e suite
of buildings in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, commenced in 1823, and
only finished during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It has
cost a sum little less than L1,000,000. Sir Richard Smirke was the
architect. The principal, or south front, 370 feet long, presents a range
of forty-four columns, with a majestic central portico, with a sculptured
pediment. Since its commencement, in 1755, the collection has been
prodigiously increased by gifts, bequests, and purchases; and now it is,
perhaps, the largest of the kind in the world. The library contains more
than eight hundred thousand volumes, and is increasing enormously in
extent every year. The magnificent reading-room is open only to persons
who proceed thither for study, or for consulting authorities. It was
opened in 1857, and built at a cost of L150,000, and is one of the finest
and most novel apartments in the world; it is circular, 140 feet in
diameter, and open to a dome-roof 106 feet high, supported entirely
without pillars. This beautiful room, and the fire-proof galleries for
books which surround it, were planned by Mr. Panizzi, an Italian and a
former keeper of the printed books.

In connection with the library proper is an equally vast collection of
antiquities, etc., of which all guide-books and those publications issued
by the Museum authorities tell.

The building was complete by 1865, and for the last forty years has stood
proudly in its commanding situation, the admiration of all who have come
in contact therewith.

What Hampstead Heath is to the coster, the Crystal Palace is to the
middle-class Londoner, who repairs there, or did in Dickens' time, on
every possible auspicious occasion. This structure itself, though it can
hardly be called beautiful by the most charitably disposed, is in many
respects one of the most remarkable in the world, and owes its existence
to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park. The materials of that
building, being sold to a new company toward the close of that year, were
transferred to an elevated spot near Sydenham, seven miles from town, to
the south. The intention was to found a palace and park for the exhibition
of art and science on a paying basis. The original estimate was L500,000,
but the expenditure was nearly L1,500,000, too great to assure a probable
profitable return.

The palace and grounds were opened in 1854, the towers and fountains some
time after.

The building itself is 1,600