But the building which first gained him high reputation, and which even now holds a high place among his works, was the Travellers’ Club. He entered into a select competition for its erection in the year 1829. In sending in his designs he had great misgivings as to success; for, though he felt confident that the building would be satisfactory if erected, he thought that in the drawing it would be too plain to be attractive. Fortunately he was mistaken; and no sooner was the building carried out, than its erection was recognised as a real and important step in artistic progress. Italian architecture was already making its way in England; but it was observed at the time by a favourable critic, that “Barry’s Italian differed from much of that which had preceded it, as the perfection of language differs from mere patois.” The work itself was noticed by those interested in the revival of the Italian style, as a practical protest against the identification of that style in England with what is “little more than one mode of it, namely, the Palladian, which, if not the most vicious and extravagant, is almost the poorest and the most insipid.” The chief points of novelty noticed in it were the large proportion of the solid wall to the windows, and the striking effect of the great cornice.[38] “There is no single distinctive mark” (it was said) “which more forcibly characterizes the difference between the Palladian school and that which preceded it, than the _cornicione_ employed by the older artists to crown their façades. It was reserved for Mr. Barry to introduce the cornicione here, and its value as an architectural feature may be said to have been since admitted by acclamation. That the example thus set has not been lost upon us is already tolerably evident.”[39] But the great charm of the building was attributed with justice to the beautiful simplicity of its design (according, as it did, so well with the comparatively small size of the building), and the exquisite proportion and finish of all its parts.[40] In it, as in all Mr. Barry’s designs, there was not a line which had not been carefully and even elaborately studied, and the apparent ease and simplicity of the result, while it might lead the ignorant to wonder what there was in it to be called original, showed to competent critics the presence of the “ars celare artem,” which is pre-eminently the characteristic of genius. The woodcut on the opposite page gives the elevation of the garden-front, and the plan of the principal floor. With regard to the latter, there is little to [Illustration: THE TRAVELLERS’ CLUB HOUSE, PALL MALL, LONDON. PLAN OF THE PRINCIPAL FLOOR.] [Illustration: TRAVELLERS’ CLUB HOUSE, PALL MALL. VIEW FROM CARLTON GARDEN.]