REFORM CLUB.--The Travellers’ Club was completed in 1831. Since that time the great competition for the New Palace at Westminster had been decided, and his success had secured him a place in the first rank of British architects. In 1837 he was called upon to enter a select competition with Messrs. Basevi, Blore, Burton, Cockerell, and Smirke, for the erection of the Reform Club. His design was almost unanimously chosen. He felt some difficulty in designing a building of such superior magnitude in the same Italian style, side by side with his favourite Travellers’. He would gladly have varied it as much as possible, but he could not bring himself to depart from the “astylar” style; for of engaged orders he never thoroughly approved. The Farnese Palace was doubtless in his mind during the conception of this design, and a charge of plagiarism has been grounded upon certain superficial resemblances, in the same way and with the same injustice as in the comparison of the Travellers’ Club with the Villa Pandolfini.[44] In this Club-house, as the sides were liable to be seen at the same time, an almost complete uniformity [Illustration: REFORM CLUB HOUSE, PALL MALL, LONDON. PLAN OF THE GROUND FLOOR.] of design was preserved throughout the three visible fronts. To complete breaks of design under such circumstances he had a rooted objection; he would rather risk monotony, than break unity and give the effect (so often seen in Venice) of façades merely “applied” to a building. Here, as in the Travellers’ Club, simplicity, solidity, and repose, were the great objects aimed at. The entrance seemed to some to want importance; he tried (in deference to advice) columns and pilasters; a porch he would not hear of, for it seemed to him a mere excrescence. But the design so enlarged seemed out of harmony with the windows; it appeared to break the unity of the design, and the entrance was therefore left in its present simplicity. In criticizing his own design, he greatly regretted that he could not give to his upper windows an importance commensurate with that of the lower stories, such as is found in the three full stories of the Farnese Palace. He also took blame to himself because, for want of some relief, the columns flanking his windows appeared to be embedded in the wall. He would have gladly given more boldness to the dressings of the lower windows, and possibly more size to the windows throughout. With these exceptions, he continued satisfied with his design, and public opinion has certainly continued to confirm that satisfaction.