In his first design he returned once more to the Greek style, which he had so long discarded. He considered that, for convenience sake, the principal floor ought not to be raised much above the street, and that, for acoustic reasons, the Courts themselves ought not to be high. This would make the whole design low, in comparison with the large extent of ground which it would necessarily cover; and to screen it by lofty piles of offices or residences would interfere with light and air. Under these circumstances, especially as he at first intended the building to be in an open space, visible on all sides, he determined to surround it with a classic peristyle, and seek massiveness and simplicity rather than height or grandeur. In Lincoln’s Inn Fields, grouped with, and screened by, masses of trees, so as not to be first visible at a great distance, he conceived that the old classic style might appear at advantage. But the scheme was afterwards abandoned, and the only Greek design of his later days fell with it. In 1845 he was again examined before a Committee of the House of Commons, and submitted two designs; one occupying the second of the two sites above noticed, a space of about seven and three-quarter acres, which he proposed to clear for the purpose; the other involving the enclosure of New Palace Yard, and the extension of the New Palace itself. But once more the scheme was deferred, to be now executed on the Strand site, but on a far different scale and by other hands.[110] In any case, it is a comfort to hope that the present unsightly “Law Courts” will no longer disgrace the magnificence which surrounds them.