British Achitects.—New Materials For Their Lives.

Lynn , and , by his skilful use of it in the Quarterly , threw a suspicion over the A'eracity of her printed " Memoirs , " as I ha-A e heard Mr . Croker declare , Avith a sarcastic smile , and Madame D'Arblay complain of with a regretful voice aud an ill-concealed tear . I have mentioned Sir Francis Chantrey in connection with Sir John Soane ; ancl this mention of a

name ( very dear to a Cunningham ) recalls an amusing anecdote of the great sculptor , touching Soane ' s affairs . Chantrey was left one of the architect ' s executors , but threAV up the office partly from ill health , partly from disgust . Soane was scarcely cold in his grave when Sir Francis received the folloAving note in the

beautiful handwriting of Mr . Thomas Hill , of Jamesstreet , Adelphi , dry-salter and bibliopole , the Paul Pry of Poole , and the Hull of Theodore Hook , whose rosy ancl inquisitive face flits before me as I write : —

To Sir Francis Chantrey , E-. A . My dear Sir Francis , —When last I saw dear Sir . John Soane he said , in his usual kind manner , " My dear Mr . Hill , I have a book for you about my . museum , but you must fetch it yourself . Come and taste my claret and take it away . " Can you , as ono of Sir John ' s executors , be the Jmeaus of my obtaining this book ?— -I am , dear Sir

Francis , yours very faithfully , Tuos . HILL . ' To this Chantrey thus replied , drafting his reply on the hack of Hill's letter : — To Thomas Hill , Esq . My dear Sir , —I haA'e resigned tho Soane executorship ,

and therefore cannot get you the book or the claret . "Will you dine ivith me on the 26 th , at - | -past 6 , and taste my claret ?—Yours very truly , F . CUAKTEEY . Tom accepted , and Avas at the sculptor ' s table to a moment , ready for Chantrey's woodcocks ( not the Holkham brace immortal in marble ) and Chantrey ' s

Avines , always the best . My rosy friend , it is right to relate , had- his usual banyan or Duke Humphry preparatoiy meal , one day preceding the Chantrey dinner—his custom always on turtle and turbot

occasions . Of the early life of the Bank of England architect very little is known ; nor Avas Sir John , I have heard , willing to talk of his early clays . That he Avas at Eome in his twenty-fourth year ( 1779 ) , a portrait of him in his museum , painted by Hunneman , in that year and at Eome , is our only evidence . That what lie saAV Avas not lost upon him we have ample proof in his own Avorks and in the large collections he left behind him .

Soane got his first footing Avithin the charmed pale of the Eoyal Academy in November , 1795 . He ivas then in his fortieth year , and West Avas president . Nor was his rise from the loAA-er class so rapid as he could haA'e wished . His signed diploma as an E . A ., or one of " forty , " is dated the 8 th of April , 1802 . Sir William Chambers Avas then dead .

Soane lies buried , not with Wren in St . Paul ' s , or Chambers in Westminster Abbey , but near to Flaxman , in the St . Pancras burying-ground of the parish ( St . Giles ) in which he lived and-died . The handsome cenotaph Avhich covers his remains holds those of his Avifewho died in 1815 and of Johnthe elder of his

, , , two sons , who died in 1823 , at the age of thirty-seven . Creorge , his youngest son , took to literature , and was somewhat harshly , it is thought , disinherited by his father . I have seen , however , a letter written in 182-1 ,

by the late Dr . Croly , the poet , to the son on the subject . The father AA'as AA'illing to forgive and to forget ; Kitchener interposed , and the offer of the father Avas made to the son through Kitchener , and in these terms : " Let my son keep to any decided or regular pursuit for two years , and I will be reconciled

to him . " It is painful to think the terms Avere never carried sut , and that the reconciliation never took place . His looks are preserved to us by the hands of four of his contemporaries skilled iu catching a likeness , and something more . Lawrence has refined upon his

face Avith his customary delicacy ; Owen has massed the features of the man of forty-eight with his usual breadth ; Jackson has painted him Avhen old and parsimonious , age-Avorn and anxious ; Chantrey has caught him in all his moods—he is sagacious , querulous— - thinking of Inigo and Wren , the Three per Cents .,

and the Belzoni Sarcophagus . ' The Chantrey bust bears the f olloAving inscription : — JOHN SOA 2 s E , Esq ., E . A . Presented , as a Token of Respect , by FRANCIS CHANTEEY , Sculptor . 1830 . This was a complimentary return for the exquisite

little gallery which the architect designed for the studio of the illustrious sculptor . Chantrey was not given to compliments of this kind . I can call to mind only one other instance , —the bust of Sir Walter Scott , undertaken at the instigation of my fatherand presented to the great HnknoAvn at the

, instigation of the same person . That Chantrey looked for more than an empty executorshi p from Soane was often hinted at the time , and not wholly without foundation .

And this reminds me ( 0 ! the pleasures of memory ) of another anecdote . When ( 1829—1833 ) Allan Cunningham published his Lives of the Most Eminent JBritish Painters , Sculptors , and Architects , he made three dedications to his six volumes : —The Painters he "inscribed" to his friend , Sir David Wilkie ; the Sculptors he "inscribed" to his friend and master

, Sir Francis Chantrey ; and at the instigation of Chantrey , he Avas , for the sake of uniformity , induced , somewhat unwillingly , to inscribe his volume of Architects to Soane , with whom he had no kind of personal acquaintance . I have seen Soane ' s letter of thanks to the author ;

but the old dedication-fee , Avhich Chantrey laughingly foretold the architect would give , from vanity , was never offered ; and , I need hardly add , never for a moment expected by " honest Allan Cunningham . " The hereafter of Sonne as an architect has not been fortunate . His corridor and other work in the old

Houses of Parliament a famous fire destroyed ; Barry paid no Burlington reverence to his Board of Trade , Whitehall ; still more recently , Mr . Cockerell has altered his Bank of England ; and only the other day his Avell-designed " State Paper Office" was levelled to the ground . Yet his name -will live among

architects for his wonderful skill of giving breadth of effect and beauty Avithin narrow limits , and , rarer still , well-considered and seldom exceeded estimates . The recent compulsory removal , by the costly machinery of an Act of Parliament , of the Hogarths from the Sonne Museum to Fowke ' s Hall Avas an un-Avise proceeding . However desirable it may be to get together as many Hogarths as may be got , the wisdom