MR PRESIDENT, - I concluded the last lecture by expressing a hope that the spirit of improvement, which had so happily shown itself in many parts of the cities of London and Westminster, would be extended, not only to every part of the metropolis but to the utmost confines of this mighty Empire. To this spirit of improvement, embellishment, and utility, we owe the new bridges over the River Thames, the extensive and magnificent approaches thereto, and the other improvements now in progress.

The want of due attention in the placing of our great public buildings was noticed in the last lecture. It is not less to be lamented that in this great metropolis, this emporium of wealth, public monuments of national greatness are so few in number that it seems as if it were the general opinion that architecture is unworthy of consideration. This was not the feeling of the Greeks and Romans. They duly appreciated painting and sculpture, but architecture was not neglected. Their temples exhibited all the splendour of architectural effects; and in their mausolea, whilst the highly sculptured sarcophagus contained the body of the deceased, or the magnificent urn decorated with bassi-relievi the ashes, the remainder of the funereal pomp rested on the power of the architect's mind, as is proved by the pyramids of Egypt, and of Caius Cestius, the Mausoleum of Hadrian, and the innumerable sepulchral buildings on the Appian Way and other public roads leading to Rome, those in the south of France, and other places. It is humiliating indeed to see how much more numerous, more extensive, and more magnificent the public buildings are in all the great cities on the continent than in London and Westminster. Even St. Paul's, so justly venerated by those who feel the powers of architecture, when compared with St. Peter's in Rome, although infinitely superior in all its external details, loses much of its importance when compared with that building and is, as must be admitted, very inferior to St. Peter's as respects its interior. How superior in magnificence are the churches of St. Carlo at Vienna, St. Sulpice, and St. Roche, in Paris, when compared with most of our churches.