t have recently taken place. A few words may,
however, be said about our modern street and shop architecture. In the
important new thoroughfare, Corporation Street--the outcome of Mr.
Chamberlain's great improvement scheme--there is a curious series of
shops and public buildings. Some are of one style, some of another, and
many of no style at all. The architecture in this thoroughfare
certainly presents plenty of variety--more variety perhaps than beauty.
There are the new Assize Courts--the foundation-stone of which was laid
by the Queen in 1887; they are built of brick and terra-cotta, redundant
with detailed ornament, some of it perhaps of a too florid character.
Near to our local Palace of Justice is the County Court, which is severe
in its simplicity, quasi-classic in style, and decidedly plain in
design. There are shops that have a certain suggestion and imitation of
old-fashioned quaintness, and there are other buildings that have a
tinge of the Scotch baronial hall style of architecture. Then there is
the coffee-house Gothic, the pie-shop Perpendicular, the commercial
Classic, the fender and fire-grate Transitional, the milk and cream
Decorated, and various hybrid architectural styles.

The buildings in this street have, as I have said, the charm of
diversity, and that, I suppose, is something to the good. Regent Street,
London, is a fine thoroughfare, but it will probably be admitted that
it is anything but unmonotonous in appearance or lovely to look upon
from an architectural point of view. The buildings in our grand new
street may not be beyond criticism, but there are no long lines of
buildings of the same heavy dull pattern from end to end. This arises
from the fact that the land has not been let in big patches to
capitalists or builders who might have erected a series of shops of one
uniform pattern, but has been leased to tradesmen and others who have
taken a few yards of land, on which they have built premises suited to
their requirements, and in accordance with their aim, tastes, or the
bent and ability of their architects. Hence the variety, charming or
otherwise according to the taste and eye of the spectator. Anyway, we
have in Birmingham a fine broad street which will, perhaps, compare
favourably with any thoroughfare in any other British city, with the
exception of Princes Street, Edinburgh. In the way of splendid streets
the Scotch capital must be allowed to take the plum.

XI.

THE FOUR