comfortable house, stuccoed and painted white according to the taste of our forefathers.

Bradgate House, the Earl of Stamford's Leicestershire residence, ought to have been a noble pattern of pure architecture to the country round; but, as it is, we need not regret that thick plantations conceal it from the public road. Its monotonous row of common-place gables might be tolerable for a workhouse, but it is a pity that in this age, when good patterns are so necessary to the slowly-improving taste of the people, so much money should have been thrown away on such a design.

The other Halls and Mansions surrounding the Forest-Coleorton, Bardon, Swithland, Rothley, &c., &c.—have nothing remarkable in their architecture except its poverty.

Of the architecture of the Forest Churches there is not much to be said. The Oaks Church is simply abominable except for its situation and the ivy which clothes its ugliness. It was consecrated while the battle of Waterloo was being fought, and at that period no man living knew how to build a church, nor, in fact, anything else.

on

Copt Oak Church is neatly built, and, standing an eminence, is useful as a landmark to

travellers. If the pulpit within is as good a fingerpost to heaven it must be altogether a valuable building.

Woodhouse Eaves Church is very similar to Copt Oak, but its situation and the group of buildings round it-parsonage and school-housemake it immensely more picturesque and interesting.

The Old Church at Woodhouse, is not much superior to the others in actual architecture, but it has the mellowness of age, and the grace of clustering ivy, and taken as a whole it is a little Forest gem.

Swithland Church is still older, probably of the 13th century, and has a rich surrounding of shrubberies and tall old trees.

The inhabitants of Loughborough have done lasting honour to their town, by the erection of two buildings of notable beauty; the Grammar School and the Cemetery Church. The School, indeed, is a shade too diminutive for its style— looking just a little too much like a model, intended to be afterwards carried out in larger dimensions-but it is a very pleasing object from every point of view, and ought to become one of the scholastic Peers of the Realm, taking rank with

Harrow, Eton, and Rugby. Standing in the School grounds, near the lodge, and looking right and left, there may be noticed a remarkable contrast between the principles of Light and Darkness. On the right, at a little distance, is the Nunnery, on the left the School,-the one all wall, the other all window ! Of the Cemetery Church I have not a word to say except in praise. It is a complete architectural gem, small but of rare excellence; admirable in design, proportion, colour, and execution.

The old Parish Church of Loughborough is a fine example of perpendicular Gothic, and the new one a very inferior imitation of an earlier style.

It is very good to see how the world progresses; how wisdom overpowers stupidity; how the Spirit of Beauty creeps at last into the most utilitarian soul.

Almost everything which was said about the architecture of Leicester in the first edition of this volume, eight years ago, has now to be struck out or altered. A complete change has come over the town in architectural sentiment. The new wing of the Infirmary was begun in 1861; I do not believe it would be possible to erect such a building in Leicester at the present time.

Unfortunately we still suffer for the blindness of our forefathers. They ate their sour grapes and grew dyspeptic. Then they built the Market House, and Trinity Church, and Belvoir Street Chapel, and the County Lunatic Asylum, and so their children's teeth are set on edge continually. But during the last eight years many good things have been done in our streets and suburbs.

Alderman Newton's School, in St. Martin's, is as lovely an example of Tudor Gothic as ever was built; full of grace and tenderness. It is no mere fancy to believe that these qualities will tell, in the long run, upon the boys who go in and out of its portals daily.

The new Churches, St. Andrew's, St. Matthew's, and St. Luke's are all designed with earnestness and feeling, and for cheap buildings are wonderfully good.

The new spire of St. Martin's is the loftiest in the town, but is pleasing only in certain aspectsa constant fault with broach spires.

The dissenting Chapels have yielded to the onward movement and made an effort to rank among the "ornaments of religion." Those on the Humberstone Road, in Oxford Street, and in Friar Lane, and the portico of St. Paul's, are all

steps in the right direction, though not nearly long enough to keep up with the times, but the Victoria Road Chapel, with its graceful tower and spire, and all its arches and angles gradually tapering more and more as their position in the building rises, is a piece of architecture worthy of its site, and very pleasant to look upon.

The Borough Lunatic Asylum, now in progress, promises to be a very creditable building.

The Stonygate and Dane Hill Villas, of which a new crop rises every year, improve satisfactorily. Italian Gothic, however, is still the rock on which our architects come to grief. It is a rudimentary style which even Italian sunshine never ripened into maturity, and our English climate seems to suit it no better. It is always stiff and stubborn and chaotic; discarding the Greek symmetry without attaining the wild Gothic picturesqueness, because the variety which it labours after is artificial and "put on," and has not grown out of the nature of it.

The chaotic character of modern street architecture comes out violently in the row of new houses on the London Road. These are built on a slope, and each block is by a different architect, filled