27 MAY 1882, Page 23

Lectures on Architecture, delivered at the Royal Academy. By Edward

M. Barry, R.A. Edited, with Introductory Memoir, by Alfred Barry, D.D. (John Murray.)—Mr. Barry was Professor of Architecture at the Academy from 1874 to 1880, and these twenty- three lectures represent some of the work which he performed in that capacity. The editor has arranged them according to their subjects, making them into two series, which deal respectively with the princi- ples of the art, and with its history and relation to the practical needs of life. Students of the art will find them highly useful, and the general reader will not consider them wanting in interest. The memoir prefixed by Dr. Barry is an interesting but painful record. We cannot enter into the questions it raises, but certainly the impres. sion is left that Mr. Barry suffered wrong at the hands of the Govern- ment. It was an embarrassing situation, doubtless, when the judges found that Mr. Barry's was the finest elevation and Mr. Street's the most suitable plan for the Palace of Justice, and the expedient of a joint em- ployment was dubious ; but that Mr. Barry was entitled to a hand- some compensation, which he did not receive, is manifest. Mr. Barry left not a few works behind him with which his name will always be honourably associated, though he missed or was deprived of the great opportunities of his life. Perhaps the best known and most admired is the restoration of the Charing Cross that stands before the South-Eastern Station in the Strand.—In this connection may be mentioned The Twenty Styles of Architecture, illustrated by plates of the finest edifices in the world, by the editor of " The Hundred Greatest Men," (Sampson Low and Co.)—The volume is copiously and handsomely illustrated.