The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 278, Supplementary Number (1828)Various
History
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 278, Supplementary Number (1828)
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
The _north_ front facing Piccadilly is of the same style and character
with the garden front, but of lighter proportions. Here are the king's
private apartments, from choice, comparatively small and compact, and
the cabinet picture-gallery. Here, also, the terrace is continued, and
a similar Ionic temple conservatory placed at the other extremity.
Thus, his majesty's windows look out between these conservatories,
upon the flower-garden spread below.
We are bound to acknowledge our partial, if not entire concurrence,
in the general criticism on the central front, and of the two wings.
The first impression is far from that produced by unity, grandeur, or
elegance; there is a fantastical assemblage of turrets, attics, and
chimneys, and a poverty or disproportion, especially in "the temple-like
forms" which complete the ends towards the park. The dome, too, has been
sarcastically compared with a "Brobdignagian egg." It strictly belongs
to the back part of the palace, and had it been screened from the front,
its form might have been less objectionable.
Of the internal arrangements of the palace, little is as yet perfectly
known. On the principal floor of the centre, between the east and west
suites of rooms, runs a splendid picture and statue gallery (the whole
length of the building); the light into which is to be admitted from
the sides, in a slanting direction, by metal skylights. The ceiling
has iron girders thrown across, and is arched with combs, each having
the ends closed, with the exception of a small hole (like an inverted
flower-pot), which admits a current of air to circulate through the
floor. The roof of this gallery is flat, and covered with slate
embedded in a composition of hot coal-tar, lime, and sand: the roofing
of the other parts of the palace is mostly covered with a similar
composition, but _not_ slated. The approach to the gallery is up the
grand stairs, and through several rooms, in which will be disposed the
king's magnificent collection of armour. The floors throughout are
fireproof, formed of iron joists, and arched with hollow bricks of
a singular construction.
The group for the pediment of the _east facade_ of the palace,
representing the triumph of Britannia, by Mr. Bailey, is nearly
finished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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