at Westminster, had disheartened, though they had not overcome him. But he wished to embody all the designs for the improvement of the Metropolis, which had floated before his mind, in one grand scheme, and to leave it (so he expressed it) as a legacy behind him. He thought of Sir Christopher Wren’s grand design for the rebuilding of London after the fire, and the example stirred him up to boldness and extensiveness of conception. That it would be but an ideal he knew well; he exhibited it without reference to the conditions of the competition, and without any idea of seriously concerning himself with it. It was, in fact, brought forward in the names of his sons Charles and Edward, in the hope that, if it secured public attention and approval, some of its leading features might be executed by their hands. At any rate he conceived that it would point in the right direction. Even if it were not substantially adopted at any time, yet it might set the minds of others at work. Before all things, he felt that in the great Metropolitan improvements, which every day’s experience proves to be something more than desirable, the chief danger to be avoided was that absence of a general scheme, or at least general conceptions, which has, in England especially, wasted time and money on erections of isolated and often misplaced magnificence. He wished to place on record the strong expression of this feeling, and he left the scheme, which he himself conceived to be the best, for the criticism and consideration of those who should come after him. With that vague presentiment elsewhere noticed, that the end for him was not distant, he often said that he desired to leave it as his architectural memorial. It has been thought right accordingly to embody in this work, first the general plan of his Westminster improvements, and next a considerable part of a large drawing, executed almost entirely by his own hand, and containing on a small scale, but with an artistic effect which can hardly be reproduced, elevations of the chief buildings, which he proposed to open to public view, to remodel, or to erect. The following is the description of the design which he himself attached to it:-- GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PLAN. In forming this Plan, its authors have ventured to be guided by the spirit rather than by the letter of the official instructions, which they consider to be incompatible with the best realisation of the objects in view.