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PREFACE. ; Great numbers of churches have this year been erected, and more are in progress, but of works of a high class few have been com pleted. We may however mention the. Reform Club; the Club Chambers Association; the Athenaeum and Unitarian Chapel, Manchester; the Highgate Cemetery; a Conservatory at Chatsworth for the Duke of Devonshire, one of the largest in the world; and a Colossal Monument in Scotland, to the Duke of Gordon. Many elegant commercial buildings have been erected; and an increased taste has manifested itself for public gardens, cemeteries, and other branches of landscape gardening. It is with regret that we are still obliged to complain of the little regard that is paid to the maintenance of the public taste, by the managers of the funds for the new churches. As to the other arts they are totally neglected, and architects have generally to complain of the niggardliness and inefficiency of the means placed at their disposal. In fact the advocates for new churches, like the fitters out of emigrant ships, seem to think that plenty of stowage is of much more importance than either convenience or safety. The members of the establishment have a rich inheritance of artistical wealth left to them by our ancestors, and they are morally bound to maintain its dignity, yet so far from doing so, they make little provision for the future, and take little care for the preservation of what they have in hand. We have to regret this year the demolition from such neglect of the nave of St. Saviour’s, Soiblnvark, a shrine rich in its antiquarian and historical associations, and the injury by a most terrific hurricane in the early part of the year of the Cathedrals of York, Chester, and St. Patrick’s Dublin, and of the Town Hall, Birmingham, and subsequently of the Cathedral of Ripon. Repairs and restorations have been effected of Wolverhampton, Collegiate Church, Madley Church, the Pilgrim’s Chapel Maidstone, St. Mary’s Redclitfe, the east end of Guildhall, and many of our Cathedrals. A Government grant has been made for (he restoration of the Cathedral of Glasgow, a work meritorious in itself, but an act of local favouritism, which has been vainly solicited for other parts of the empire. But a small grant would have preserved St. Saviours. Some slight improve ments have been made in Whitehall, but no measure has been taken to render move worthy of the public a line of communication which possesses many interesting monuments, and recalls many historical scenes. The palaces of Whitehall and Northumberland House, both have a back view upon this site, and here also are situated the statue of James 2d, the United Service Museum, and the Water Gate. The principal foreign edifice completed this year, has been the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg, a work of great splendour and of rapid execution, a wonder of power if it were not an emblem of the weakness of the Russian empire. While this monument of selfish barbarism has been erected, what has been done for the temporary and permanent welfare of that immense realm ? Canals have been projected a hundred years, and the only railway is that leading to the palace. We have to deplore the loss of two members of the .profession, each of whom has left a name, which must long live in its history. William Wilkins was the architect of Downing and University Colleges, of the University Club, St. George’s Hospital, and the National Gallery; Rudolph Cabanel most distinguished himself as a theatrical architect, and by the improvements he introduced in many of the technical branches of architecture. Mr. Hardwicke has succeeded Wilkins as a Member of the Royal Academy, and Air. Charles Cockerell as Professor of Architecture. Architects have as usual been lax in the literary career, but many valuable works have been produced, among which we may mention the new edition of the Public Buildings of London, by W. H. Leeds; the Public Buildings of the West of England, by John Foulston; the Traveller’s Club, by W. Id. Leeds; the Ancient Half-timbered Houses of England, by M. Habershon; the Suburban Gardener, by J. O. Loudon; the Architectural Remains of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James 1st, by C. J. Richardson; and the new edition of Repton’s Landscape Gardening, by J. O. Loudon. When we come to contemplate the government measures affecting the engineering interest, we are at once struck by a combination of jobbery, such as no year has hitherto so abundantly produced. Defeated in the House of Commons on the Irish Railway business, they managed to perpetrate the Shannon Navigation job; and again repulsed by the public voice on the Steam Vessels Accidents Commission, hydra-like they bring out a new report on Railways, teeming with all the elements of fertile mischief, at the very period when their own officers had exposed in the case of the Caledonian Canal, the consummated evils of a long process of ignorance and mismanagement. One of their last acts has been the appointment of a commission, to investigate the Harbours on the south coast of England, and another to decide on the competing railway lines to Scotland and Ireland. The results of these two measures the experience of their predecessors has taught us to look to with dread, and we have little hope from their origin of any error in our prognostic. It is to us a matter of consola tion that we have not been remiss in opposing so tar as in us lay, measures so fraught with iniquity, and we believe we may say with some little effect, but it depends neither on our temporary exertions, nor on those of others to combat this growing evil, it requires the united energy of every person interested, to resist a series of measures which are confined to no party and to no set of men, but are part of a system taken up with the robes of office and uniformly pursued by the most opposite in opinion. The civil engineers have an immediate interest in exerting themselves for this object, as the certain result of government success in this system must be to reduce the members of the profession here as abroad, to be the liveried sycophants of the government, instead of the independent officers of the public at large. To resist these attempts on the part of the government authorities, a Railway Society has been formed, although, we believe, not conducted with the spirit necessary to ensure success. A circumstance greatly affecting the mechanical members of the profession, is the great development given to public taste for subjects, by the successful results of the Leeds and other Mechanics’ Exhibitions. Some experiments, interesting to the profession generally, have been made on the explosion of mines, and charges of powder under water by voltaic electricity. The agitation in the early part of the year respecting the Great Western Railway enquiry, subsided on the decision of the proprie tors of that undertaking, to continue the plans of Mr. Brunei. The second Report of the Committee on Railways is only valuable from its statistical facts, which show indisputably the necessity for lowering the present high fares. Above one hundred and fifty miles of railway have this year been opened, of which the London and Croydon, and Aylesbury branch have been opened throughout, and the following partially, the Eastern Counties to Romford ; the York and North Midland from York, to the Leeds and Selby Railway ; the Southampton from Hartley Row to Basingstoke, and from Winchester to Southampton; the Great Western from Maidenhead to Twyford; the Manchester and Leeds, from Manchester to Littleborough; Birmingham and Derby; Midland Counties; and Glasgow,
