18 JULY 1885, Page 23

The Towers and Steeples designed by Sir Christopher Wren. By

Andrew T. Taylor (B. T. Batsford.)—This little volume is a welcome tribute to the genius of the great architect of London. Some careful drawings of the London steeples and towers which he built,—some of them, alas ! now destroyed,—are given, with a judicious and dis- criminating criticism of their architectural merits. Mr. Taylor is not a blind admirer of Wren, hitting the point very well, with regard to his Gothic work, when he says that he had the Gothic feeling, without having the knowledge of detail necessary for carrying it out with purity. But he has a proper respect for a man who, on the whole, stands first of English architects.