To rescue our national character from this opprobrium, or ill-timed compliment to royalty, the remodelling of Buckingham-house, or rather the erection of the New Palace in St. James’s Park, was decided on; and how far this design has been accomplished in the palace, we leave it to the taste of our readers to determine.  Various piecemeal, not to say absurd, descriptions have, during the progress of the work, appeared in the London and provincial papers, many of them originating in party feeling; but the structure has now so far advanced to completion as to enable every spectator to estimate its merits and demerits; and we are sorry to add, that much of the censure bestowed on the palace during its progress (though with bad motives) now proves essentially correct.  The name of the designer at present remains a secret.  His majesty is known to possess exquisite taste, and it is scarcely believed that his approbation can have justified some of the incongruities, not to say enormities of the building; be this as it may, the general public feeling is that of disappointment and regret.

The annexed view is of the central entrance front, facing east, towards the Canal and the Horse Guards, taken from the Wall in St. James’s Park.  The first objection is the site, in itself insuperable, as will appear from the following remarks on the subject by Mr. Loudon, editor of the Gardener’s Magazine:—­

“Had the problem,” he says, “been proposed (how) to alter Buckingham House and gardens, so as to render the former as unhealthy a dwelling as possible, it could not have been better solved than by the works now executed.  The belt of trees which forms the margin of these grounds, has long acted as the sides of a basin, or small valley, to retain the vapours which were collected within; and which, when the basin was full, could only flow out by the lower extremity, over the roofs of the stables and other buildings at the palace.  What vapour did not escape in this manner, found its way through between the sterns of the trees which adjoin these buildings, and through the palace windows.  Now, all the leading improvements on the grounds have a direct tendency to increase this evil.  They consist in thickening the marginal belts on both sides of the hollow with evergreens, to shut out London:  in one place substituting for the belt an immense bank of earth, to shut out the stables; and in the area of the grounds forming numerous flower-gardens, and other scenes with dug surfaces, a basin, fountains, and a lake of several acres.  The effect of all this will be a more copious and rapid exhalation of moisture from the water, dug earth, and increased surface of foliage; and a more complete dam to prevent the escape of this moist atmosphere, otherwise than through the windows, or over the top of the palace.  The garden may be considered as a pond brimful of fog, the ornamental water as the perpetual supply of this fog, the palace as a cascade which it flows