PLAN OF THE PRINCIPAL FLOOR.] redeem from insignificance a great building, in which convenience forbade great general height, and for which a low and unfavourable site had been provided. Under the limitations thus imposed from without, his mind began to work on the conception of a design. The original idea of his plan was sketched out on the back of a letter, while he was on a visit to Mr. Godfrey, one of his early friends. Even this contained the germ of all that was to follow. But the first plan, which he drew out with care, exhibited every one of the great features of the executed building; and even at this early stage his views extended beyond this plan with a view to the completion of the design. He proposed to enclose New Palace Yard, erecting at the angle a lofty gate-tower, visible from Bridge Street to the Abbey. Beyond this point was to be a grand quadrangle, in which the Victoria Tower should be the principal feature, and from that Tower a grand approach was to lead straight to Buckingham Palace. In considering the plan, Mr. Barry at once saw that Westminster Hall must either ruin any design, or form a principal feature in it. St. Stephen’s Chapel was in ruins; it was difficult to restore it with certainty; and if it were restored, it was natural that it should be reclaimed to ecclesiastical purposes.[90] This he therefore thought it better to avoid; but the crypt remained, to be preserved and rescued from its former use, as the Speaker’s Dining-room, to a more worthy purpose.[91] He therefore resolved at once to make Westminster Hall his great public approach, and to carry the public through it, and through a hall occupying the site of St. Stephen’s Chapel, right into the centre of the site provided. There were difficulties in the way; the position of the hall and chapel at right angles turned the line of approach; there was a want of parallelism in the one, and of perpendicularity in the other, to the line of the river front, and so to the principal axis of the building; the vast dimensions of the hall itself would tend to dwarf any other hall to which it formed the entrance. But he felt that these were secondary considerations, not worthy of counterbalancing the grandeur and the appropriateness of the general conception. The verdict of public criticism, both at the time of the competition and subsequently, has fully justified his determination.