length.  The Louvre quadrangle (if I may borrow our old college phrase) is assuredly the most splendid piece of ornamental architecture which Paris contains.  The interior of the edifice itself is as yet in an unfinished condition;[4] but you must not conclude the examination of this glorious pile of building, without going round to visit the eastern exterior front—­looking towards Notre-Dame.  Of all sides of the square, within or without, this colonnade front is doubtless the most perfect of its kind.  It is less rich and crowded with ornament than any side of the interior—­but it assumes one of the most elegant, airy, and perfectly proportionate aspects, of any which I am just now able to recollect.  Perhaps the basement story, upon which this double columned colonnade of the Corinthian Order runs, is somewhat too plain—­a sort of affectation of the rustic.  The alto-relievo figures in the centre of the tympanum have a decisive and appropriate effect.  The advantage both of the Thuileries and Louvre is, that they are well seen from the principal thoroughfares of Paris:  that is to say, along the quays, and from the chief streets running from the more ancient parts on the south side of the Seine.  The evil attending our own principal public edifices is, that they are generally constructed where they cannot be seen to advantage.  Supposing one of the principal entrances or malls of London, both for carriages and foot, to be on the south side of the Thames, what could be more magnificent than the front of Somerset House, rising upon its hundred columns perpendicularly from the sides of a river... three times as broad as the Seine, with the majestic arches of Waterloo Bridge!—­before which, however, the stupendous elevation of St. Paul’s and its correspondent bridge of Black Friars, could not fail to excite the wonder, and extort the praise, of the most anti-anglican stranger.  And to crown the whole, how would the venerable nave and the towers of Westminster Abbey—­with its peculiar bridge of Westminster ... give a finish to such a succession of architectural objects of metropolitan grandeur!  Although in the very heart, of Parisian wonder, I cannot help, you see, carrying my imagination towards our own capital; and suggesting that, if, instead of furnaces, forges, and flickering flames—­and correspondent clouds of dense smoke—­which give to the southern side of the Thames the appearance of its being the abode of legions of blacksmiths, and glass and shot makers—­we introduced a little of the good taste and good sense of our neighbours—­and if ...  But all this is mighty easily said—­though not quite so easily put in practice.  The truth however is, my dear friend, that we should approximate a little towards each other.  Let the Parisians attend somewhat more to our domestic comforts and commercial advantages—­and let the Londoners sacrifice somewhat of their love of warehouses and manufactories—­and then you will have hit the happy medium, which, in the metropolis of a great empire, would unite all the conveniences, with all the magnificence, of situation.