[3] The Queen’s apartments in the Crystal Palace, destined for the reception of her Majesty and his Royal Highness the Prince Consort, when they honour the Exhibition with their presence, have been erected by Messrs. J. G. Crace and Co., in the Italian style. This beautiful suite of apartments, which are placed at the north end of the building, consists of a large entrance vestibule with architectural ornaments, and painted arabesque decorations. A long corridor leads from the vestibule to the several apartments, and is formed into an arched passage by means of circular-headed doorways, before which hang _portières_, or curtains. To the right of the entrance are two rooms, one appropriated to the ladies-in-waiting, and the other to the equerries; the walls of both being divided into panels, and decorated in the Italian style. On the left are the apartments for the use of her Majesty and the Prince Consort, consisting of a drawing-room and two retiring rooms. The walls of the drawing-room are divided by pilasters, the panels covered with green silk. The cove of the ceiling is decorated with arabesque ornaments. ACCOUNT OF THE BUILDING. In taking the structure of the Great Exhibition of 1851--that type of a class of architecture which may fairly be called “Modern English”[4]--as the model for the new building at Sydenham, the projectors found it necessary to make such modifications and improvements as were suggested by the difference between a temporary receiving-house for the world’s industrial wealth, and a permanent Palace of Art and Education, intended for the use of mankind long after its original founders should have passed away. Not only, however, have increased strength and durability been considered, but beauty and artistic effect have come in for a due share of attention. The difference of general aspect between the present Palace and its predecessor is visible at a glance. In the parent edifice, the external appearance, although grand, was monotonous; the long flat roof was broken by only one transept, and the want of an elevation proportionate to the great length of the building was certainly displeasing. In the Sydenham Palace, an arched roof covers the nave--raising it forty-four feet higher than the nave in Hyde Park--and three transepts are introduced into the structure instead of one, the central transept towering into the air, and forming a hall to the Palace of surpassing brilliancy and lightness. A further improvement is the formation of recesses, twenty-four feet deep, in the garden fronts of all the transepts. These throw fine shadows, and take away from the continuous surface of plain glass walls: whilst the whole general arrangement of the exterior--the roofs of the side aisles rising step-like to the circular roof of the nave,--the interposition of low square towers at the junction of the nave and transepts,--the open