth, he had a peculiar knack of depriving masses of considerable dimensions of all meaning, by breaking them into a number of little projecting and receding parts.” He is even more severe on some of the churches; for instance, All Souls, in Langham Place, “a circular building in two stories, with Ionic and Corinthian columns, surmounted by a pointed sugar-loaf.” “If the immense sums expended in architectural abnormities had always been applied in a proper manner, London must have been the handsomest city in the world.” Exceptions, however, to this general blame, he admits, are Somerset House, which has the air of a regal palace, and the “new Post Office,” which has quite “a noble effect.”